Boris Johnson ‘to go on summer holiday’ rather than campaign for Tories

Labour has spent over £2.4 million on social media ads since the general election campaign began, more than twice as much as the Tories.

Analysis by campaign spending non-profit Who Targets Me has found political parties spent more than £3.49 million on social media advertising since Rishi Sunak called the election on 22 May.

Around 70 per cent of that has been commissioned by Labour Party groups and candidates, including Sir Keir Starmer, Welsh Labour, and Rachel Reeves.

The UK will take to the polls on July 4 after prime minister Rishi Sunak called a snap general election at the end of May.

Speaking outside of Downing Street, the prime minister announced that King Charles had granted his request to dissolve Parliament and promised to “fight for every vote” in the run up to polling day.

The following weeks have seen fervent campaigning from all parties, as they vie for votes up and down the country. The Labour and Conservative ‘battlebuses’ are travelling far and wide to visit as many areas as possible, attempting to woo voters, and avoid gaffes along the way.

Nigel Farage has parked his tank firmly on Rishi Sunak’s lawn with a manifesto designed to win over disgruntled Tory supporters and an extraordinary prediction he will be prime minister after the 2029 election.

Launching Reform UK’s so-called “contract with the people”, the arch-Brexiteer appealed directly to right-wing voters with policies including a freeze on non-essential immigration, scrapping net zero targets and pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

His controversial pledges came as one prospective candidate was forced to stand down over historical comments urging people to vote BNP, while another described Adolf Hitler as “brilliant”.

Britain will head to the polls on July 4 after prime minister Rishi Sunak called a snap general election at the end of May.

June has seen intense vote-garnering efforts from all political parties as leaders chat, debate, and even paddle across the country to win over as many as possible. All parties have now revealed their election manifestos, laying out their vision for the country.

Current polling would suggest things are not looking good for the Conservatives, with most trackers firmly putting Labour an average 20 points ahead of the governing party.

More than half of all voters believe that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn should be allowed back into the party if he is re-elected as an MP in his constituency of Islington North.

Exclusive polling for The Independent by Techne shows that while 56 per cent of all voters say he should be readmitted, the number is much higher among Labour voters, with eight in 10 saying that Mr Corbyn should be allowed to rejoin the Labour Party.

Mr Corbyn was banished from the Labour Party in May this year, after announcing he would stand as an independent candidate for the general election on 4 July.

Jeremy Hunt‘s re-election campaign is being bankrolled in part by a hedge fund manager who hosted a champagne reception on the day of Liz Truss‘s disastrous mini-budget.

Andrew Law, a financier worth £750 million, also helped to fund Ms Truss’s leadership campaign, before she lasted just 49 days as prime minister.

And he is reported to have likely profited as “Trussonomics“ crashed the value of the pound.

Nigel Farage is set to win in his constituency of Clacton, Essex, according to fresh predictions from pollster Ipsos.

The projections show Mr Farage at 52 per cent, far ahead of the next candidate, Labour’s Jovan Owusu-Nepaul at 24 per cent.

The model is the first research of its kind to be carried out entirely after Mr Farage announced that he would return to Reform UK as party leader, and run for candidate. Tory defector Lee Anderson is also estimated to hold his seat in Ashfield.

The model also projects that Jeremy Corbyn may lose his seat in Islington North after 41 years of being an MP. Labour is estimated at 54 per cent of the vote in the constituency, with candidate Praful Nargund, while Mr Corbyn may be at just 13 per cent.

Labour is on course to win more than 450 seats and the biggest majority of any post-war government, according to a poll of almost 20,000 people.

The poll by Ipsos, published on Tuesday, estimated Labour would win 43% of the vote and secure 453 seats, giving it a majority of 256 and reducing the Conservatives to just 115 seats.

That would be the Tories’ worst result ever, exceeding the previous record of 156 seats in 1906, and mean senior figures such as Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Gillian Keegan, Johnny Mercer and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg losing their seats.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt faces a close battle in his Surrey constituency of Godalming and Ash, while the poll has cabinet ministers James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch clinging on.

That result could be even worse for the Conservatives, with Ipsos estimating a lower range of just 99 seats for the party that won a commanding 80-seat majority five years ago.