This week both parties have been attempting to manage expectations ahead of the imminent local elections. The Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper has been reiterating the worst-case prediction that the Conservatives could lose up to 1000 seats. But Keir Starmer told Sophy Ridge he thought the Conservatives should be making ‘significant gains’, given their result in the last local elections in 2019 was their second worst ever:
‘Are you embarrassed when you look at that map?’
Mark Harper was questioned by Laura Kuenssberg over his record with the HS2 rail project, which has been plagued by soaring costs and delays. She asked whether the railway would end up being a fraction of what was originally planned, but Harper insisted the government was still committed to connecting Manchester to central London:
Shabana Mahmood – building homes ‘the only way around the problem’
And with rents soaring, Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay told Kuenssberg that a freeze on rents was necessary to deal with the crisis.
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