Labour Lead Widens to 22.3 Points, Bloomberg Poll Composite Finds

(Bloomberg) -- Labour marginally widened its lead over the governing Conservatives as opposition leader Keir Starmer prepares to go head-to-head against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the first leadership debate of the UK general election campaign.

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Labour’s lead widened to 22.3 points on Tuesday from 21.5 points Monday, according to Bloomberg’s polling composite — a rolling 14-day average using data from 11 UK polling companies.

Sunak is reeling from a double blow on Monday. First, the populist right-wing politician Nigel Farage took charge of the Reform UK party and said he would stand in the July 4 election — a reversal of his previous stance. Less than an hour later, YouGov released modeling that suggests Labour is on course for a landslide win, with the Tories set to sink to their worst defeat in more than a century.

The prime minister — who has spent the campaign rolling out policies designed to shore up right-wing support for the Conservatives — will face Starmer on Tuesday at 9 pm in a televised debate on ITV. The opposition leader, for his part, has sought to appeal to centrist voters by annexing policy territory more typically occupied by the Tories — including by stressing his security credentials and economic prudence.

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