NEW LONDON POLL BLOW FOR TORIES

PARTYGATE ROW HELPS LABOUR REACH 27-POINT LEAD — AND IT’S AS HIGH AS 50 IN CENTRE OF TOWN

- Nicholas Cecil

LABOUR has built up a 27-point lead over the Tories in London ahead of the local elections on May 5, a poll reveals today.

The YouGov survey for the Queen Mary University of London’s Mile End Institute put Labour on 50 per cent, more than twice as high as the Conservatives on 23 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 12 per cent and Greens nine per cent. In Inner London, Labour has a lead of 50 points, the findings suggested.

They also indicated that there could be tactical voting in favour of Labour from people who backed the Liberal Democrats at the 2019 general election.

Dr Patrick Diamond, director of QMUL’s Mile End Institute, said: “Our new research shows that Labour is set to perform significantly better than the Conservatives. Support for the Conservatives across the city has fallen sharply since the local elections in 2018, however, Labour’s vote does not look set to advance beyond its successes that year, when it performed particularly strongly.”

The findings came as Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and Green leaders are rapidly ramping up their parties’ campaigning with just days to go before polling day, with many people already sending back their postal votes.

Key local issues include council tax, bin collections, town hall performances and low traffic neighbourhoods, while nationally the partygate storm has reignited, the cost-of-living crisis is growing and Britain is stepping up its support for Ukraine.

The 27-point lead for Labour was in reply to a question on how Londoners intended to vote in the local elections.