Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to put the NHS crisis and lack of school funding at the heart of Labour’s local election campaign, and blamed the party’s poor polling on the media for failing to give those issues due prominence.
The Labour leader launched the campaign in Newark, Nottinghamshire, against a backdrop of low support in the polls and warnings that his party could lose dozens of seats on 4 May.
His supporters booed when Corbyn was asked whether the local elections would be the ultimate and perhaps final test for his leadership.
“These elections are a chance for us to take our case out to the country about how we want to make a fairer Britain, an investment-led Britain, a Britain that isn’t in health crisis, schools that are not underfunded where they have to collect from the parents, that we don’t have to go around the whole country seeing Sure Start centres closed, libraries closed, all these things,” the Labour leader said.
“We will take the case out there for what Labour councils can do and do their best in a period of austerity but show that a Labour government will invest in the needs of people not in tax giveaways.”
He added: “Our party is very strong and very active on all of the doorsteps.”
During his speech, Corbyn highlighted figures suggesting life expectancy in Britain for pensioners is falling.
When asked why opinion polls show support for the Conservatives is so much higher than for Labour when the NHS is struggling and life expectancy falling for some groups, Corbyn said: “Too often our media do not deal with the issues people face day to day. There are more than a million people waiting for social care in this country and there are many people stuck in hospital who frankly shouldn’t be in hospital but can’t leave … and so I’m not expecting or wanting an easy ride from the media, I don’t care about that.
“But what I do care about is an obsession by so many to ignore the reality of homelessness, of social care … It simply doesn’t have to be the case in modern Britain. So these elections give us an opportunity and I hope all newspapers and radio and TV will at least get involved in the serious debate about health, social care, schools, housing because at the end of the day if people grow up in poverty they tend to underachieve at school and if they underachieve at school, they tend to lead less fulfilling lives. If they lead less fulfilling lives, we all lose.”
The local government elections – including many county council seats – will take place across England, Scotland and Wales, alongside a number of mayoral elections in areas such as Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
Prof John Curtice, the leading election expert, has warned there could be a 12-point swing from Labour to the Conservatives in May’s contests, with Corbyn’s party at risk of losing control of councils in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
The latest Guardian/ICM poll put Labour at 25%, their lowest support in these polls since the 2015 general election and joint equal to their lowest performance going back to 1983.
Corbyn pins Labour"s local election hopes on NHS and schools
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