UK Labour Party Hires New Strategist After Poor Showing At Local Elections - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th May, 2021) UK Labour Party Leader Keir Starmerfired fired party chair Angela Rayner and invited pollster Deborah Mattinson to fill in her spot as strategist after the party showed unsatisfactory results in the latest elections, UK media reported Sunday.

This comes after the ruling Conservative Party won a by-election held in Hartlepool in the north of England where the Labour Party used to successfully hold a seat since 1974. Results showed Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer defeated Labour candidate Paul Williams by almost 7,000 votes (15,529 to 8,589 votes, respectively). In addition to this defeat, Labour lost control of several councils. At the same time, it fared well in mayoral elections, with Sadiq Khan re-elected London mayor.

"I am very much looking forward to joining Keir Starmer and his team," Mattinson, who worked as a pollster and strategist for the Labour Party alongside past leaders including Tony Blair and John Smith, said as quoted by the ITV broadcaster.

In 2019, after the Labour Party, under Jeremy Corbyn, faced its worst defeat in the general elections since 1935, Mattinson wrote a book analyzing voter behavior and reasons as to why the Conservative Party had won.

Starmer took control of the Labour Party in April 2020, several months after the party's disastrous general elections. Thursday's local elections became the first major test for the new leadership.