It's grim in North Yorkshire for PM

IT was the moment Tory campaigners will have been dreading - the 'crossover' where the party was overtaken (at least in one major opinion poll) by Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK.

- ROB PARSONS

A YouGov survey commissioned by the Times newspaper on Thursday night had Reform at 19% and the Conservatives on 18% in voting intention, another crushing blow to Rishi Sunak's already vanishingly small chances of returning to Downing Street after July 4's election.

But with the national picture looking grim, things aren't much rosier in the Prime Minister's North Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, where polls suggest his huge majority from 2019 (the third largest of any Tory MP in the North) will be slashed next month.

And when The Northern Agenda took to the streets of Richmond for an (admittedly very unscientific) vox pop, I struggled to find anyone who'd publicly say they were backing Mr Sunak in what is supposed to be a safe Tory seat.