Labour Expects ‘Vaccine Bounce’ For Boris Johnson Ahead Of May Elections
Both Labour and Tory strategists expect Boris Johnson to get a “vaccine bounce” in the polls ahead of May’s elections, HuffPost UK can reveal.
With the current NHS programme on course to inoculate the over-70s by mid-February, and all over-50s by the spring, senior figures close to Keir Starmer believe that the success of the project will boost the prime minister in coming weeks.
Senior Conservatives also expect an uplift in Johnson’s popularity due to the success of the vaccine programme, particularly as it looks likely to open the way to a gradual easing of lockdown restrictions in the spring.
But while Tories believe the PM’s personal bounce will take time to filter through to the party’s ratings, Labour is braced for the first impact to be shown in this May’s elections.
As voters prepare to go to the polls in local and mayoral elections in England, as well as elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, the big two main parties are gearing up to manage expectations among activists and the public.
The usual spin battle by parties to play down their chances has taken on even bigger significance as the UK faces its biggest single set of elections on one day for years, thanks to the pandemic postponing many contests from last year and rolling them in with other elections.
Following downbeat projections by internal polling his party, Starmer is preparing for a mixed set of results in the local and mayoral elections in England, as well as elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
Private MRP surveys, conducted for Labour by a leading pollster, currently point to the Tories winning the Tees Valley metro mayoralty by a big margin on the first round of voting.
It also shows that in the West Midlands metro mayoralty, which Labour has seen as one of its key targets, the Tories are two points up on their 2017 victory.
In the West of England mayoral race, another target, Labour’s vote is up but still short of victory. In the new Cambridgeshire and...
