UK’s Sunak battles to the end as Labor eyes victory
LONDON — Rishi Sunak has covered thousands of miles in the past few weeks, but he hasn’t outrun the expectation that his time as the United Kingdom’s prime minister IS IN ITS kNAL HOURS
British voters will cast ballots in a national election on Thursday, passing judgment on Sunak’s 20 MONTHS IN OFkCE AND ON THE FOUR Conservative prime ministers before him. They are widely expected to do something they have not done since 2005: elect a Labour Party government.
During a hectic final two days of campaigning that saw him visit a food distribution warehouse, a supermarket, a farm and more, Sunak insisted that “the outcome of this election IS NOT A FOREGONE CONCLUSION u
“People can see that we have TURNED A CORNER u SAID THE #ONservative leader, who has been IN OFkCE SINCE /CTOBER g)T HAS BEEN A DIFkCULT FEW YEARS BUT undeniably things are in a better PLACE NOW THAN THEY WERE u
But even a last-minute pep talk at a Conservative rally on Tuesday night by former prime minister Boris Johnson — who led the party to a thumping election victory in 2019 — did little to lift the party’s mood. Conservative Cabinet minister Mel Stride said on Wednesday it looked like Labour was heading FOR AN gEXTRAORDINARY LANDSLIDE u
Labour warned against taking the election result for granted, imploring supporters not to grow complacent about polls that have given the party a solid double-digit lead since before the campaign began.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has spent the six-week campaign urging voters to take a chance on his center-left party and vote for change. Most people, including analysts and politicians, expect they will.
Labour has not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make the UK a “clean
ENERGY SUPERPOWER u
But nothing has really gone wrong, either. The party has won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times.
Former Labour candidate Douglas Beattie, author of the book “How Labour Wins (and Why IT ,OSES u SAID 3TARMER S gQUIET stability probably chimes with the MOOD OF THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW u
“The country is looking for fresh ideas, moving away from a government that’s exhausted and DIVIDED u "EATTIE SAID g3O ,ABOUR ARE PUSHING AT AN OPEN DOOR u
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have been plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. on May 22. Then on June 6, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, missing a ceremony alongside United States President Joe Biden and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated by the gambling regulator over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
It has all made it harder for Sunak to shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that’s gathered around the Conservatives since Johnson and his staff held lockdownbreaching parties during the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the Covid-weakened economy with a package of drastic tax cuts, making a cost-of-living crisis worse, and lasted just 49 days in OFkCE 4HERE IS WIDESPREAD DISSATisfaction over a host of issues, from a dysfunctional public health care system to crumbling infrastructure.
But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to Conservatives, but to politicians in general. Veteran rouser of the right, Nigel Farage, has leaped into that breach with his Reform UK party and grabbed headlines, and voters’ attention, with his anti-immigration rhetoric.