SIR KEIR STARMER embraced the Boris Johnson agenda as he launched Labour’s local elections campaign today.

Coming soon after both he and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves had praised Margaret Thatcher, the Labour leader switched Tory role models to support the ex-premier’s “levelling-up” policies.

Sir Keir travelled to Dudley in the West Midlands to launch Labour’s campaign, with a pledge that local authorities will partner with the private sector to improve depleted services.

He outlined new legislation to be called the Take Back Control Act, in another nod at Johnsonian rhetoric. It will mandate councils to produce local growth plans.

In a newspaper article Sir Keir and his deputy Angela Rayner said that Mr Johnson’s “analysis was good” in terms of levelling up, but that its implementation had been blocked by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor.

Labour’s strategy does not, however, offer any more money than Mr Sunak did. Instead it talks of “empowerment,” “benefits of scale” and “strong partnership with the private sector.”

Sir Keir maintained that he could not “turn the taps on” to deal with the finance crisis across local government, telling journalists: “I would rather level with the British public before the election, tell them straight what we can do, what we can’t do.”

The Labour leader, did, however, recommit to passing new deal on work legislation championed by the unions in the first term of a Labour government.

On May 2 there will be local elections in many parts of England, including for regional mayors, London’s Sadiq Khan among them.

Three regions will be electing mayors for the first time, including the wider north-east, in which independent candidate and present North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll is a strong contender, having been blocked from standing for Labour by the Starmer faction.

The other new mayoralties are East Midlands and York and North Yorkshire.

Further grief for the Tories came with the latest YouGov poll, putting hard right Reform UK on a record 16 per cent of the vote. 

The Tories, on 21 per cent and 19 points behind Labour, can feel the breath of Lee Anderson, but not Laurence Fox, on their necks.

The anti-“woke” thespian, leader of the Reclaim party, will not be contesting the London mayor election because he failed to fill in the nomination form correctly.