Foreign
BRITISH Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has insisted that predictions of a Conservative defeat are not going to stop him after the likelihood of his return to Downing Street.
He said this was put at less than “lightning striking twice in the same place” by a polling expert.
He was asked during a “BBC Breakfast’’ interview whether he accepted the analysis by-elections guru Professor John Curtice, the prime minister said: “That’s his view.
“That’s not going to stop me from working as hard as I can over these final few days to talk to as many people as possible about the choice.”
“And I was up at 4 this morning talking to workers at a distribution facility.
“I’m here talking to you. I’ll be out till the last moment of this campaign because I think it’s a really important choice for the country.”
Sunak kicked off a final push for votes on the last two days of the campaign with an early morning visit to an Ocado packing plant in Bedfordshire.
Then he stopped at a Morrisons near Witney the former oxfordshire seat of Foreign Secretary, David Cameron where the conservatives won with a 15,200 majority in 2019.
In a last-ditch attempt to rally conservative voters, the Tory leader claimed in a speech on Tuesday that just 130,000 voters could prevent a Labour “supermajority.”
He denied that his switch from talking about his policy plans to warnings about a landslide for Keir Starmer and his Labour Party was the language of defeat.
“No, I’m very much still talking to people about our plan,” he said.
Sunak also defended the conservative campaign, in spite of it having failed to narrow the opinion poll gap with Labour.
It was asked if he had got the campaign wrong after it was hit by debacles including his early D-day departure and the gambling row, the prime minister said
“No, actually everywhere I’ve been going, people are waking up to the dangers of what a labour government would mean for them, particularly when it comes to taxes.”
He said under the conservatives, things were undeniably better than they were a few years ago.
“When it comes to the things that we want to do, people can see that we have turned a corner,” he said.
Meanwhile, Starmer said a big Labour majority would be better for the country.
The Labour leader hammered home his get-out-the-vote message on a whistlestop campaign tour to Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire on Tuesday.
In an interview with The Times, he said he needed a strong mandate to reform the planning system and improve the economy.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is continuing his action-packed campaign tour to the South-West of England where he will call on voters to end the sewage scandal. (dpa/NAN)
2nd JULY, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
