Latest updates: poll ahead of crucial byelection follows attempts by Labour to attack Tories over lobbying and cronyism
- Concern as just a third of candidates in English local elections are women
- Keir Starmer vows to clean up British politics after Tory sleaze rows
- Coronavirus – latest global updates
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Good morning. There are now less than 48 hours to go until polling opens for “Super Thursday”, a bumper day of elections that will see every adult in Britain getting to vote for either the Scottish parliament, the Welsh Senedd, city or metro mayors, councils (the local elections combine this year’s and last year’s, which were cancelled because of coronavirus), the London assembly, police and crime commissioners – or a new MP in Hartlepool.
Political parties will perform better in some of these elections than in others, but attention is likely to focus overall on Scotland, and on whether Labour is making any sort of comeback under Sir Keir Starmer, and in relation to the second question, the result in Hartlepool will be crucial. It will also be the only major result available on Friday morning (most of the counting is on Friday and Saturday), which means it will frame the narrative going into the weekend.
New Hartlepool phone poll:
J Mortimer, Con 50% (+1)
P Williams, Lab 33% (-9)
T Walker, Ind 6% (+4)
S Lee, Ind 6% (+6)
R Featherstone, Grn 3% (+2)
A Hagon, LD 1% (-)
J Prescott, RFM 1% (-)
517, phone for @GMB, aged 18+ living in H’pool, 23-29 Apr. Changes w/ 29 Mar-3 Apr pic.twitter.com/HqggSbd53t
Well, I hope we won’t lose Hartlepool, we’re fighting for every vote there and I know that every vote has to be earned and that’s why I’ve been in Hartlepool three times in the campaign and we’ve got teams on the ground.
My job as Labour leader was to rebuild the Labour party out of that devastating loss in 2019 and put us in a position to win the next general election.
Related: Coronavirus live news: India passes 20m cases, US average daily infections fall below 50,000
