LONDON: Three opinion polls on Wednesday predicted a record defeat for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives at a July 4 election, forecasting the Labour Party would comfortably win a large majority after 14 years in opposition.
Polling by YouGov showed Keir Starmer’s Labour was on track to win 425 parliamentary seats in Britain’s 650-strong House of Commons, the most in its history. Savanta predicted 516 seats for Labour and More in Common gave it 406.
YouGov had the Conservatives on 108 and the Liberal Democrats on 67, while Savanta predicted the Conservatives would take 53 parliamentary seats and the Liberal Democrats 50. More in Common forecast 155 and 49 seats respectively.
Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta, said its projection put Labour on course “for a historic majority.”
The three polls were so-called multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) surveys, an approach that uses voters’ age, gender, education and other variables to predict results in every British voting district. Pollsters used the method to successfully predict the 2017 British election result.
They are largely in line with previous surveys predicting a Labour victory, but show the scale of the Conservatives’ defeat could be even worse than previously thought.
YouGov’s forecast of 108 seats for the Conservatives was around 32 lower than its previous poll two weeks earlier.
Both Savanta and YouGov predicted that the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher could be left with the lowest number of seats in its near 200-year history contesting elections.
Sunak, who in a final throw of the dice last week pledged to cut 17 billion pounds of taxes for working people if re-elected,
has failed to turn the polls around so far in a campaign littered with missteps.
His task has been made harder by the surprise mid-campaign return to frontline politics by prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, a right-wing populist, whose Reform UK party threatens to split the right-of-center vote.
Britain has a first-past-the-post electoral system, meaning Reform could pick up millions of votes across the country without winning any individual seats.
YouGov predicted Reform would win five seats and Savanta none. More in Common did not give a figure for Reform.
The Savanta poll, published by the Telegraph newspaper, said Sunak could even lose his own parliamentary seat in northern England, once considered a safe Conservative constituency, with the contest currently too close to call.
Sunak has acknowledged that people are frustrated with him and his party after more than a decade in power, dominated at times by political turmoil and scandal.
All three surveys projected several senior government ministers, including finance minister Jeremy Hunt, were on course to lose their seats.
Most opinion polls currently place Keir Starmer’s Labour about 20 percentage points ahead of the governing Conservatives in the national vote share.
Other polls in recent days have also presented a grim picture for Sunak, with one pollster predicting “electoral extinction” for the Conservatives.
UK PM Sunak’s Conservatives set for heavy election defeat, polls forecast
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UK PM Sunak’s Conservatives set for heavy election defeat, polls forecast
- Polling by YouGov showed Keir Starmer’s Labour was on track to win 425 parliamentary seats in Britain’s 650-strong House of Commons
- Savanta poll, published by the Telegraph newspaper, said Sunak could even lose his own parliamentary seat in northern England
Pakistani fighter jet crashes in Jalalabad, pilot captured: Afghan military, police
- Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday
- Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar
JALALABAD: A Pakistani jet has crashed in Jalalabad city and the pilot captured alive, the Afghan military and police said Saturday, with residents telling AFP the man parachuted from the plane before being detained.
"A Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in the sixth district of Jalalabad city, and its pilot was captured alive," police spokesman Tayeb Hammad said.
Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesman for the military in eastern Afghanistan, confirmed the Pakistani jet was downed by Afghan forces "and the pilot was captured alive".
The AFP journalist heard a jet overhead before blasts from the direction of the airport in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, which sits on the road between Kabul and the Pakistani border.
Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday, following overnight clashes as the international community expressed increasing concern about the conflict and called for urgent talks.
Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar, in one of the deepest Pakistani incursions into its western neighbor in years, officials said.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who it claims are waging an insurgency inside Pakistan, a charge the Taliban denies.
Pakistan described its actions as a response to cross-border assaults, while Kabul denounced them as a breach of its sovereignty, saying it remained open to dialogue but warned any wider conflict would result in serious consequences.
The fighting has raised the risk of a protracted conflict along the rugged 2,600-kilometer frontier.
Diplomatic efforts gathered pace late on Friday as Afghanistan said its foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, spoke by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan about reducing tensions and keeping diplomatic channels open.
The European Union called for both sides to de-escalate and engage in dialogue, while the United Nations urged an immediate end to hostilities.
Russia urged both sides to halt the clashes and return to talks, while China said it was deeply concerned and ready to help ease tensions.
The United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks by the Taliban, a State Department spokesperson said.
Border fighting continues
Exchanges of fire continued along the border overnight.
Pakistani security sources said an operation dubbed “Ghazab Lil Haq” was ongoing and that Pakistani forces had destroyed multiple Taliban posts and camps in several sectors. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
Both sides have reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls that Reuters could not verify. Pakistan said 12 of its soldiers and 274 Taliban were killed while the Taliban said 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers died.
Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said 19 civilians were killed and 26 wounded in Khost and Paktika. Reuters could not verify the claim.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said “our cup of patience has overflowed” and described the fighting as “open war,” warning that Pakistan would respond to further attacks.
Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said in a speech in Khost province that the conflict “will be very costly,” and that Afghan forces had not deployed broadly beyond those already engaged.
He said the Taliban had defeated “the world, not through technology, but through unity and solidarity,” and through “great patience and perseverance,” rather than superior military power.
Pakistan’s military capabilities far exceed those of Afghanistan, with a standing army of hundreds of thousands and a modern air force.
In stark contrast, the Taliban lacks a conventional air force and relies largely on light weaponry and ground forces.
However, the Islamist group is battle-hardened after two decades of insurgency against US-led forces before returning to power in 2021.
