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General election 2024 live: Leaders hit the campaign trail as Michael Gove steps down - BBC News General election 2024 live: Leaders hit the campaign trail as Michael Gove steps down - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has kicked off his third full day of campaigning by heading to his Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire where he's spent the morning meeting veterans. Harry Farley
At a pub on the High Street, Sunak met a group of eight local ex-servicemen at one of their regular Saturday breakfast meetings. Political correspondent, reporting from West Midlands
During the meeting, staff brought over six large breakfasts. The prime minister did not tuck in but carried on sipping from his tea. The Labour leader has made a habit of hosting campaign
visits at lower league football clubs.
He was at Gillingham Football Club in Kent on day one of
campaigning earlier this week. Today we’ve been at Stafford Rangers FC, who are
in the Northern Premier League, Premier Division.
It’s a very deliberate campaign decision, a senior Labour
figure tells me.
There are mundane practical reasons – it’s a ready-made venue
with seating for an event. Visually it’s also very clear where you are (usually
because there’s a whopping great sign in the background – in this case
‘Stafford Rangers’.) So when local people see the
pictures on TV, they know Starmer has been in their patch.
But the party is also trying to promote the image of Sir
Keir Starmer as a football-loving, ordinary bloke.
And the reason it’s often lower league clubs? Mainly, the
senior Labour source tells me, it’s because the bigger premier league clubs are
in cities where Labour are already confident they will
win.
Their campaign is focused on smaller towns – parliamentary
seats like Stafford that they need to take off the Conservatives in order to
win a majority.
But the Labour leader will be hoping for better political
fortunes than his footballing hosts today. Stafford Rangers lost their last
game 6-0 and are being relegated.
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