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| Thursday April 22 2021 |
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By Patrick Maguire
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Good morning,
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We received a couple of complaints about the close attention paid to the troubled birth, short life and painful death of the European Super League in recent editions of Red Box. So here's an email full of polling. Be careful what you wish for.
Though the alternative was five different pictures of Johnny Mercer talking about his resignation. Or his sacking. Whichever it was. Sorry, who's Johnny Mercer again?
Trivia question: The Labour peer Lord McFall was elected speaker of the upper house yesterday. Which Commons select committee did he chair for nine years as John McFall between 2001 and 2010? Answer at the bottom of today's email
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The briefing
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- Anyone got a number for Boris Johnson? Some of you probably do, actually: the prime minister rejected the cabinet secretary’s advice to change his phone number amid concerns about him being contacted by people who could potentially influence policy decisions, The Times has learnt.
- This morning Kwasi Kwarteng tells Sky News: “I think that in a modern democracy it’s very good that people actually can have direct access to ministers and people who are taking responsibility.” Not sure this is quite the line to aim for on businessmen texting the PM.
- Exclusive polling for The Times in Scotland has found that the SNP remains on course for a majority – but its support is slipping and backing for independence has fallen.
- Meanwhile exclusive polling for Red Box suggests that the Tories are on course to win one of Labour's key local election targets, the West Midlands mayoralty.
- In the House: Defra questions kicks off the Commons day at 9.30am, followed by business questions to Jacob Rees-Mogg and a statement on war graves from the defence secretary Ben Wallace. In the Lords: questions to ministers on aid cuts, e-scooters lobbying legislation and Alexei Navalny.
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Five things you need to know this morning
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1. Labour lag behind in key race
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Andy Street, the mild-mannered former managing director of John Lewis, was never supposed to win the West Midlands mayoralty for the Tories in May 2017. And he very nearly didn't – pipping Siôn Simon, the former Labour minister, by barely 4,000 votes.
Four years on, the stakes could not be higher. Liam Byrne, once chief secretary to the Treasury, is running for Labour in a race that once looked eminently winnable for Sir Keir Starmer's opposition.
On Sunday, Byrne – or, to give him his official title, the shadow mayor for the West Midlands – confirmed to Sky News that he expected to win "easily", a bullish claim that raised the eyebrows of some colleagues who did not share his optimism.
And, with a fortnight to go before one of Labour's biggest local election tests, the second poll of the campaign suggests it may have been made in hope rather than expectation.
Polling by Redfield and Wilton, shared exclusively with Red Box, gives Street a nine-point lead in first preference votes over Byrne – and puts him close to victory in the first round.
The Tory incumbent was level-pegging with Labour in the first round of 2017's contest but is now the first choice of 46 per cent of voters in Birmingham and its surrounding boroughs, compared to 37 per cent for Byrne.
That first-round lead could well be unassailable, particularly given that only 18 per cent of voters say they will give Byrne their second preference – more than Street on 14 per cent, but still far from enough to be confident of a comeback in the runoff.
You might ask why these numbers should matter to anyone outside the West Midlands, or to the Labour leadership. Red Box hears from some in the region that they have expected this sort of result for some time.
The answer: the mayoral vote is the first test of public opinion in six seats that Jeremy Corbyn lost to the Tories in 2019 – Birmingham Northfield, West Bromwich East, West Bromwich West, Dudley North, Wolverhampton North East, and Wolverhampton South West.
Like the Tees Valley, you might call this a red wall mayoralty. Or, if this poll is correct, a Tory one.
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2. Not feeling the Byrne
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What's behind Street's lead? Ask Labour figures in the West Midlands and they'll tell you, sotto voce, that it's all down to their own lacklustre campaign, a divisive candidate and strong Conservative support in the very towns their party leadership hoped wouldn't make a habit of it.
Much of the briefing is vicious. One campaign source told The Times last weekend: “Liam is under the illusion he’s going to win. He isn’t. The Black Country is going backwards. People are fed up of his constant attacks on Andy Street, when Street has actually had a proper job and career."
Good news for Byrne: his voters don't share the vitriol. Of those who know him, 41 per cent have a favourable view of the Labour candidate, compared with a modest 15 per cent who view him unfavourably.
Bad news for Byrne: a majority (51 per cent) of the electorate express a favourable view of Street at the end of his first term. And more voters expressed no view on Byrne at all than said they viewed him favourably.
No wonder: overall, 48 per cent of voters have heard of Street, while only 34 per cent have heard of Byrne.
Going out with neither a bang nor whimper, but a shrug?
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3. Quality Street
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Also tricky for Labour: the fact that voters are happier than not with Street's performance on just about every one of his areas of responsibility.
Asked which issues were most likely to determine how, or whether, they would vote on May 6, the most popular answers were health (50 per cent), policing (42 per cent), the environment (37 per cent), economic growth (33 per cent) and education (33 per cent).
When it comes to which party voters in the region trust to tackle some of those issues, Labour leads on housing and the environment, as well as tackling coronavirus, supporting the NHS and supporting public transport, while the Tories are ahead on strengthening the economy and managing the public finances.
But despite those largely predictable splits along party lines, any mayoral election is to a large extent about individual candidates – or, to be even more reductive, how people feel about the incumbent.
Broadly satisfied with a dash of indifference seems to be the answer. On no policy area are voters more dissatisfied than satisfied with Street – and while nearly half (46 per cent) have no idea whether he has fulfilled his original campaign promises from 2017, whatever they were, Red Box imagines he'll take that.
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4. All politics isn't local
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Of course, as in all local elections, both candidates are making pledges over which they strictly speaking have little or no power: whoever wins will really have power only over homes, land, transport and, er, asking central government for more money.
And, as in all local elections, the politics of the election aren't wholly local.
For all that some in Labour will rush to pin any defeat on Byrne – and despite Street's more than occasional squeamishness about advertising the fact that he's a member of the Conservative Party – an overwhelming majority of voters say they will take national issues into account.
Given the national polling picture, that should be straightforwardly good news for Street.
Is there any silver lining for Labour? It depends how you read the projected turnout – some 39 per cent say they are certain to vote, up from the 29 per cent who voted last time.
There are, of course, obvious reasons for telling a pollster you'll do your civic duty when you have no real intention of doing so. But if turnout does increase, Byrne is betting the house on it doing so in Labour strongholds in Birmingham.
For what it's worth, not many campaigners are wholly confident that'll be the case.
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5. I'm afraid there is no money
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And now for the really important stuff. As David Cameron might tell you, Byrne has long been defined by the ill-judged joke he cracked on his last day in the Treasury in 2010: that infamous note declaring: "I'm afraid there is no money."
Privately, shadow cabinet ministers moan that voters still bring it up in focus groups – something Byrne denied in conversation with The Times last week. "We have done a lot of polling on this one," he said of the letter he will regret for ever, "and what we found is no one has heard of it."
Hmm. Not quite. While it's true that a majority of voters (60 per cent) don't remember hearing about the note, 40 per cent do.
And, asked how they interpreted the gag, 44 per cent said they believed it ought to be taken seriously (even if half of them accepted it was a joke), compared to 26 per cent who believed it should not, and 31 per cent who did not know.
I'm afraid there is some memory. Kind regards – and good luck!
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The cartoon
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Today's cartoon in The Times is by Peter Brookes
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Worth your time
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- Another day, another excellent inside read on the Super League debacle: Matt Lawton, Martin Ziegler and Ben Ellery chart the course of the project from the big six's boardrooms to spectacular failure.
- David Aaronovitch questions whether the verdict in the George Floyd murder trial was really a moment of catharsis, arguing that it won't mend a society where police are trained to kill and African Americans are taught to fear them.
- Iain Martin offers a critical assessment of the PM's ambitious climate targets: "I'm for conservation, cleaner air and a reduction in pollution. But not for a state-run, centralised mission involving trillions of pounds that brooks no dissent."
- Lee Cain – yes, that Lee Cain – is worth reading in The Spectator on Westminster's class ceiling, as much as it pains this Southport author to plug someone from Ormskirk.
- A touching interview in The Daily Telegraph with David Owen, who says he wishes he had done more to combat Shirley Williams's innate self-doubt.
- On Times Radio with Matt Chorley from 10am: Lord Ricketts on foreign aid cuts (10.15am); Knight at the Marriott (India Knight and James Marriott) pick over the news (10.30am); Chef Tom Kerridge (10.50am); The Big Thing: 10 years of the Happiness Index (11am); coffee break with Kait Borsay (11.35am); Fact check the week (11.50am); Midday Update - your indispensable half hour bulletin; Mitch Benn's song (12.40pm); Quiz: Can You Get To Number 10? (12.50pm).
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Given a choice between the European Super League, Johnny Mercer and No 10's daily press conferences in yesterday's poll, 30 per cent of you said you'd miss Mercer most. Well, that tells us how many Tory MPs are reading Red Box.
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Today's trivia answer
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Trivia question: The Labour peer Lord McFall was elected speaker of the upper house yesterday. Which Commons select committee did he chair for nine years between 2001 and 2010?
Answer: The Treasury committee, in which capacity he led the inquiry into the 2008 financial crash.
Send your trivia to redbox@thetimes.co.uk
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