{"id":28796,"date":"2026-05-05T08:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T08:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28796\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T08:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T08:03:11","slug":"kevin-maguire-chicken-farage-under-pressure-as-labour-in-death-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28796\/","title":{"rendered":"KEVIN MAGUIRE: ‘Chicken Farage under pressure as Labour in death roll’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starmer and Labour are in a death roll, facing historic defeats in London, North East England and Wales\"Starmer<\/p>\n

Starmer and Labour are facing historic defeats in this week’s local elections(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Nigel Farage chickening out of an agreed BBC interview, dodging questions about \u201csecretly\u201d \u00adaccepting \u00a35million from a \u00adThai-based funny money crypto tycoon, illustrate why Thursday\u2019s electoral races aren\u2019t only about Keir Starmer\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Stakes are high too for a Reform UK slippery leader visibly losing his lustre, Farage failing to sit on Laura Kuenssberg\u2019s Sunday set<\/a> a sure sign he\u2019s worried working class voters might finally see this City slicker is a political charlatan.<\/p>\n

The Hard Right party is still tipped to be this week\u2019s big winner in England but there\u2019s no hiding that \u00adenthusiasm is waning and Reform is slipping in the polls with the latest putting them down to 25%.<\/p>\n

Zack Polanski<\/a>, adopting Farage\u2019s populist strategy from an opposite personal and political perspective, must be jumpy the recent intensive barrage of attacks on him and the Greens will suppress gains.<\/p>\n

Ed Davey requires trophies to match his embarrassing dad stunts or Liberal Democrat murmurs in Westminster about replacing him with noisier deputy Daisy Cooper or one of an impressive 2024 generation will be loud enough to be heard in public.<\/p>\n

And for Plaid Cymru\u2019s Rhun ap Iorwerth in Wales and the SNP\u2019s John Swinney in Scotland, it\u2019s First Minister or bust, though neither leads a party expected to secure majorities, \u00adtriggering messy coalition or support negotiations.<\/p>\n

Admittedly the pressure on Farage, Polanski, Davey, ap Iorwerth and Swinney are backhanded compliments compared with the awaiting verdicts for Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives and Starmer and Labour. She faces losing hundreds of Tory seats despite spin around how well Badenoch is supposedly doing as leader while Starmer and Labour are in a death roll, facing historic defeats in London, North East England and Wales.<\/p>\n

One polling expert, Peter Kellner, observed Starmer is in the line of fire because Labour is defending more than half the seats up for grabs \u2013 and lost three-quarters defended since a July 2024 General Election triumph that feels a long time ago.<\/p>\n

Another top pollster, Tory peer Bob Hayward, predicts Labour will lose 1,850 seats and the Tories 600 with Reform gaining 1,550, Greens 500 and Lib Dems 150.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t know until late on Saturday who fell short or exceeded expectations as well as how badly Labour and the Conservatives do.<\/p>\n

Yet the final results will be the end of the beginning rather than the \u00adbeginning of the end for whoever is next to rule Britain.<\/p>\n

Starmer will be fighting not to be unsaddled while Five Million Pound Man Farage will be more desperate than ever to avoid accountability and scrutiny. Both can run but they won\u2019t be able to hide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starmer and Labour are in a death roll, facing historic defeats in London, North East England and Wales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[146,3724,3495,31,3105,95,6928,14,3934,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-28796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-conservative-party","10":"tag-john-swinney","11":"tag-labour-party","12":"tag-liberal-democrats","13":"tag-nigel-farage","14":"tag-plaid-cymru","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-snp","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116520930707671981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}