General election: 'Do not give matches back to arsonists', urges Labour amid poll complacency warning

Wes Streeting has urged voters not to hand “the matches back to the arsonists to finish the job” as he warned against complacency over polls predicting a Labour landslide.

Speaking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, the shadow health secretary stressed the choice at the election as he branded the Tory manifesto “Liz Truss’s budget on steroids” and raised the prospect of “a nightmare on Downing Street” if the governing party was returned.

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Mr Streeting made his comments as fresh polls signalled a further grim outlook for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with one indicating the Conservatives on course to pick up just 72 seats.

Meanwhile, cabinet minister Mark Harper insisted the Tories were fighting for every vote, but repeated his party’s warning that a vote for Reform UK would give Labour a large majority and “a blank cheque” in office.

It comes after a separate survey on Thursday night put Nigel Farage’s party ahead of the Tories for the first time with 19% of the vote, compared with 18% for the Conservatives.

Mr Streeting said: “I just warn people, against this backdrop of breathtaking complacency in the media about the opinion polls, do not give the matches back to the arsonist to finish the job.”

He added: “Do people want to see Liz Truss’s mini budget on steroids, which is the Conservative manifesto, being delivered if there’s a nightmare on Downing Street on 5 July or do they want to see a stable economy with economic growth, shared prosperity, enable us to invest in our public services without clobbering working people with taxes, that’s the choice at this election.”

Despite the polls, Mr Harper told Phillips: “I’m still very much up for this fight.

“The Conservative Party across the country, led by the prime minister, is fighting for every vote.”

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He added: “But the polls do tell us one thing. They do show people that if people don’t vote Conservative and some of the people vote for the smaller parties, and Labour does end up with a very large majority, they’re going to have a blank check.

“They are trying very hard in this campaign not to spell out how they’re going to pay for any of their promises. We know there is a black hole. We can have a debate about how big it is.

“We’ve said it’s going to be £2,000 for every family in the next over the parliament, but there’s definitely a black hole.

“We’ve set out the taxes that they might have to raise and they haven’t ruled them out.”

Mr Harper went on: “I’d say very simply to those voters who are thinking about voting Reform who have voted Conservative – they want to see lower taxes, they want to see migration under control, if they vote Reform they’re going to get a Labour government with a large majority and it’s going to deliver the opposite of what they want.”

Mr Harper also insisted the election was “not about the past”.

He said: “Elections are about the future. They’re about the offer in front of us.”

In his interview with Phillips, Mr Streeting also indicated there could be greater spending increases for the NHS than committed to in the Labour manifesto, but stressed this could happen “only if the conditions allow”.

He was responding to analysis by the Nuffield Trust thinktank that suggested both Labour and Tory pledges on the NHS would leave the health service with lower annual funding increases than during the austerity era.

Seizing on this, a Tory spokesman said: “Labour’s manifesto is just window dressing for the election campaign and they are planning to spend and tax more than they are telling the public.”