Good morning. There are two days left until the local elections in England and, conveniently perhaps for Labour campaigners, the government’s main announcement is about a plan to stop sex offenders claiming asylum in the UK. Rajeev Syal has the details here.

The government is announcing this now because it will change the law via an amendment to the border security, asylum and immigration bill, which has already finished its committee stage in the Commons and will soon get its report stage (the last chance for an amendment before the bill goes to the Lords). Immigration policy is not a matter for local authorities, but Labour will still be hoping that today’s headlines might be at least marginally helpful as people think about how to vote.

With the Conservatives expected to lose around 500 council seats, according to one forecast, these should be difficult elections for Kemi Badenoch. But she won’t be taking it personally, she told BBC Breakfast this morning in an interview. Asked if a bad result would be a vote on her own “personal popularity as leader”, Badenoch replied:

No, I don’t. We had a historic defeat last year, and it’s going to take some time for us to get back on track. I am working to rebuild public trust, letting the country know that the Conservative party is under new leadership. But as we saw with previous oppositions, it took 14 years, 13 years and 18 years to come back. I’ve only been leader for six months. It’s going to take a while to fix the problems which we had from last year.

There is also a byelection on Thursday, in Runcorn and Helsby, where Labour had a majority of almost 15,000 at the last election. The constituency is counting overnight, which means that on Friday morning, when a lot of the local election results won’t yet be in (many councils count on the Friday, not overnight, because it is easier), the election night narrative will be determined largely by the Runcorn result. Reform UK hope they can win, and that would be a formidable show of strength (even though parties that pull off amazing byelection victories don’t normally perform so well at general elections). Given what has happened to the Westminster expectations thermometer, even a narrow Labour win would be a good result for Keir Starmer.

And the Conservatives? According to Labour, they have given up totally in the seat. This is what Ellie Reeves, Labour’s chair, told HuffPost UK.

The Tories aren’t doing anything. [Tory MP] Esther McVey basically said the Tories should sit it out and let Reform win, and we’re seeing that on the ground.

They’re not doing any work on the ground at all, it looks like they’re just gifting it to Reform.

Reeves, of course, has got an incentive to maximise the ‘Keep Reform out’ vote in Runcorn. But that does not mean she’s wrong, and it would be surprising if she is. The Tories wrote off their chances in this seat some time ago, and it would make sense for them to deploy campaign resources elsewhere.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in East Anglia.

10am: Comedy industry figures, including the podcaster Matt Forde, give evidence to the Commons culture committee about the state of live comedy.

2.20pm: Jack Thorne, creater of the Netflix show Adolescence, and Emily Feller, its co-executive producer, give evidence to the Commons women and equalities committee on misogyny among young men and boys.

2.30pm: Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester mayor, and Kim McGuinness, North East mayor, give evidence to the Commons business committee about industrial strategy.

Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is campaigning in the south-west of England.

Afternoon: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is campaigning in Scunthorpe with Andrea Jenkyns, the party’s candidate for Greater Lincolnshire mayor.

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