It’s springtime for Rishi

Two years ago when the Tories won the Hartlepool by-election at the local elections, the political mood was summed up by a 30ft inflatable blow-up of the then prime minister Boris Johnson looming over the town. He was photographed in front of it as part of his victory lap. The message was clear: under his leadership, the Tories were insurmountable and no seat was safe for Labour in what used to be the party’s heartlands.

There are no plans for similar photo ops for the local elections next month. In fact, according to one No. 10 staffer, photographers are actively being avoided. No national media were invited to the Tories’ campaign launch. The elections are viewed in Downing Street as an exercise in damage limitation. The Tories are tipped to lose up to 1,000 council seats. Given that the last time many of these were contested was when Theresa May was at the lowest point of her premiership in 2019 and oversaw the worst rout since 1995, it would be a dismal result.

4 May will be Rishi Sunak’s first electoral test. ‘I know the local elections are going to be incredibly tough,’ he has told MPs. ‘We shouldn’t expect the voters to reward that hard work in full just yet… because we still have more to do.’ After a good few weeks for the government, bad election results could stall the Prime Minister’s attempts to rejuvenate his party. ‘It’s the moment the polls will become real to a lot of MPs,’ warns one former cabinet minister.

Labour sees the vote as an opportunity to show that the party is on an unstoppable path to power. Keir Starmer’s campaign director Morgan McSweeney has warned aides and MPs of the need to run a tight and focused operation.