London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

UK party leaders woo voters on last day of campaigning for 2022 local elections, 26 corruption scandals making it difficult to Johnson’s party

UK party leaders woo voters on last day of campaigning for 2022 local elections, 26 corruption scandals making it difficult to Johnson’s party

The leaders are due to visit key electoral battlegrounds before voters go to the polls on Thursday.
Party leaders are making their pitch to voters on the last day of campaigning ahead of local elections across the UK.

The leaders are due to visit key electoral battlegrounds before voters go to the polls on Thursday.

Voters will elect councils, which run services in England, Wales and Scotland, and the government in Northern Ireland.

The elections will test support for parties locally and may indicate the mood on national issues.

The elections will give party leaders their first opportunity to woo voters since the war in Ukraine began, and the row over parties held in Downing Street during lockdown, and increases to the cost of living.

The rising cost of living has been a prominent topic of debate, with inflation at a 30-year high of 7%, driven upwards by surging food and energy prices.

Writing in the Express newspaper, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he recognized people were "feeling the pinch as the cost of living rises".

He said his government was "focused on growing the economy to address the cost of living" and had already given help to households, including a council tax rebate of £150.

When asked if someone using a food bank was merely "feeling the pinch", Environment Minister George Eustice told the BBC: "They are, yes.

"We do recognize that and that's why we've put in place the package of measures that we have. We've got to take a proportionate approach to try to help people through that difficult time. We can't go too far, we can't mitigate all of the impacts."

In an earlier interview with Sky News, Eustice suggested shoppers could choose value brands to help cope with rising food prices.

Eustice said: "Generally speaking, what people find is by going for some of the value brands rather than own-branded products — they can actually contain and manage their household budget."

In an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain, Labour leader Keir Starmer said the government had not done enough to alleviate the pressure on budgets.

He said April's rise in National Insurance was "the wrong tax at the wrong time" and said Labour would have imposed a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies to ease living costs.

Speaking ahead of a visit to Wakefield, Sir Keir accused the Conservatives of "doing nothing" to help with rising energy and food costs.

He said: "The Conservatives...have made it worse by imposing 15 Tory tax rises — including this month's national insurance rise on business and working people.

"Labour's plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis puts money back in your pocket. Our call for an emergency budget would mean action now."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said he would target voters in the "squeezed middle" when he visited areas where the Conservatives have traditionally done well, in parts of London and southeast England.

Sir Ed said the elections are a "chance to send a shockwave from communities around the country to the heart of the Conservative Party".

"Boris Johnson is not fit to lead the country and he needs to go. At this time of national crisis, we can't afford to have a law-breaking prime minister and a tax-hiking chancellor," he said.

In a column for the Evening Standard, Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said the main parties were "chronically failing to deal with the problems we face".

She said her party had a "better plan", which included investing £25bn per year in insulating homes to reduce energy costs and restoring a £20 uplift to Universal Credit benefits payments.

SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said backing her party on Thursday would "put Boris Johnson under real pressure to act now and help families out".

She said the Conservatives have "run out of excuses for their negligent inaction on their self-made cost-of-living crisis that is hammering families across Scotland".

"The only thing that will make the Tories sit up and take notice is when they think their own jobs are on the line — and that's why this election is so important," she said.

In Wales, where all 22 councils are up for election on Thursday, Plaid Cymru promised to tackle and housing crisis and offer free childcare for two-year-olds, among other campaign pledges.

"On Thursday, a vote for a local voice committed to making a difference," Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price tweeted.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×