Industrial massacre has been going on for years

I HAVE spent the past two weeks travelling right across the country in anticipation of the local and mayoral elections on May 1.

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The reception Reform UK is getting across the so-called Red Wall - in places such as Durham, Doncaster and Ashfield - has been astonishing.

Last week Reform UK stormed to victory in the Longdendale council by-election, Labour’s safest ward in Greater Manchester and deep in their heartlands.

Just a few days earlier, I visited the steelworks in Scunthorpe with my deputy leader Richard and Dame Andrea Jenkyns. We saw the blast furnaces and then went for a pint down at the nearby Wetherspoons to a great reception from local steelworkers.

Labour is in a panic over the rise of Reform UK, so it is no coincidence that the House of Commons was recalled for an emergency sitting to discuss the future of British Steel yesterday.

If the government wanted to keep the blast furnaces going in Scunthorpe they could have done so at any point over the past few months.