Labour will launch its local elections battle with the slogan “On your side”, urging voters to send the Conservatives a message about the pain of the cost of living crisis and No 10 lockdown breaches.
Keir Starmer will launch the party’s campaign in Bury, a symbolic location where one local MP, Christian Wakeford, defected from the Tories to Labour over Boris Johnson’s behaviour during the Partygate investigation.
Though the launch will focus entirely on the high prices of bills and the tax burden, Labour sources said the slogan was also intended to evoke the feeling of “one rule for them” that the public had expressed during the exposés of lockdown breaches.
The party will launch its campaign with new analysis claiming families will be £2,620 worse off, even despite the additional measures in Rishi Sunak’s spring statement to cut fuel duty and raise the threshold for paying national insurance.
Starmer will point to the rise in energy bills as well as the national insurance rise, and say Labour would cut people’s energy bills by up to £600 – funded by a windfall levy on the excess profits of the oil and gas companies.
Other campaigns will be launched in Worthing, a south coast town represented by two Conservative MPs where Labour hope to take the council, and Derby, a Midlands bellwether where Conservatives control the council.
“In exactly five weeks, you get the chance to send the Tories a message they cannot ignore. A message that Britain deserves better than the pathetic response we got to the Conservative cost of living crisis in the mini-budget,” Starmer will say.
“You know the reality – prices are going through the roof, and wages are going through the floor. A Conservative government that takes far more than it gives to working people. The biggest drop in living standards since the 50s. Taxes the highest in 70 years.
“Even allowing for everything the chancellor announced, families are £2,620 worse off. Britain deserves better than this.”
Starmer will say that British people do “not have a government on the side of businesses, working families and pensioners.”.
Labour will pledge to reform employment law to outlaw behaviour that led to the sackings of 800 P&O workers, as well as promising tougher action on crime with police hubs in every neighbourhood.
The party is facing a tough test in the elections with pressure to capitalise on the Tories’ Partygate difficulties. Labour’s poll lead has dropped from an average of eight to four points.
The Conservatives are also quietly hopeful of some new victories, including in the totemic Sunderland council, which would be a blow to Labour’s chances of recovering in the red wall.
