Twenty-seven years ago today, the British people went to the polls and turned the page on a disastrous period of Tory government. It was a decisive choice, not just in favour of a new party, but in favour of a new politics. In that moment, Britain voted for a minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, a million children to be lifted from poverty, the shortest NHS waiting times in history and crime to be reduced by a third.

Like most people in our country, I wanted a general election tomorrow and the opportunity for Britain to look forward with hope once again. Rishi Sunak refused to let the nation have a say for fear of the message the people would send. Yet the many council and mayoral elections still offer millions of voters up and down England the chance to reject chaos, division and decline with the Tories and embrace stability, unity and renewal with Labour.

One of the most important decisions taken tomorrow will be who leads our nation’s capital. Labour’s candidate for London mayor, Sadiq Khan, knows what it is like to inherit a Tory shambles. His predecessor spent eight years wasting £53m, £43m of it taxpayers’ money, on a garden bridge to nowhere, burying a report about the appalling state of London’s air and squandering taxpayers’ money on unusable water cannon.

I have........

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