(Or, if you prefer another set of headlines: “It’s for the Birds”: pollster mocks Rishi Sunak HuffPost)

“These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.” – Rishi Sunak 

The disaster for Britain is the likelihood of the Conservatives lurching to the right if they are re-elected, indeed the possibility of lurching to the right as they cling on until the election.

Remember Liz Truss! – Owl

Conservative ministers are adamant that the upcoming general election is not yet a lost cause – claiming last week’s local elections show Labour is not on course for a Commons majority.

Hugo Gye inews.co.uk

But polling experts have hit back at the argument made by Rishi Sunak and his allies, pointing out it is based on only a partial reading of the results.

The Prime Minister told The Times: “These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.”

The claim is a repeat of the campaign run successfully in 2015 against a co-called “coalition of chaos”, which Tories said would see Ed Miliband propped up in power by the Scottish National Party.

It is based on an assessment by academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, who used the local election results to forecast the outcome of a general election in which all voters acted in the same way as they did at the locals – concluding that Labour would fall 32 seats short of a majority in Parliament.

But elections expert Sir John Curtice cautioned: “The way that people vote in local elections doesn’t necessarily exactly mirror the way that they would vote in a general election, at least in terms of levels of support. Particularly, the Liberal Democrats have long since done better. And it tends to be Labour that suffer more as a result.”

Both the Lib Dems and the Greens outperformed their showing in opinion polls – suggesting there may be a large pool of people who will back the smaller parties at a local level but vote Labour when it comes to the general election, in order to get the Tories out of power.

Health minister Maria Caulfield claimed the Conservatives could take heart from the difference between local elections and national ones, telling Sky News: “It’s always difficult when you’ve been in Government and voters can send a message to a party in Government that they’re unhappy about certain things with the safe knowledge that they still have a Conservative Government in control. It’s very different come a general election where they really do have to make a choice.”

That has long been at the heart of the Tory election message: that in a straight fight between Mr Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, voters will end up rejecting the Labour leader.

But Ben Page of polling firm Ipsos told Times Radio: “Keir Starmer isn’t particularly popular, but it’s always compared to what? If you look at how people rate Keir Starmer as best possible candidate for being Prime Minister with Rishi Sunak, he’s got double the score of Rishi Sunak.”

He said that Sir Keir’s mediocre ratings were a “silver lining” for the Tories because “people aren’t particularly enamoured with Labour”, but added: “Next to that is a cup of cold sick, which is basically that people are utterly fed up with the Conservatives.”

Other problems with the Ralling and Thrasher analysis include that the fact that it takes no account of potential changes in Scotland, where opinion polls currently suggest Labour could take well over 20 seats off the SNP.

And any projection based on the local elections faces the problem that Reform UK stood in only a minority of council seats, making it hard to know how much they would damage the Tories in a general election.

Sir John told the BBC: “We know from the opinion polls that Reform are now taking more votes off the Conservatives than Labour is. Reform only appeared in one in six of the wards – so therefore their impact was probably diminished.”

Mr Sunak will continue to argue that the general election hangs in the balance. But unless the polls start to narrow soon, maintaining that message will get harder and harder.

People in East Devon will be asked their views on whether to protect land designed to stop sprawling urban development.

William Bradley www.devonlive.com

A public consultation on so-called green wedges will be issued shortly by the district council to gauge view about areas that include potential for new houses, because of the pressures the district is under to provide homes for people.

Across the 12 parcels of land, including between Beer and Seaton, Budleigh Salterton and Knowle, Colyford and Colyton, and Exmouth and Lympstone, a total of 1,100 potential new homes could fall on what are currently green wedges.

Any development would ideally be small-scale, and not unduly impact the purpose of the wedge. Ed Freeman, assistant director of planning strategy and development for East Devon, noted the potential jeopardy of the consultation because of the lack of obvious support for green wedges by the government.

“I do have some concerns about the approach given the lack of government guidance, as fundamentally there isn’t any,” he said.

“They are a historical thing that we have had, and other local authorities, and some have maintained them in their plans.

“While one can see the merit in retaining them, we will be challenged on them in a way we haven’t previously.”

Mr Freeman noted that property developers, in particular, would “challenge our position” and that the council would “need to respond and defend our decision”.

Indeed, the council’s strategic development committee heard that some development had already taken place within the green wedge boundaries as they were previously drawn, and that it was proposed that new boundaries exclude these recently built homes.

Mr Freeman also highlighted the challenge the council would face if councillors decided that development shouldn’t take place in a green wedge.

“Representations from developers reflect the pressure to release land within a green wedge for development, and the pressures in trying to meet housing needs will be quite challenging,” he said.

“There are 1,100 homes proposed in first or second choice sites for allocation in green wedges, and if those are removed, then that would cause us significant challenges in terms of where to build those properties, and developers are picking up on that and putting pressure on us to release green wedge land.”

Cllr Ben Ingham (Conservative, Woodbury and Lympstone) said the council should not have found itself in this position.

“This is why ages ago we should have been debating green wedges, so we don’t have this ridiculous compromise where there are potential allocations [of houses] and we’re wondering how we can draw green wedges around them,” he said.

“We started this process a few years ago in the wrong place as we never had an overview of what we were trying to achieve or any strategic thinking.

“We should have put the green wedges in place before housing allocations, and so this is so unfortunate, so please could officers take note not to do this again in 10 years’ time.”

However, Cllr Mike Howe (Independent, Clyst Valley) said the approach the council had taken with the consultation was correct.

“Previously, we showed the green wedges without the housing allocations in, then we allocated [the houses] and then removed the green wedge boundary around them,” he said.

“This way is honest, as we are saying these are the green wedges, and there are pressures on them which might mean we have to allocate houses on some or all of them, or possibly none.

“In the previous way, we showed these lovely green wedges with no threats to them and I think the only way we can do this is to be honest and upfront, by saying there are allocations in them, and that might change, but either way the allocations are not determined and can be debated at a later date.”

The consultation is set to start this month and last for six weeks.

Not everyone did, according to the Telegraph: