10 December 2019 - British General Elections 2019
Live Latest on campaigning as election day nears
(BBC News, 10/12/2019)
It's the penultimate day of campaigning, ahead of Thursday's general election. Labour focus on the NHS, following criticism of Boris Johnson over his response to an image of a sick child. A Conservative minister insists Mr Johnson did "apologise and empathise", but Labour say the picture shows the impact of Tory "under-funding". Jeremy Corbyn rejects criticism of his own leadership, telling the BBC "it's not a presidential election".
General election 2019: Boris Johnson's bad day shows election not over
Laura Kuenssberg (BBC News, 09/12/2019)
Talking to voters around the country two big issues have had the elusive "cut through" in this campaign - the Tories promise to take us out of the EU at the end of next month and Labour's attack on their handling of the NHS.
Of course, other subjects have been part of the conversation but those are the issues that have come up most often during the last few weeks when we've been travelling around the country.
And in every election in recent history, the Labour Party has tried to sow doubts in voters' minds about whether or not the Tories can be trusted with the health service at all.
Labour's Brexit plans are politically impossible
Jason S. Reed (The Independent, 09/12/2019)
If Corbyn won’t support his own Brexit deal, who will?
Unlike the Conservative Party leadership contest earlier this year, this election presents two very different options – particularly when it comes to Brexit. The Conservatives, tapping into widespread frustration that we are still stuck in the mud three and a half years later, are promising to “get Brexit done” with their “oven-ready deal”.
Labour’s plan is more convoluted. The party has promised to conjure a new-and-improved withdrawal agreement in just three months, before holding a confirmatory referendum on it three months later. Yet even if anything close to that timetable were logistically possible, it is hard to see how it could be politically possible.
Whoever wins this week, the Tories should worry about their future
John Harris (The Guardian, 09/12/2019)
Where are the Tories? Boris Johnson appears on TV from time to time, and his party machine is said to be in the midst of a social media blitz. But wherever I have been over the past month, the supposed likely winners in this election have been all but invisible. I have encountered Labour, Liberal Democrat and Brexit party activists, but no teams of Conservatives. The party and its leader come up in conversation, and plenty of people say the Tories will get their vote, but there is a strange, almost ghostly aspect to the story: amid the noise, there is a party trying to creep back into power while making as little impression as possible.
Think about the reality of Tory politics out in the country, and this sense of absence adds up. By contrast with Labour’s 450,000-plus members, the Conservatives are reckoned to have around 160,000. How many of them are active is unclear, but four out of 10 are aged over 65, and 70% are men. After a decade of cuts, many of their councillors seem to be in a state of despondency and disaffection, complaining that their colleagues in national positions of power will not listen.