UK ‘wipeout’ polls: Starmer’s rural outreach vs Sunak’s ‘robotised’ campaign. Will Labour crush Tories?

On May 22, a rain-drenched British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced early general elections in the United Kingdom outside Downing Street in a surprise move.

This was the beginning of the battleground between the Conservative Party and Labour Party in which the two political parties are free to wield the sword of their choice to ensure their conquest.

But for the Tories, this marked an inauspicious start. Sunak's "Clear Plan. Bold Action. Secure Future" seemed to be getting lost in the sound of the Labour Party's new anthem "Things can only get better".

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The experts are calling it a 'wipe-out' election, as Sunak is appearing to move towards his doom and the Conservative Party is expected to win far fewer seats.

Is Sunak losing the ground?

At the beginning of the campaign, Sunak found himself in hot soup when he walked away from commemorations in France which marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion - a step which was not taken in good taste by the people.

Since then, Sunak has been seen travelling across the country, knocking on the doors of houses and meeting with people, giving speeches and attending various events in which he is making a promise for a better future.

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But his campaign trail appeared to run through a lot of urban areas, with less focus on rural parts of the country.

Sunak also failed to remove the taint of political chaos and mismanagement on the party, in the wake of the Tories getting investigated for betting on the election date by using inside information.

He has also failed to wash off his hands from Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's partygate scandal, which has further hurt the party's reputation.

Throughout his election campaign - in which he held discussions with factory workers, spoke about the welfare of farmers, shook hands with army men, underlined his Hindu religious sentiment by visiting BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, played football and re-painted his "family man" image - he failed to answer one simple question - why is the election happening this summer.

Even various Tory candidates have expressed their frustration at how he is running the campaign, which they have called the “worst campaign in ourlifetime”.

Sunak, whose one Instagram post read "It's not over until it's over", was seen hunting for support from people among the robots at an ungodly hour of 4:50 am on the last day.

As the day drew to an end, Sunak said that his party had not given up on winning the elections. The statement came even before elections were set to be held.

Starmer fights Labour battle in Tory countryside

As Tories predicted the biggest “landslide majority” for the Labour Party on the last day of the campaign, Sir Keir Starmer blew his trumpet from Carmarthenshire, as he loudly and clearly said, "Change can only happen if people vote Labour tomorrow".

For the Labour Party, local campaigning remained their focus and also emerged as their core strength. Starmer toured 'safe' rural Conservative seats and appealed for a complete majority to bring the changes.

He visited rural Buckinghamshire, a traditional Tory heartland, just three days before the elections - which experts labelled as a winning step.

At this time, the voters are upset over various issues - which are the poor performance of the hospitals, local governments running out of money with Birmingham declaring bankruptcy, prisons reaching their breaking point and living standards dramatically dropping.

Starmer and his Labour Party are attempting to win the ground by promising solutions to both economic and social problems while offering hope to people in exchange for votes; quite an act of virtuosity in the field of politics.

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While calling it a "summer of change", Starmer has been promising the basics - construction of houses, protection of the renters, creation of high-quality jobs, wealth creation, saving the National Health Service (NHS) and ending the knife crime.

He posed with turban-wearing Sikh men and spoke to Hindu devotees at Swaminarayan Temple in Kingsbury while wearing a flower garland, as he ensured that all the faiths and communities would be respected.

In his demand from the voters to "stop the chaos", Starmer is promising a better future with an improved lifestyle to the people of the United Kingdom.

With the general elections due on July 4, it still remains to be seen who emerges as the winner but poll predicters have already pronounced a return of Labour.