A Tory minister squirmed as he was asked if it’s right for the third most popular party to be ‘squatting’ in Downing Street.
In a huge humiliation for Rishi Sunak, the Liberal Democrats now have more councillors than the Conservatives after a local election wipeout. Facing the media on a difficult day for the party, Mark Harper was challenged over the PM’s refusal to call a general election.
The Tories shed a massive 473 seats as voters gave their verdict – bringing the total number of councillors in England to 513. Labour won an additional 185, which left them with 1,140 overall. And the Lib Dems enjoyed a good day, picking up an additional 104 seats, bringing them to 521.
The results pile pressure on the PM to finally call a general election as soon as possible. Transport Secretary Mr Harper was asked by Sir Trevor Phillips: “I know that these are local elections, so you can’t translate completely, but is it morally right that the what is now the third most popular party is squatting in Downing Street?”
He responded: “No, I don’t accept that analysis at all.” Sir Trevor persisted, telling him: “Look, in this election, the Liberal Democrats beat you.”
Mr Harper retorted: “No, no, they didn’t. If you look at the national equivalent vote share across the country, that’s not correct. It just happens that whatever councils were up for election. The local elections are always difficult for a governing party.” He also pointed out that many of the seats were last contested in 2021, when the Tories were enjoying a ‘vaccine bounce’.
Sir Trevor then quizzed Mr Harper on the PM’s refusal to call a general election. He asked: “Is it really not time to put everybody out of their misery and call the general election? I mean, you’re stringing it out. Great work for people like me, but the country is out there saying ‘isn’t it time that we settled this’?”
Mr Harper responded: “What the Prime Minister said right from the beginning of this year, that his working assumption was the election will be in the second half of this year. That remains the case.”
“t’s for this reason, As I said, he’s focused on the British people’s priorities. This is about delivering low inflation, stopping the boats, focusing on getting NHS waiting lists down. So we’ve made a lot of progress. So I absolutely see that there’s more to do and he wants to continue delivering on these.”