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Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has said the Home Office is “used to” losing contact with asylum seekers, after official figures suggested thousands of people it hoped to deport to Rwanda had stopped reporting. Jessica Elgot has the story here.

Good morning. With just two days left before the local elections in England, which could see the Consevatives lose half their seats, according to at last one projection, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have both had bits of good news to celebrate in the last 24 hours.

For Starmer, the ongoing SNP meltdown is a big bonus. There are no elections in Scotland this week, but one of the big obstacles to Labour’s recovery at Westminster has been the SNP’s dominance in Scottish politics over the last decade, and that is withering. The SNP is now looking for a candidate to replace Humza Yousaf as first minister and the former deputy first miniser John Swinney seems to be favourite.

I will report any developments on that today.

But there was good news for Sunak last night too. Local election results have a direct impact locally (it can matter a lot who is running your council), but in terms of national politics what matters more is the presentional impact. It is almost impossible to imagine local election results that will look like a triumph for the Tories. But there is an important difference between an unmitigated disaster, and a bad night with a couple of “silver lining” consolation results, and a YouGov poll last night suggests Sunak might clinch two of these.

It suggests Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, is seven points ahead of Labour, and on course to win.

A poll two weeks ago by another firm had Houchen neck and neck with his Labour rival, Chris McEwan.

And the new YouGov polling suggests that Andy Street, the Tory West Midlands mayor, is just two points ahead of Labour, which statistically means it is too close to call.

Previous polls have had Labour’s Richard Parker ahead in the West Midlands (by 14 points, one suggested).

This matters because, if Sunak were to lose both the West Midlands and Tees Valley on Thursday, it is hard to see how that would not trigger utter turmoil in the parliamentary party, and a probable leadership challenge. But if the Tories can hold one or even both, Sunak will be able to argue that electoral defeat is not inevitable, and that a Tory leader with a record of delivery can win. Margaret Thatcher pulled off a similar trick in 1990, when Conservative HQ manage to spin mostly dire results in the local election as a win because the Tories held Wandsworth and Westminster.

Of course, holding the West Midlands and Tees Valley would not for a moment alter the fact that national polling implies the Tories are on course to lose the general election very badly. But it might avert a spring leadership crisis.

The Conservatives are also having some success at dictating the campaign agenda. Stamer was on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning. Labour is campaigning on the cost of living. But Starmer spent the first 10 minutes of the interview being asked about trans issues (he backed the government announcement today saying trans women should not be treated in female-only wards in England), and then spent the rest of the interview fielding questions about Angela Rayner. He was being defensive, and clearly wanted to talk about something else. I will post more on what he said soon.

Starmer has a further campaign announcement coming later today.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

9.30am: The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities publishes homelessness figures for England.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2pm: Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about counter-terrorism policy.

Afternoon: Starmer speaks at an Usdaw conference in Blackpool.

3pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Lords international relations and defence committee.

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