The Liberal Democrats have gained overall control of Tunbridge Wells as the Conservatives lost four seat, leaving them on seven and the Liberal Democrats with 22 of the 39 seats. Labour and independents have five each.

A Liberal Democrat source said, and you may have to brace yourself, “the disgusted of Tunbridge Wells have spoken.”

The Conservatives have lost control of Dudley in the West Midlands after Labour gained eight seats, PA Media reports. The council is now split with Conservatives and Labour both holding 34 seats, and the Liberal Democrats with three and an independent making up the other four seats holding the balance of power.

Labour won the mayoralties declared today in East Midlands, North East and North Yorkshire, but the Conservatives are pointing to Ben Houchen bucking the trend with his victory in Tees Valley.

In our round-up of those results, it is noted that in his acceptance speech, Houchen made no reference to the Conservatives nor to prime minister Rishi Sunak. “To be re-elected for a third term in my home, in my community, is absolutely the greatest honour,” he said. He thanked voters for buying into his vision for the next four years, adding: “There is a still long way to go.”

Here is a video clip of Sunak earlier describing the results as disappointing, but pointing to a Labour failure to take control of Harlow as a reason for optimism for the Conservatives.

The Mirror’s Mikey Smith notes that Michael Gove’s election agent, Steve Dorsett, has lost his seat on Woking council. You can insert your own “woke” punchline there.

Labour’s Chris Bryant, meanwhile, is suggesting that the figures for Conservative losses are approaching “their worst expectation management”.

Caroline Henry, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Nottinghamshire who was banned from driving for six month after being caught speeding five times, has lost her role to Labour.

Labour’s Gary Godden received 119,355 votes, while Henry got 77,148.

Over in Dudley in the West Midlands, it is currently a dead heat between Labour and the Conservatives, with each holding 34 seats on the council.

A recount is underway for votes from one ward which looks like it could be the deciding vote between the two parties.

Labour launched their local election campaign in Dudley in March as it was a key area where they were hoping to reverse the Tory tide and win back seats they lost in 2019 and 2021. With all 72 seats up for grabs after a ward boundary review, Labour were hoping to win an outright majority here.

Voter turnout for the mayoral and assembly election in London is 40.5%, which is down 1.5% on 2021. We don’t get the results until tomorrow.

I just want to circle back to Kiran Stacey’s piece for a second, as there is a little bit swirling around that the turnout figures released in London are suggesting that possibly mayor Sadiq Khan may be in more trouble than polling leads suggested.

My colleague Kiran wrote:

Party campaigners in London said Gaza had driven voters in the inner city away from the party, while the controversy over the clean air ultra-low emissions zone had cost it in outer boroughs. A shock Conservative win in London would dominate the political agenda for days, renew questions over Labour’s environmental policies and provoke anger from the left of the party. One senior Labour source said: “Losing London would be devastating, but most of the country is fine and this won’t affect the general election.”

The raw turnout figures are here, and Stephen Bush of the FT has a thread on social media running through them here …

We’ve published a few round-ups of the day’s election news in the last few minutes. First up, Rowena Mason, our Whitehall editor, reports that under the leadership of Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives face their worst local election results in 40 years. She writes:

The spread of the Conservative losses led one former minister to claim there was “no such thing really as a safe Tory seat any more”, but the prime minister appeared committed to cling on until polling day, with rebels in his own party lacking the support to oust him.

Our political correspondent Kiran Stacey writes that Labour is celebrating victory but has lost ground in urban and heavily Muslim areas. He says:

Below the euphoria of wins in places like Blackpool, Hartlepool and Thurrock, however, lay a nervousness about the party’s performance in urban areas, with campaigners warning it had lost ground in both London and Birmingham.

Also, if you missed it earlier, John Crace has sketched the day …

Labour has gained Tamworth council, taking nine seats from the Conservatives (six) and independents (three). The party won the parliamentary seat in a byelection in October.

PA Media point out that as the Liberal Democrats held Cheltenham council, the Conservatives lost all of their five seats. It points out that the town’s MP is Conservative justice secretary Alex Chalk, who has a majority of 981 from the last general election.

Both Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting, speaking separately to BBC outlets, have addressed the suggestion that Labour’s position on Israel’s response in Gaza to the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel had cost them votes in Thursday’s elections.

Shadow health secretary Streeting told BBC Radio 5 Live that “We are obviously calling for a ceasefire now and even more importantly … urging Israel not to invade Rafah, which would be an absolute catastrophe. I don’t deny that there are people out there who are feeling let down and I want them to know that we’ve heard. We will take that on the chin, and we’ll work hard to win people’s trust back at future elections.”

PA Media reports shadow home secretary Cooper told BBC News:

We do strongly recognise there are areas where we have had independent candidates who have been particularly strongly campaigning on Gaza and where there is really strong feeling about this issue, because tens of thousands of people have been killed.

It is just devastating to see what is happening, which is why we need an immediate ceasefire and for hostages to be released and why we hope some progress will be made in the negotiations.

We do recognise the strength of feeling that there is and of course we will continue to work just as we do in every area across the country to earn votes back in future.

Eleni Courea and Kiran Stacey write that the Conservatives find reasons to be cheerful despite election bloodbath:

They were on track to lose up to 500 council seats and Labour made gains across traditional Tory territory in the south. But Downing Street insiders were keen to point to the fact that Labour failed to win control of Harlow council, a top target that Keir Starmer had visited on the eve of polling day. The Conservatives held it by one seat. Ben Houchen also won a third term as Conservative Tees Valley mayor, despite a 16.7 point swing to Labour, and Andy Street was predicted to hold on to the West Midlands mayoralty on Saturday.

Loyal Conservative MPs sent messages to the Tory MPs’ WhatsApp group on Friday claiming to celebrate the early results. “I’m genuinely reading into this that the Labour lead is soft and we need to work our seats,” one Tory MP told the Guardian. No 10 aides insisted they could see off any attempt to unseat Rishi Sunak. One said the “Armageddon narrative [is] not quite coming to fruition”.

“People said we were going to get absolutely spanked and we haven’t been absolutely spanked,” a senior Conservative source said. “The big positives are Labour not winning Harlow, which they really wanted to, and Reform not coming second in South Blackpool. The big one to watch is London. We won’t win there but I don’t think Labour are going to win by 20 points like the polls said they would.”

Read more from Eleni Courea and Kiran Stacey here: Tories find reasons to be cheerful despite election bloodbath

Labour have held Rotherham and Trafford councils, the Liberal Democrats have held Cheltenham, and Oxford stays at no overall control.

Jonathan Freedland’s column in reaction the results is up, and he argues that while Starmer already seems like the prime minister, his troubles may have just really begun:

Keir Starmer’s aim has been to turn Labour into the acceptable vessel of national discontent with the party that has governed Britain for 14 years. Voter fury, at first Boris Johnson and the partygate revelations and next Liz Truss’s sabotaging of the UK economy, saw trust in the Tories plunge – but it was never automatic that that would translate into support for Labour. Starmer’s central objective has been to remove every obstacle that could stand in the way of a disaffected Conservative contemplating a move towards the main party of opposition.

He has set about that goal methodically, even ruthlessly – seeking to reassure potential Tory switchers that Labour is just as patriotic, just as strong on defence and crime, just as prudent with the public finances and just as competent as they once believed the Conservatives to be. That approach has turned off, even repelled, some of the Labour core, but this latest round of results – and its large swings, direct from Tory to Labour – suggests it’s working.

But strategic caution carries risks. Playing safe, saying nothing that could frighten the floating voter, might bring victory – but it doesn’t deliver a mandate. Starmer is right to ensure he rides the anti-Tory wave, and if these local results were repeated it would carry him into Downing Street. But once there, it helps if you can claim the electorate’s backing for your planned programme in government. As things stand, Labour could not quite do that.

You can read more of Jonathan Freedland’s column here: Triumphant Starmer already seems like the prime minister. Now his troubles really begin

Labour has won the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) role in Lancashire.

Clive Grunshaw beat incumbent Andrew Snowdon (Conservative), to win back a role he had held between 2012 and 2021.

Labour has also held the councils in Bradford and Crawley. The party gained five council seats in the latter.

Cannock Chase has been a Labour gain. It was formerly no overall control.

All the results are being collated here …

In Wokingham, the picture remains unclear. The Liberal Democrats, who were expected to take control of the council, said a stronger than expected Labour showing in the district may stop them winning key target seats and deprive them of a majority.

The council, where veteran Tory MP John Redwood and former prime minister Theresa May hold their parliamentary seats, has long been a Conservative stronghold. The Tories lost control of the council in 2022 after strong Lib Dems victories, having held it for 20 years.

Pauline Jorgensen, the leader of the Wokingham Conservative group said the result “looks really close” so far. She said: “It’s not a landslide in any direction. It’s very difficult to call right now. A lot of these things are down to handful of votes.”

Reform UK did not field any candidates in the district. The feeling among the Liberal Democrats is that the centre-left vote may end up being split between themselves, Labour and the Greens, while the Conservatives were left as the only major right-wing option on the ballot.

54 seats are up election in Wokingham. So far, the Lib Dems have won six seats, the Conservatives are on three and Labour have won two. A full result is expected by 7pm.

Keir Starmer said Labour’s victory in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election was “a very, very special moment”.

PA Media reports that appearing at Northallerton Town Football Club with the new mayor, David Skaith, Starmer said:

It’s an amazing moment in history, to have a Labour victory here. We have had really good results across the country all day long, but this is a very, very special moment, David, to become the mayor here.”

Through the villages and the towns of North Yorkshire, people are voting for change. They voted for Labour, a changed Labour party able to earn the trust and the respect of voters in York and North Yorkshire.

He told voters “Thank you for putting your trust in Labour, we will not let you down.”

The Liberal Democrats say there are no more Conservative councils on Cheltenham council, where Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, is the MP. The final five Tories there have been defeated. The Lib Dems retain control of the council.

The Green party is currently averaging 11% in wards it is fighting, according to the BBC. That is up one point on last year and an increase on their best ever performance in local elections, in 2019, according to the BBC.

Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Green party, told the BBC a few minutes ago that a lot of the councils where the party would be making gains have yet to declare.

Labour has gained control of Nuneaton and Bedworth from the Conservatives. Labour gained 15 seats, and the Tories lost 11.

Compass, the leftwing campaign group committed to pluralism, has issued a statement saying the results show the need for progressive parties to form electoral pacts. In a statement referring to the Tees Valley, Neal Lawson, the Compass director, said:

Taking Tees Valley was always going to be a difficult task given the size of the majority Ben Houchen was defending. But given the unpopularity of the national Tory brand, it need not have been an impossibility.

Instead of tearing chunks out of one another, progressives should have focussed on presenting a united front against the Conservatives to maximise the efficiency of the anti-Tory vote. Elsewhere in the country, we see that where progressive parties cooperate, they win.

The Green party candidate Sally Bunce did stand aside mid-way through the campaign, but in the end, it wasn’t enough to help Labour’s Chris McEwan over the line. Progressive parties should have presented a united front and backed a single progressive candidate from the outset.

As the BBC’s Vicki Young has pointed out, Leicestershire provides a better example of a place where centre-left parties lost out under first past the post (FPTP) because they did not form a pact. The Conservatives won the election for police and crime commissioner with a majority over Labour of less than 1,000. But the Greens and the Liberal Democrats both got very big voters there too.

The government recently changed the voting system for mayors and PCCs from the supplementary vote to FPTP. Under the supplementary vote, people get two choices, and if their first preference candidate does not make the final two, their second choice is taking into account. Under this system, Labour would almost certainly have won the Leicestershire PCC job.

Here are the results for the Leicestershire election.

Rupert Matthews (C) 62,280 (35.29%)
Rory Palmer (Lab) 61,420 (34.80%)
Aasiya Bora (Green) 23,649 (13.40%)
Ian Sharpe (LD) 22,041 (12.49%)
Fizza Askari (One Leics) 7,104 (4.03%)
C maj 860 (0.49%)
Electorate 806,812; Turnout 176,494 (21.88%)

Labour has won overall control of Milton Keynes for the first time since 2000 after gaining three seats, PA Media reports. PA says:

The party now has 30 seats on the Buckinghamshire council, with Lib Dems on 18, after gaining two, and Conservatives on nine, after losing five.

Labour was previously running the council in alliance with the Lib Dems, in a city with two marginal parliamentary constituencies

Within the last hour, the Conservatives, who held most of the police and crime commissioner posts up for election yesterday, have held PCC positions in Leicestershire, Humberside and Devon and Cornwall.

In a preliminary analysis of the election results for Prospect magazine, Peter Kellner, the political commentator and former head of the YouGov polling firm, points out that the Conservative share of the vote in the Blackpool South byelection, at 17.5%, “is its lowest for at least 100 years in a seat they were defending, replacing Dudley West (18.7% in 1994) as the occupant of this undesirable pedestal”.

He also points out that, where Reform UK has been standing in council elections, the Conservative vote has fallen much more dramatically than in wards where Reform UK has not been standing. The Labour vote, though does not seem to have been affected by Reform UK being on the ballot.

Kellner says:

This confirms polls that show Reform taking its support overwhelmingly from the Tories, unlike Ukip a decade ago, which attracted votes across the board.

This means that the Conservatives must squeeze Reform’s support if they are to avoid a catastrophic landslide defeat at the general election. In 2015, Ukip lost a large part of the votes it had won in byelections, and its poll rating slipped as the election approached. Without such a squeeze this time, Conservative prospects are truly dreadful.

On the BBC Nick Eardley has just highlighted figures showing that, in council seats where Reform UK is standing, the Conservative vote is down 19 percentage points compared to the result in 2021. But the Labour vote is up 6 percentage points.

The Workers Party of Britain (WPB) won its first two council seats in Rochdale, where George Galloway won a byelection in March, PA reports. Labour retained control of the council with 44 seats, after losing two to the WPB, with the Conservatives on nine, Lib Dems on three and two independents.

Stacy Hart won a seat on Basingstoke and Deane council to give the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) their first borough councillor, PA Media reports. PA says:

She polled 1,659 votes in Hatch Warren & Beggarwood ward, 61.6% of the vote, gaining the seat from Conservatives.

The WEP had previously won seats on town and parish councils but this is their most important victory in the nine years since the party was founded by broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and journalist Catherine Mayer.

Here are the full results from the York and North Yorkshire mayoral contest.

David Skaith (Lab) 66,761 (35.06%)
Keane Duncan (C) 51,967 (27.29%)
Felicity Cunliffe-Lister (LD) 30,867 (16.21%)
Kevin Foster (Green) 15,188 (7.98%)
Keith Tordoff (Ind) 13,250 (6.96%)
Paul Haslam (Ind) 12,370 (6.50%)
Lab maj 14,794 (7.77%)
Electorate 640,006; Turnout 190,403 (29.75%)

The Conservatives lost all eight of their seats on Castle Point in Essex as independents won all 39, PA Media reports. PA says 13 Conservative candidates failed to appear on ballot papers because of problems with nominations.

Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green party, told Sky News that his party was making “significant gains” in the local elections. He explained:

Whether it’s breaking through on to new councils like Newcastle, like Redditch, like Sefton, like Bolton, or whether it’s adding to our numbers of existing councilors in places in all corners of England, people are voting Green in ever greater numbers and voting Green positively because they want a strong community champions and Green councillors who will make a real difference for a fairer community and a greener future.

Asked if Gaza was one reason why the Greens were picking up votes from Labour, he said it was. The Greens had called for a ceasefire from the start, he said, “and clearly that message has resonated with communities around the country”. But he said other factors were relevant too.

Welwyn Hatfield remained under no overall control, but the Conservatives lost 10 seats, as Labour gained eight and the Liberal Democrats two, PA Media reports. PA says the new council is Labour 20, Liberal Democrat 16 and Conservative 12.

Three police and crime commissioner results have come in within the last half an hour or so. The Conservatives have held the PCC posts in Suffolk and in Cambridgeshire, and Labour have retained the job in Gwent.

Ben Houchen, who has been re-elected as Conservative Tees Valley mayor, claimed he was not wearing a blue Conservative rosette at the count because he forgot to bring one.

Asked whether this was a sign that he was trying to distance himself from the national Conservative party, Houchen said:

I have [worn a rosette] at previous elections and the honest answer is I didn’t have one and I forgot it. But I’ve got my blue socks on and my blue tie on …

The idea that we are trying to pretend I’m not Conservative, I mean people know round here that I’m a Conservative, but thankfully what we’ve seen today is they also know that I’m a Teessider, and I’ll put Teesside first, I’ll put local people first and I’ll do what’s best for the local area.

Asked whether he would be able to work with Keir Starmer if he became PM, Houchen replied:

Absolutely. Keir Starmer’s come out and said he’s going to double down on devolution, which is a huge change, a 180 from what Labour did in 2019 when they were talking about abolishing mayors. Now Keir Starmer’s saying he’s going to give us more money and more powers. Which gives me more autonomy to get on and do what I do best which is deliver for local people.

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has said Keir Starmer should commit to suspending arms sales to Israel in response to evidence that his stance on Gaza is costing the party votes in places like Oldham. A Momentum spokesperson said:

These losses should set alarm bells ringing in Labour HQ. Any party which takes its core vote for granted risks disaster sooner or later. When the going gets tough, Labour will need to rally its base - but from climate to Gaza, Keir Starmer couldn’t seem less interested.

Starmer should respond by getting off the fence and calling for a suspension of arms sales to Israel, as other parties have done, and unreservedly condemning Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

Labour have retained control of Blackburn with Darwen, but lost four seats, while the Conservatives lost two and independents were up four, PA reports. The new council is Labour 29, independents 13 and Conservatives nine.

Several Labour councillors resigned in Blackburn over Keir Starmer’s response to the war in Gaza, and in this election independents were actively seeking support from Muslim voters.

Left Unity, a fringe leftwing party, has welcomed the Blackburn results.

This is from Keiran Pedley, a pollster from Ipsos, on the significance of the Tories winning Tees Valley (which they have) and the West Midlands (which they will, if the Labour briefing is accurate).

Perhaps Houchen and Street do hold on but unclear what comfort Rishi Sunak takes from individual Mayor’s personal votes defying the wider political weather. It’s that weather that determines the General Election result.

Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead psephologist, made the same point on the BBC a few minutes ago. He said:

The truth is that mayoral contests are probably the least reliable guide to the question .. what do these results tell us for a general election.

It is the results that happen to anonymous councillors across the country that will tell us much, much more about the ups and downs of as parties as parties, as opposed to the impact or otherwise of particular high-profile personalities that might be able to buck the trend in a particular type of contest.

Labour retained Swindon in the first council result of the afternoon, gaining nine seats as the Conservatives lost eight and an independent one, PA Media reports. The new council is Labour Labour 41, Conservative 15, Liberal Democrat one.

Ben Houchen won the fourth of five local authority areas voting in the Tees Valley Mayoral election, PA Media reports. PA says:

In Darlington, he polled 14,233 ahead of 10,014 for Labour’s Chris McEwan and 1,849 for Simon Thorley of the Liberal Democrats.

Houchen has already won more votes in Hartlepool, Redcar and Middlesbrough, with just Stockton still to be announced.

We’re expecting the results of the East Midlands mayoral election at around 2pm, with polls suggesting it could be a comfortable win for Labour’s Claire Ward.

It is the first time a mayor for the region - encompassing Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire - has been elected.

Conservative Ben Bradley, who is already an MP for Mansfield and leader of Nottinghamshire county council, had hoped his strong local connections would help him clinch the win.

But the mood at the count in Nottingham is that Labour is on track for victory.

Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, also won more votes than his Labour rival in Redcar, PA reports. He polled 15,987 against 12,015 for Chris McEwan and 1,639 for Liberal Democrat Simon Thorley.

Of the five authorities covered by the Tees Valley mayoralty, Redcar and Cleveland was the one where Houchen did best in the last contest, in 2021. He got 75% of the vote then.

A Labour source told PA Media that Tees Valley always seemed out of reach for the party. Houchen won with 73% of the vote three years ago. The source said Houchen, had been effectively running as an independent rather than a Conservative, and a swing of 12.5% would be enough for Labour to win every parliamentary seat in the region.

Conservative Ben Houchen could be on course to narrowly win the Tees Valley mayoral contest for a third time, giving prime minister Rishi Sunak a glimmer of hope for his immediate political future.

Counting started at 9.30am and the final result is expected at between 12.30 and 1pm.

There are votes from five local authority areas being counted. The results from Hartlepool are in: Houchen - 10,074; Chris McEwan for Labour - 8,732; Simon Thorley for the Lib Dems – 972.

Votes from Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees to come.

On BBC News Nick Eardley has just presented some figures from the BBC’s analysis of council results so far suggesting the Labour vote is down 16 points in areas with a Muslim population. He said that, compared to the results in 2021 (when most of the seats being contested yesterday were last fought), Labour support is down 16 percentage points and Green support is up 19 percentage points.

Eardley stressed that these figures were based on results from just a small number of wards.

He also said that, across the country overall, the Labour vote is up 5 percentage points and the Tories are down 14 percentage points compared to 2021.

These are early, provisional figures, because most of the council results have not come in yet.

A reader has sent me this, prompted by the report at 9.47am about the Electoral Commission and photo ID.

I was presiding officer at a station in a large village … yesterday. We were only running a police and crime commissioner poll. I issued ballot papers to 177 electors, three electors had to return after initially failing to bring ID. A fourth elector did not return.

The Electoral Commission voter ID evaluation requires staff to record voter’s details if they are turned away due to lack of ID. However, if stations choose to start by asking for voters’ ID they will generally have no details when the elector departs.

The commission also suggests that stations deploy a “welcomer” to remind electors of the need for ID before they approach the desk for a ballot paper. Combined with possible reluctance by staff to complete yet more paperwork, I fear there may be significant underreporting of the effect of the government’s voter ID scheme.

Prof Michael Thrasher, the lead psephologist for Sky News (their version of John Curtice), said the overnight results were “very bad news” for the Conservative and showed that they were at risk of near-annhilation at the general election.

As Sky News reports, Thrasher said that in 2019 the Tories won a big election victory on the basis of support from leave voters. But he said that, overnight, the Conservative vote was down almost 18 points in the areas that voted most strongly for leave. He went on:

If the Conservative fall as low as these council elections so far appear to be telling us, then we’re in a situation that we were in (back) in 1997, where the Conservative vote fell so far down that they were almost annihilated.

The same fate awaits the Conservatives at the next general election if their vote slides this far below, say, 30% in a general election.

Lewis Baston, an elections specialist, has written an analysis of the results so far for the Guardian. He thinks the outlook looks better for Labour than some of the council seat change figures imply.

Here is an extract.

The Blackpool South byelection was not a routine mid-term setback for the party of government. For a start, it comes well into the fifth year of the parliament and is therefore late-term; the swing is also much higher than normal for mid-terms. We have become used to swings of more than 20 percentage points and Blackpool South is the fifth Conservative seat to fall to Labour on such a large movement in the last year.

No previous parliament since 1945 has had more than two such wins for the main opposition. Blackpool’s verdict looks like an electoral death sentence for the Conservative government. While it is true that the turnout was very low (32.5%) this makes the disappearance of the Conservative vote all the more remarkable. Fewer people voted Tory in 2024 (3,218) than comprised Scott Benton’s marginal majority in 2019 (3,690). Labour polled well over half the vote; its victory owed nothing to the rise of Reform UK to threaten the Tories’ hold on second place …

The results demonstrate how we no longer have the same party system for different levels of election. In Blackpool South, Labour dominated the centre-left vote, the Lib Dems and Greens both losing their deposit. The rightwing vote was divided almost evenly between the Conservatives and Reform UK, giving Labour a massive margin of victory. In the local elections. the pattern is different, with Lib Dems and Greens having local strongholds and dividing the centre-left, while Reform’s limited participation in the local elections meant the Conservatives did not have to worry about vote splits outside a few localities like Hartlepool and Sunderland.

The toll of local government seat losses for the Conservatives, daunting though it may be as the day’s counting proceeds, is understating the potential for a general election drubbing.

And here is the full article.

As Ben Riley-Smith from the Telegraph reports, David Campbell Bannerman, chair of the Conservative Democratic Organisation and a former MEP (for both Ukip and the Tories) has said Rishi Sunak should quit.

David Campbell Bannerman, the ex-Tory MEP and chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation, calls on Rishi Sunak to resign.

He tells @Telegraph: “Once again local elections under Sunak have been absolutely disastrous. A year ago we should have won seats…” 1/3

…under him; we lost 1,000 councillors. This time is the worst performance in 40 years, so far.

“Sunak is not a natural campaigner and wasn’t even seen campaigning. The lesson is clear: enough of this disastrous, visionless, vacuous leadership. Rishi must go and go now….” 2/3

…This is a reality check for Conservative MPs: enough avoidance of the problem. If you don’t dump Sunak now the party is finished for at least a decade or more and the country is in danger under a hard Left woke Labour. Do the necessary and do it quickly!” 3/3

The Conservative Democratic Organistion is a fringe outfit run by diehard Boris Johnson loyalists. As further results come in today and over the weekend, the situation may well change, but if the anti-Sunak backlash does not spread much beyond Tim Montgomerie (see 6.25am) and David Campbell Bannerman, Sunak will be safe.

My colleague Helen Pidd points out that a Karl Marx has been elected as a Labour councillor in Stockport.

I want to know more about the Karl Marx of Stockport, who just won a seat for Labour in Stockport’s most deprived ward, Brinnington.

She is referring to this post on X from Stockport council.

Brinnington & Stockport Central results are in🗳️

Karl Peter Marx Wardlaw (Labour) has been elected to represent Brinnington & Stockport Central at the Stockport local elections 2024

In an interview with the BBC, Keir Starmer was asked if he was concerned that his position on Gaza was costing him vote. (It has been cited as the reason, or part of the reason, for Labour losing control of Oldham council.) In response, Starmer did not really engage with the question. He said that he was concerned wherever the party was losing votes. But he went on:

But there’s no denying that across the country, whether is Hartlepool in the north, or Rushmoor in the south [in Hampshire], or Redditch, bellwether seats, we are winning votes across the country. And that, I think, reflects a changed the Labour party with a positive case to take to the country.

Here is the latest summary of councils that have changed control as a result of results counted so far.

Labour gains from Tories: Redditch and Rushmoor

Labour gains from no overall control: Hartlepool and Thurrock

Conservative loss to no overall control: North East Lincolnshire

Labour losss to no overall control: Oldham

Lee Anderson, the former deputy chair of the Conservative party who is now a Reform UK MP, told the Today programme this morning that the result in Blackpool South showed that his party was “here to stay” and “making in-roads”.

And he said the election results were very bad for his old party.

It was a good night for Labour, let’s be honest. It was a very, very poor night for the Conservative party.

In an interview with Sky News this morning Richard Holden, the Conservative party chair, played down the results of the Blackpool South byelection, pointing out that it was held “in particular circumstances of not only the previous MP [Scott Benton] having been forced to stand down but also during the campaign in the neighbouring seat a former Conservative MP [Mark Menzies] had to have the whip withdrawn.”

Prof Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, gave a rather different assessment on the Today programme this morning. Speaking about the byelection result, he said:

The honest truth is the result in Blackpool South was spectacular. It was the third biggest swing from Conservative to Labour in post-war in postwar byelection history. And it’s the third biggest drop in the Conservative vote in postwar byelection history.

The trouble is, we’ve rather used to the spectacular in parliamentary byelections in this parliament. This is now the fifth by election in which the swing has been over 20%. There have haven’t been much more than a dozen of those in the whole of the post war period.

When was the last time that such swings occurred as more than a rare event? Well, it was the parliament of 1992 to 1997 which ended with Tony Blair winnning a landslide victory.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, told BBC Breakfast this morning that he did think Gaza might be costing the party votes in some places. “I don’t think there’s any point in denying that,” he said. But he said he did not think it was the only reason for Labour losing control of Oldham council. (See 7.19am.) He said:

In addition to the Middle East issue which you mentioned there are specific very local factors in Oldham which have knocked it out of line with the Labour gains we’ve been seeing in local elections.

The Conservative party has not got much to be positive about this morning, but it is reminding journalists this morning that Labour failed to take control of Harlow council in Essex, even though it was a Labour target. (See 5.32am.) Keir Starmer told Sky News Labour needed to win “in places like Harlow”, the Tories say. “Whilst this is tough night for the Conservative party, it’s clear there is absolutely no love for Keir Starmer,” a Tory source said.

The Tories went into the local elections with 21 of the seats on the council, and Labour holding the other 12. All seats were up for election. The Tories now have 17 seats, and Labour 16.

Starmer and Angela Rayner visited the town on Wednesday.

The Liberal Democrats have retained control of Winchester, after winning eight of the first 10 seats to be declared, PA reports.

Arooj Shah, the Labour leader of Oldham council, has rejected suggestions that Keir Starmer’s response to the Israel-Gaza war was to blame for the party losing control of the council. (See 6.44am.) When this was put to in an interview on the Today programme, she replied:

I don’t think that’s a fair statement to make, given that the issue of Gaza has been over the last year but what we’ve seen in Oldham is a lot longer than that … what we have had is 13 years of austerity and that’s been really, really difficult.

Shah said that there had been “divisive, toxic politics” in Oldham for the last five years and that problems in the town were ultimately linked to Tory austerity.

The Liberal Democrats are restating their call for an early general election. Commenting on the results so far, Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, said:

Rishi Sunak must listen to the country and immediately call a general election. Britain’s crumbling health services cannot wait any longer. Each day of dithering and delay by this Conservative government plunges our NHS further into crisis.

The Liberal Democrats are on the up with gaining councillors across the country, from Hampshire to Stockport.

The Liberal Democrats’ winning streak continues and we are ready to beat Conservative MPs and finally get this chaotic government out of office.

Here is the state of play for anyone just catching up with the overnight results.

• Labour has won the Blackpool South byelection with a swing of 26 points from the Conservative. It is the third largest Tory to Labour swing ever. Almost as ominously for the Conservatives, they only managed to beat Reform UK by 117 votes. Keir Starmer described this as a “seismic win” and a “truly historic result”.

• The Conservatives are already suffering heavy losses in the council elections. According to the BBC’s tally, they have already lost more than 100 seats. Within the last hour Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s election specialist, told the Today programme that the Conservatives were “basically losing half the seats they’re trying to defend”. He said if that continued, they could end up losing around 500 seats. He said the party seemed to be on course for “one of the worst, if not the worst Conservative performance in local government elections for the last 40 years”.

• Labour has gained control of four councils: Rushmoor and Redditch, both from the Conservatives; and Hartlepool and Thurrock, both from no overall control. The Conservatives have lost control of three councils. The full results are available here.

• The Liberal Democrats and the Greens have been celebrating gaining seats.

But most councils are yet to declare. Only 34 of the 107 councils were elections are taking place have declared. And none of the metro mayoral election results are in yet.

Here is a guide to when further results will be coming.

Stockport town hall will have no Conservative councillors for the second year running, which cannot bode well for the party’s reelection hopes in the general election.

Two out of three Stockport parliamentary constituencies are currently Tory (if we count Hazel Grove, which is officially independent after William Wragg got himself tangled up in that sextortion scandal).

The Liberal Democrats will feel very hopeful of winning back both Hazel Grove and Cheadle when the big day comes, though they will have been gutted to fail to take full council control, remaining one seat short of a majority. They’ll likely carry on running a minority administration with help from various independents and hyper local parties. Not a great night for Labour in one of Greater Manchester’s most affluent boroughs.

These are from Rob Ford, a politics professor and elections expert, on the significance of Labour’s byelection win in Blackpool South.

26 point Con to Lab swing in Blackpool South - third biggest swing ever. Reform UK’s 16.9% is the best they’ve achieved in a by-election *but* it is less than UKIP managed in the general election in 2015 in the same seat - and miles below what UKIP was getting regularly in by-elex in 2013-15

Tony Blair achieved four 20 point plus swings from Cons when he was opposition leader - Starmer has now achieved five - including four of the top 5 largest ever, all achieved in the last year

20 point plus Con to Lab swings:

Starmer 5

Blair 4

Kinnock 1

The Green party is celebrating gains overnight. It has gained council seats in Newcastle (2), South Tyneside (2), Colchester (1), Exeter (1), Sefton (1), Peterborough (1). Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, said: “We are winning because our message of hope is being heard by new groups of voters.”

Portsmouth remains under no overall control, with the Liberal Democrats still the biggest party, PA Media is reporting.

For months Rishi Sunak and No 10 have been worried about this moment, the morning after the local elections, because they feared that bad results would lead to Tories calling for Sunak to be replaced.

And this morning there has been a Conservative on the BBC saying Sunak should go. But the good news for Sunak is that it is only Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the ConservativeHome website and a respected commentator, but not an MP or someone with more clout in the parliamentary party.

This is what Montgomerie told the BBC’s election programme:

I think we do need to resolve the question of Rishi Sunak’s leadership. He’s a nice and decent man, but he just can’t do politics.

He hasn’t defined Labour in a significant way. He’s not able to campaign. He makes announcements, waits for reaction in the opinion polls, doesn’t get one and then moves on. There isn’t the sort of sustained campaign you would expect from an effective politician …

Personally I think the results are so bad, and althought it’s a big roll of the dice, and it would be a gamble, I just don’t think he is connected with the voters at all. I think he should go.

Sunak only really needs to worry when a former Tory minister starts turning up on the BBC saying the same thing.

The Lib Dems have also held on to Gosport Borough council and Winchester city council, while the party remain in minority control of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, the BBC has reported.

Portsmouth remains under no overall control, with the Liberal Democrats still the biggest party.

A Lib Dem source said:

We are buoyed by our gains overnight that set us up to take seats off the Conservatives at the next election.

We have made new inroads in true blue councils in Hampshire including in Suella Braverman’s back yard, gained ground in Stockport and topped the popular vote in battleground constituencies across the country.

This is just a taster of what is to come throughout Friday in the Blue Wall.

The Conservatives have managed to retain Harlow Council by one seat, after a tightly fought race.

This is from Ian Jones, a data /graphics journalist who works for PA Media:

Commenting on Labour’s decisive win in Blackpool South, Tory deputy chair Angela Richardson told the BBC: “The result was not unexpected. I think, given the circumstances that caused the byelection in the first place, it was always going to be difficult for the Conservatives.”

Elections expert Prof John Curtice said:

The only thing that’s stopped this result from being basically an unmitigated disaster for the Conservatives was the fact they just narrowly squeaked ahead of Reform.

Basically the project that Rishi Sunak is meant to be there to achieve, which is to narrow the gap on Labour, that project still has yet to provide any visible benefit.

The Guardian’s North of England correspondent, Robyn Vinter, explores the significance of the Blackpool South byelection win for Labour here:

Here is the Blackpool South byelection results in full (Tory to Labour swing was 26%):

• Chris Webb – Labour: 10,825

• David Jones – Conservative: 3,218

• Mark Butcher – Reform: 3,101

• Andrew Cregan – Lib Dems: 387

• Ben Thomas – Green Party: 368

• Stephen Black – Independent: 163

• Kim Knight – Alliance for Freedom and Democracy: 147

• Howling Laud Hope – Official Monster Raving Loony party: 121

• Damon Sharp – New Open Non-Political Organised Leadership: 45

The candidates for the Blackpool South byelection are gathering. We are expected to get the results imminently.

Labour gained the Cumbria police and crime commissioner from the Conservatives, with David Allen gaining a majority of 13,845, and the Liberal Democrat candidate on 18,100.

The turnout was just under 21%, slightly up on Lincolnshire PCC, where it was just under 19%.

This just in from the BBC about the Blackpool South byelection results, which we are expecting to be declared within the next half an hour.

This is from their live blog:

As the candidates and their campaign nervously await the declaration in the Blackpool South byelection, Reform UK’s candidate Mark Butcher – battling it out for second place with the Tories – tells me “it’s close, really close – there’s about 50 votes in it”.

Labour is expected to win back the seat, which fell vacant after the former Tory MP Scott Benton resigned after breaching standards rules in a lobbying scandal.

Benton won the once solidly Labour-voting constituency in the 2019 election with a 3,690 majority.

The Conservatives have retained control of Fareham after winning 17 of the first 22 seats to be declared on the council, which has 31 seats.

The party went into polling day with 24 seats.

Here are some of the latest images coming from the newswires of the Blackpool South count, which the Labour candidate, Chris Webb, is the firm favourite to win. It looks like it is a battle between the Tories and Reform for second place. We should be getting the results in shortly.

More of that PA interview with Richard Tice, the Reform party leader.

Asked what his party was aiming to achieve at a general election, he said:

As many votes as possible. To secure some seats. Frankly, it would be a really good time for us to get more votes cast than the Conservative party.

You have to be optimistic. It’s ambitious but it’s well doable given the trend of our polling, the progress.

Bear in mind there is probably a third of the country who have still never heard of us. So, if you think what we are polling and what we are achieving when people have not heard of us, in a sense it just shows there is a huge amount of extra growth and votes to go for.

Speaking in Blackpool ahead of the declaration for the Blackpool South seat, Reform UK party leader Richard Tice has had an interview with the PA news agency.

Tice has said that his Reform party – which is hoping to draw in Tory voters (along with anyone else fed up with the mainstream parties) – is now “the real opposition” to Labour in the so-called red wall (typically defined as former Labour seats in northern England and the Midlands).

Tice said:

From what we have seen from some of the local elections in the north-east and from this byelection in Blackpool South is that Reform UK is rapidly become the real opposition to Labour, whether it’s in the North, the Midlands, we know it’s the case in Wales. So, yes, we are very excited.

This is a very good day for Reform UK. It’s also a good day for democracy, actually, because the Great British people have got a serious alternative to consider when they want to go and vote.

Helen Catt, a BBC political correspondent, has just tweeted that turnout for Blackpool South is 32.5%. This is much lower than the figure for the 2019 general election, which was 56.8% (though it is true that byelection turnout is usually less than it is for a national poll).

Here is a historical graph of how Blackpool South has voted since 1992:

The Conservatives lost control of North East Lincolnshire after Labour won five seats and the Liberal Democrats and independents one each, with four results still to come.

The party needed to win six seats on the night to retain control, but took only one of the first eight to be declared.

The Mirror’s deputy political editor, Mikey Smith, has said No 10 and the Conservative party are refusing to say when, where or how Rishi Sunak, the UK’s prime minister, has voted. They were asked whether Sunak had voted for Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, but this reportedly was not confirmed.

The latest YouGov poll puts Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, 22 points ahead of Hall, with Khan, who is seeking a third term, on 47% to Hall’s 25%.

The Green candidate, Zoe Garbett, is on 7% while Liberal Democrat Rob Blackie is tied on 6% with Reform UK’s Howard Cox.

The results of four of the 11 mayoral contests (East Midlands, North East, Tees Valley and York & North Yorkshire) will be declared during the day on May 3, while the rest - including London and the West Midlands - will be declared on May 4.

The Green party has won its first ever council seats on Newcastle city council (see a breakdown of the results of the council’s election – which Labour won – here)

After gaining Elswick from Labour, Khaled Musharraf told BBC Radio “it was just about time”.

“The community was looking for something different. Nothing was happening in the community for a long period of time,” he said.

Asked if it was a sign of voters “fed-up with mainstream political parties and looking for an alternative,” Musharraf said he would “echo” that.

“When I spoke to people struggling with local issues – rubbish bins, potholes, safer safes – that is what helped us to win,” he told the BBC.

Labour retained control of Newcastle upon Tyne after winning 12 of the first 19 seats to be declared early on Friday morning.

The party held 46 of the 78 council seats going in to polling day and needed to win 10 of the 27 being contested to retain control.

The Liberal Democrats had won four, Greens two and independents one, with eight seats still to declare.

Labour retained control of South Tyneside, but lost at least seven seats to independents.

The party needed to win four seats of the 14 seats it held going in to polling day, and while it achieved that, its majority will be reduced.

Labour has held Newcastle upon Tyne, with 15 out of 27 wards declared, according to partial results reported by BBC News.

Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, has told Times Radio that Labour losses to the Greens in Newcastle are worrying.

“Early Green performances look v strong with a couple of striking gains in Newcastle. Overall Greens are averaging 11% where they are contesting wards, and are up a little on 2019 – their best ever year in local elections,” Politics professor Rob Ford tweeted.

“Big Labour declines in two Newcastle wards with c.40% Muslim population – one lost to Greens, other narrowly held off independent challenge.”

Helen Catt, a political correspondent from the BBC, has said the result from the Blackpool South byelection vote is not expected to be in until at least 3am this morning. Sky News is reporting the result should be in somewhere between 3 and 4am.

My colleague, Morgan Ofori, has been to Blackpool South to speak to voters about how they feel about Scott Benton, the former Tory MP who quit parliament before the conclusion of a recall petition among his constituents.

You can read his feature here:

The former Blackpool South MP was facing likely ejection from the Commons after he was suspended for 35 days over his role in a lobbying scandal, triggering a process whereby local people could force a byelection if at least 10% of registered voters signed the petition.

Benton took his seat from Labour in the 2019 election with a majority of just under 3,700, and Labour will be seen as firm favourites to take it back in a byelection.

Benton lost the Tory whip in April 2023 after suggesting to undercover reporters at the Times that he would be willing to break lobbying rules for money. The MP had offered to lobby ministers on behalf of the gambling industry and leak a confidential policy document for up to £4,000 a month.

The Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said the results in the Sunderland area, where partial results show a Labour hold of the council seat (see post at 01.10), show “if you vote Reform, you get Labour”.

He told BBC News:

It’s a very straightforward equation for people at the next general election.

If they want to vote Reform, they’ll end up with Labour MPs, and they’ll end up with a Labour government, and then they’ll end up, probably, with everything they didn’t want to vote for based on the profile of Reform voters.

The Conservatives have retained control of Broxbourne, in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. This has not come as much of a surprise to commentators as the Tories held 27 of the 30 seats, and only 10 are being contested (9 were won by the Tories and one by Labour). You can follow all the results live on our tracker here.

Helen Catt, a political correspondent from the BBC, has said the counting at the Blackpool South byelection vote has not begun yet. This is the most hotly anticipated vote of the night as a loss here could trigger a Tory leadership contest against Rishi Sunak. We are expecting results in the early hours of the morning (possibly between 2-4am).

The Westminster byelection has been triggered by the resignation of former Conservative MP Scott Benton amid a lobbying scandal.

Nine candidates are vying to replace him in the House of Commons. On the face of it, Labour’s Chris Webb is favourite to win.

Labour said it was hopeful of taking back the seat, which Benton won with a majority of 3,690 in 2019, but the race for second place could be problematic for Sunak if the Tories are outflanked on the right by the Reform party.

Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said the results of the Blackpool South byelection will be a “critical” measure of Rishi Sunak’s strength against the Labour party.

Labour sources are confident of victory in Blackpool South, with activists said to have reported large numbers of former Tory voters saying they would back Labour for the first time.

As we reported earlier (see post at 22:54), Labour’s national campaign coordinator, Pat McFadden, also highlighted the importance of Blackpool South, saying the “historic byelection” is the only chance for voters to “directly reject” Sunak’s Conservative party.

Dodds told Sky News:

The key election when it comes to looking at the overall strength of Rishi Sunak, I would say, against the Labour party is of course that byelection in Blackpool South.

It is a really critical place of course because in 2019 the Conservatives won almost 50% of the vote, so it will be really important to see what happens there …

The key thing is going to see whether Labour is moving forward in those areas where it is really critical that we build support before the next general election.

Of course it’s also going to be critical to see whether the Conservatives can pick up any seats.

If they can’t pick up seats in these elections, then they’re going to be even further behind than (former Conservative prime minister) John Major was in the run-up to the 1997 election.

Forecasts suggest the Tories could lose up to half of the council seats they are defending in England, with chancellor Jeremy Hunt saying the party expects to suffer “significant losses”.

With a general election expected later this year, the results from council, mayoral and police and crime commissioner contests and the Blackpool South parliamentary byelection will be closely scrutinised for signs of whether Labour’s national opinion poll leads can be turned into electoral success.

The Guardian’s political correspondent, Eleni Courea, has a useful guide on the seats up for grabs in the elections:

Counting is well under way with local and mayoral elections taking place across England and Wales (as well as a byelection being held in Blackpool South and police and crime commissioners being chosen across England and Wales):

There is frenzied speculation that a leadership challenge will be mounted against Rishi Sunak if the election results over the weekend are even more disastrous than anticipated.

The recent defection of the former Conservative health minister Dr Dan Poulter to Labour could further push rebellious Tories to plot against the prime minister.

The Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, looks at the myriad of issues facing Sunak, who insists he is not “distracted” by his personal ratings lingering at record lows.

Election analyst Matt Singh has a useful thread going through the elections we will have results from overnight.

He says people should be wary of the usual spin the parties deploy before and after election results – either to manage expectations or to explain away losses.

Singh adds that it is already apparent that there is a “sizeable personal vote for incumbents”, which he says should not be taken as an accurate measure of any wider trends.

Here are the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers:

The Green party co-leader Carla Denyer said that she is anticipating “another record night” for the Greens, with the party boosting its councillor numbers for the fourth successive election.

More than 2,660 council seats are up for grabs, with the Green party defending just over 100.

Denyer said:

It has been a wonderful experience to be out on the doorstep listening to voters and understanding why their concerns over the cost of living, cuts to local services and the climate crisis are turning into votes for the Green party.

I want to thank every single voter who has gone to the polls today to vote for a fairer, greener country.

Our fantastic volunteers and candidates have been out knocking on doors, listening to voters and responding with a positive vision of what their Green vote would mean.

As counting begins, I look forward to another record night for the Green party. We have increased our councillor numbers at each of the last four elections – and I believe we can do so again.

That will lay the firmest of foundations for our general election campaign when we are going to do everything we can to get at least four Green MPs elected to parliament.

We know that having a Green in the council chamber or in parliament delivers for people, the community and the planet.”

The Greens have never been stronger in local government and will target Bristol, where they are already the largest party, writes Robert Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University.

The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are due on Saturday. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term and polls have put him comfortably ahead of Tory Susan Hall, despite jitters in Khan’s campaign team.

Following the closure of the polls tonight, Khan said his campaign and Labour activists “sent out a message of fairness, of equality and of hope”.

The London mayor said: “Whatever the results this weekend might bring, I am so proud of that.”

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, has described the Blackpool South byelection as “historic” and has singled it out as the most important “election of the night”.

McFadden, who is the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, said:

The most important election of the night is the historic byelection in Blackpool, caused by yet more Tory chaos and scandal.

It’s the only election today where voters have had the opportunity to directly reject Rishi Sunak’s party in Westminster.

It’s going to be a long night and the full picture of results from local elections may not be clear until over the weekend, but we expect to see Labour gains that show we’re making progress in the places we need to win the next general election.

Labour are the frontrunners to regain Blackpool South – which fell to the Conservatives as the “red wall” crumbled in 2019.

The seat fell vacant after the former Tory MP Scott Benton resigned after breaching standards rules in a lobbying scandal. Benton won the once solidly Labour-voting constituency in the 2019 election with a 3,690 majority.

While much of the focus tonight will be on tightly held contests between Labour and the Conservatives, the Lib Dems will also have significant influence in the polls and are looking at Dorset council as their main target, writes the Observer’s policy editor, Michael Savage.

Dorset, where they are aiming to become the largest party on the council, is controlled by the Tories. It would confirm a comeback in the south-west, on top of its progress in the “blue wall” home counties.

The party will also hope to take control in Wokingham, represented at Westminster by John Redwood, in west Oxfordshire, whose MP was once David Cameron; and in Elmbridge, where Dominic Raab’s Westminster seat is a top target.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, issued this statement after the polls closed at 10pm:

Davey said:

The message across the country today was loud and clear. Voters want an end to this appalling Conservative government.

People are sick of the Conservative party’s endless infighting, unaffordable mortgages, an NHS in freefall and filthy sewage being pumped into their rivers and seas.

They want change and they want to see the end of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party in office. That is why, up and down the country, so many lifelong Conservative voters backed the Liberal Democrats today, because they know Liberal Democrat councillors will never take them for granted and fight for the issues they care about.