Rishi Sunak was dealt a series of shattering blows as Labour won a knife-edge battle to seize the West Midlands mayoralty from the Conservatives and Sadiq Khan trounced his Tory rival in London to secure a third term, writes Toby Helm, Michael Savage and Jessica Murray.

The results, along with decisive victories for Labour’s Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire, left Labour in charge of most of England’s mayoralties.

The West Midlands upset where Andy Street lost to Richard Parker by 1,508 votes, announced after a dramatic series of recounts, followed a disastrous showing for the Tories in Thursday’s local council elections. They finished third behind the Liberal Democrats in the number of seats won, for the first time since 1996.

Keir Starmer was advised by his team to get an early night on Thursday before the first election results started to come through at dawn the next day.

They booked the Labour leader into a hotel at a secret location in the north-west, so he could be bright and breezy when celebrating an anticipated parliamentary byelection win in Blackpool South.

But the early-to-bed plan didn’t work out quite as expected. Labour’s campaign chief Morgan McSweeney took calls from his anxious boss throughout the early hours until Starmer was told the result from Blackpool soon after 4.30am.

In their sleep deprived state, the main consideration for Starmer and McSweeney was not so much confirmation of the win – a Labour victory was pretty much assured – but the size of the swing.

Keir Starmer has struck a conciliatory tone as he told voters who had turned away from Labour over its stance on Gaza he was determined to win their trust again in the future.

Speaking in Birmingham, the Labour leader said: “I say directly to those who may have voted Labour in the past but felt that on this occasion that they couldn’t that across the West Midlands we are a proud and diverse community.

“I have heard you. I have listened. And I am determined to meet your concerns and to gain your respect and trust again in the future.”

Labour has lost seats in a smattering of councils to independents and George Galloway’s Worker’s party of Britain over its approach to the conflict in the Middle East.

But the party dominated mayoral elections across England, winning in Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and in Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham returned to power.

As Labour celebrates strong results in this week’s local elections, Opinium’s latest poll reveals the party also maintains a strong 16-point lead over the Conservatives.

Labour has 40% (-1), the Conservatives are on 24% (-1) and the Liberal Democrats have 11% (+1). Reform falls slightly to 12% (-1), while the Green party remains on 7% and SNP on 3% (+1).

Rishi Sunak’s approval rating has also dropped by -6 points in the last month to -40% net, while Keir Starmer’s remains stable at -9% net, widening his lead to +30%.

The Muslim Council of Britain’s secretary-general, Zara Mohammed, said: “These election results are a wake-up call to all parties: every vote counts. Politicians can’t take anyone for granted, especially not British Muslims.

“The dissatisfaction with politicians is palpable, and the response to the atrocities in Gaza is only the tip of the iceberg.

“Instead of respectful and meaningful dialogue, British Muslims face a political culture dominated by ideologues silencing their voices, questioning their intentions or having their views filtered through acceptable gatekeepers.”

Andy Street apologises to his team and thanks voters

The former West Midlands mayor apologised to his Conservative team after being defeated by Richard Parker and not making a hat-trick.

Saying thank you to his team across the region, he added: “It has been my honour to lead you for the last seven years.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it that triple or hat-trick, but mark my words, you will be back for that.”

Street thanked his fellow candidates, including Parker for “how he’s conducted himself in the campaign” and wished him “all strength and wisdom as he takes on this role”.

And he also thanked those who voted for him on Thursday, for the “trust” they showed in him, adding “that’s perhaps the most important word in politics of all”.

In the end, it was not to be, but of course, that doesn’t mean I appreciate that trust any less. So thank you, to the voters.

I hope I’ve done it with dignity and integrity.

And I hope I’ve bequeathed to Richard a combined authority and indeed a role to which young aspiring leaders will want to aspire one day.

In a sense, I can have done no more than that.

It has been a great privilege. But tonight, I just wanted to say thank you, and good night.

Richard Parker says he will make West Midlands a ‘roaring success’

The new mayor of the West Midlands said he would “make this region a roaring success again” and that his election shows “people are calling for Labour, and calling for change”.

This is the most important thing I will ever do, this week people here voted for the person and the party.

They recognise that a Labour mayor can make a positive difference in this region.

You have put your trust in me and I will repay that trust – I will deliver for you and your family, I promise you that I will deliver jobs, we will fix our public transport system, we will build the homes you need and we will give this region the fresh start it richly deserves.

I will also stand up for those people who didn’t vote for me.

People are calling for Labour, and calling for change. People are looking once again at our party and asking us to govern, up and down the country.

Richard Parker thanks Andy Street after his shock win

The newly elected mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, thanked the Conservative candidate, Andy Street, after his shock win.

Speaking after his election was announced, Labour’s Parker said: “Thank you first and foremost, thank you.”

He thanked polling staff and added: “Thank you also to Andy [Street], you’ve led this region through a number of great challenges and you deserve a great credit for that.

“You deserve credit for building up the combined authority into the powerhouse that it is today, through the economic shocks, and leading this region when it came out of Covid.

“You’ve been out there representing our region, I absolutely believe that whilst our politics are different, Andy, we both have the best interests of the West Midlands at heart.”

Keir Starmer celebrates ‘phenomenal’ victory in West Midlands

The Labour leader said Labour’s victory in the West Midlands mayoral election was a “phenomenal result” that was “beyond our expectations”.

“People across the country have had enough of Conservative chaos and decline and voted for change with Labour.

“Our fantastic new mayor Richard Parker stands ready to deliver a fresh start for the West Midlands.

“My changed Labour party is back in the service of working people, and stands ready to govern. Labour will turn the page after 14 years of Tory decline and usher in a decade of national renewal. That change starts today.”

Rishi Sunak will have been relieved when Ben Houchen was declared the winner in the Tees Valley mayoral election, but he can’t disguise the fact that these were very bad election results, writes the former prime minister Theresa May’s chief of staff, Garvin Barwell.

Council elections are difficult to interpret – there are a host of local factors at play. The best thing to look at is what is known as national equivalent vote share. The BBC’s estimate at the time of writing is that Labour received 34% and the Conservatives 25%.

This tells us two important things about British politics. First – if we didn’t already know it – that the Tories are likely heading for a defeat, and potentially a very heavy one, at the general election later this year: 25% is as bad as they were getting at the nadir of John Major’s government (David Cameron did recover from a similarly low standing but that was in midterm, not a few months before polling day).

Despite all Rishi Sunak’s efforts, the party has actually gone backwards slightly over the past 12 months.

Sadiq Khan has been re-elected as the Mayor of London with the smallest mandate since the office was created 24 years ago, analysis from the Electoral Reform Society shows.

The Labour politician won 43.8% of the vote, which was enough to secure him a third term under the new first past the post system.

Labour MP Ellie Reeves has just congratulated Richard Parker on his “incredible result and significant victory” in the West Midlands.

Labour won three of the eight police and crime commissioner elections declared on Saturday, gaining Cheshire from the Conservatives and holding West Midlands and Merseyside.

The Conservatives held Hertfordshire and Dorset comfortably, and had narrow wins in Warwickshire by just 306 votes, 0.26%, Thames Valley by 2,343 (0.52%) and Wiltshire by 2,233 votes (1.79%).

Labour gained nine PCCs from the Conservatives on Friday, as well as holding five.

The party now has 17 PCCs, the same as the Conservatives, with Plaid Cymru retaining Dyfed-Powys.

There are two results to be declared on Sunday, in Kent and Sussex.

Labour sources said they believe they have beaten Andy Street and taken the mayor of the West Midlands from the Conservatives.

Richard Parker and a large group of Labour activists have gathered in front of the stage at the election count in Birmingham as we await the final vote results from Sandwell.

As things stand, the party need 11,456 more votes than Street in this final result to win. The party think they will have won about 12,000 votes in Sandwell, putting them about 500 votes in the lead.

The final result will be coming imminently.

With all 14 constituencies of the London Assembly declared, Labour had 10 seats, the Conservatives three and the Liberal Democrats one.

The Liberal Democrats say they have won South West London and that Gareth Roberts has been elected to the London Assembly.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The Liberal Democrats are moving from strength to strength as the Conservatives go the way of the dinosaurs in south-west London.

“This has been an historic set of local election results for the Liberal Democrats, and now we’re making more history here in London with newly elected Gareth Roberts AM.”

In Cheshire, Labour’s Dan Price has defeated Conservative incumbent John Dwyer to become the police and crime commissioner.

Sadiq Khan’s victory speech on Saturday after being re-elected mayor of London, winning a historic third term.

London mayoral hopeful Count Binface said “down with fascism, up with Ceefax” after discovering he had beaten Britain First’s candidate, Nick Scanlon.

He told reporters at City Hall: “It looks like I have defeated Britain First in an election.

“Come on, you have to cheer about that … Down with fascism, up with Ceefax, what can I say?”

As things stand, there are almost 21,000 votes separating Street and Parker – and Street is in the lead.

We’re just waiting on Coventry and Sandwell to declare their results. A recount is under way in Coventry so the result there is expected to be very close.

The final tally could still be an hour away.

Labour’s West Midlands mayor candidate, Richard Parker, polled almost 14,000 votes more than Andy Street in the Birmingham city council area.

Parker received 80,251 votes in the city, followed by Street with 66,296, and a strong showing of 40,923 votes for the independent, pro-Gaza candidate, Akhmed Yakoob.

In Walsall, Street polled 24,735 votes, Parker 18,097 and Yakoob 8,451.

Jeremy Hunt and his team are considering not holding another tax-cutting autumn statement before the next election, amid uncertainty about the public finances.

The chancellor has already hinted that he plans to pledge further tax cuts – including another down payment on Rishi Sunak’s ambition to abolish national insurance – before a general election, which is expected to be held in the autumn. He also remains under pressure from the right of the party to lower taxes.

However, the Observer understands that Hunt may opt to throw further tax-cutting pledges into the next Tory manifesto, rather than holding a final so-called “fiscal event” that would require a detailed analysis of the public finances by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Labour’s Simon Foster was returned as the West Midlands police and crime commissioner.

Foster received 327,000 votes across the region, a winning margin of more than 86,000.

Speaking after the result declaration in Birmingham, Foster, who won a legal battle to fight government efforts to scrap his PCC post, said: “The role of the PCC is as important as that of the (regional) mayor.

“That’s why the West Midlands needs a democratically elected and directly accountable PCC with their own democratic mandate. This is an election the Conservative government and its mayor did not want.”

The results are in for Birmingham, one of the seven local authority areas in the West Midlands mayoral election.

Labour’s candidate, Richard Parker, got 80,251 votes, while the Conservative, Andy Street, got 66,296 – both receiving a lower percentage of the vote share than they did in 2021.

The independent candidate, Akhmed Yakoob, came third with 42,953 (nearly 20% of the vote). His campaign largely focused on Gaza and he was predicted to take a number of votes from Labour over the issue.

Sadiq Khan said his “determination to ensure London leads from the front with world-leading green action remains as strong as ever”.

He added: “Today’s not about making history, it’s about shaping our future.

“A future where children can be nourished with free school meals and breathe cleaner air, where all Londoners are given the support and helping hand they need to fulfil their potential, and where our social fabric is strengthened and our diverse communities cherished and celebrated.

“My determination to ensure London leads from the front with world-leading green action remains as strong as ever.

“We’ve already made great strides cleaning up our air and will continue to tackle pollution, whether it’s found on our streets or in our rivers.”

Susan Hall said Sadiq Khan should stop “patronising” people who care about London.

Speaking at City Hall after the election results came in, she said: “I’d like to congratulate all my fellow mayoral candidates and congratulate Sadiq on his victory.

“Spending a year campaigning for this election has been an honour and a privilege. I have loved speaking to Londoners about the things that matter to them.

“The thing that matters the most, and to me, is reforming the Met and making London safe again. I hope Sadiq makes this his top priority.

“He owes it to the families of those thousands of people who have lost lives to knife crime under his mayoralty.

“And I hope too that he stops patronising people, like me, who care. This isn’t an episode of The Wire, this is real life on his watch.”

Paul Dennett, who was re-elected as Salford City mayor with 61.5% of the vote, said holding the position was the “most rewarding and humbling experience” of his life.

He said the “Westminster and Whitehall model” of governing was “clearly broken and detached from ordinary people’s lives”.

In a speech after the declaration, Dennett said: “The Tories have been roundly rejected by the people in this country, losing nearly 500 council seats across 107 councils in these elections.

“Both locally and nationally it is clear that the Tories have fundamentally lost their way and it is clearly now time for a general election and for this government to step aside and make way for a Labour government.”

With nine of the 14 London Assembly results in, Labour had won eight and the Liberal Democrats had gained South West from the Conservatives.

Labour’s vote share was 43.91%, down by 0.98% on 2021 – when this election was last held, and the Conservatives down 5.15% on 21.73%, with the Liberal Democrats on 14.79%, up 0.54%, the Greens on 14.79, up 0.54%, and Reform UK on 6.26%, up 3.85%.

Khan also thanked his mum, wife and two daughters for their strength and support.

He apologised for putting them through the protests and threats he has faced during his tenure.

“A special thank you goes to my mum, everything she’s done for me. I love you. And to my amazing wife, Saadiya, and our daughters Anisah and Ammarah, for their strength and support throughout all these years.

“I know there have been times when this job has taken a toll on you. But that’s not right, or fair.

“Some of the stuff on social media, the protests by our home, the threats. It’s upsetting, it’s frightening and it’s wrong. I’m truly sorry for putting you through this.

“But I also know you share my belief, as hard as it can be sometimes, this work is worth doing because it means being able to give to other families the same life-changing opportunities that this wonderful city has extended to ours. I love you all so much.”

A heckler walked across the stage before Khan’s victory speech and shouted “Khan killed London”.

Khan said: “Its been a difficult few months. We faced a campaign of non-stop negativity.”

Khan added he and his team responded to fear-mongering with facts, hate with hope and attempts to divide with unity.

Here is some reaction to Sadiq Khan winning a historic third term and the other mayoral races.

Shirley Rodrigues, deputy mayor for environment and energy in London, wrote on X: “I’m back! And what a fantastic result - tackling the climate and ecological emergencies & air pollution is the right thing to do! It was #ULEZ wot won it!”

Mel Evans, head of climate at Greenpeace UK, said: “Sadiq Khan’s win with an even bigger majority confirms the clear message from this election: bold climate and environmental action is a vote-winner. Anti-green populism has largely backfired at the ballot box.

“Many of the local and mayoral candidates that stood on bold green policy platforms won resounding victories. The people of London, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool and the North East all elected mayors and councillors who have committed to boosting public transport, delivering green growth and cutting emissions. As Labour continues its resurgence to power, the gains made in these local elections demonstrate, once again, that the British public overwhelmingly support climate action.”

Neal Lawson, director of the campaign group Compass, said:

“We should celebrate the alliance of progressive voters uniting behind Sadiq Khan, but forcing people to vote Labour just to keep the right out is driving distrust, alienation, and short-termism in our politics. That’s the reality under first past the post.

“Under a more democratic system, we could still keep the right out without alienating voters and perpetuating democratic injustices.”

Sadiq Khan has been elected mayor of London, winning a historic third term in a dramatic contest.

Khan was declared the winner on Saturday afternoon with the Conservative candidate Susan Hall finishing second.

The London mayor had described the battle as a “close two-horse race” when polls predicted he had a 25-point lead over his Tory rival, in what appeared to be an effort to encourage Labour loyalists and more apathetic Londoners to vote.

According to London Elects, which manages the mayoral and London assembly elections, voter turnout was only 1.5% down from 2021, at 40.5%. Bexley and Bromley, led by the Conservatives, had the highest constituency turnout with 48%.

I will be handing over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah now for the rest of the local election results and politics news. It’s been a pleasure to bring you updates on today’s politics live blog.

Here is a video of Andy Burnham’s speech after he was re-elected as Greater Manchester mayor.

In Greater Manchester, there was a net swing of 3% from Conservative to Labour, according to Prof John Curtice.

The elections expert told the BBC that while Andy Burnham’s winning 63% of the vote was four points down on 2021, the Conservative vote was down by nine points.

The Liberal Democrats have won more council seats overall than the Conservatives in the local elections, elections expert John Curtice said.

Curtice told the BBC:

The Liberal Democrats now have 520 councillors, and the Conservatives have 508. It is now clear to us with just the one council to go that the Liberal Democrats will end up having won more council seats than the Conservatives in these local elections.

This is a simple headline way of underlining the way in which the results of those local elections have indeed been extremely disappointing for the Conservatives.”

However, Curtice pointed out that this “probably says more about the problems that the Conservative party faces rather than the Liberal Democrats having done particularly well”.

Jessica Murray is at the West Midlands mayor count in Birmingham:

The first results are starting to come in for the West Midlands mayoral election.

In Solihull, a Conservative stronghold, Andy Street received 35,289 votes, well ahead of the 11,728 for Labour’s Richard Parker.

But the result is closer than it was in 2021, when Street received 41,664 first preference votes and Labour got 9,512. (This is the first year the vote has been conducted under first past the post, rather than the supplementary vote system).

It’s still too early to make any clear conclusions, but it suggests the overall result could be very close.

This means Street’s lead in Solihull has dropped from closer to 30,000 to 23,561

Traditional Tory stronghold Solihull was the first of seven council areas to declare its results for the West Midlands mayor election, with Andy Street polling well ahead of Labour’s Richard Parker, reports the Press Association (PA).

Parker received 11,728 votes, well behind Street on 35,289. Green Party candidate Siobhan Harper-Nunes received the third highest vote in the borough (3,582).

Solihull has the smallest number of registered voters of the seven boroughs in the region, with 162,529 of an electorate of more than two million.

Chris Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood and former energy minister who signed net zero into law has said on X that “these elections have shown pro-environment parties and mayors who made net zero central to their campaigns made significant gains”.

He adds: “Reform have won two council seats out of 2,500. Time to recognise the net zero row back and kowtowing to an extreme fringe was a strategic disaster.”

According to the Press Association, officials say that London mayoral election candidates have been told to arrive at City Hall for 4.30pm.

A possible declaration could come soon after that.

Sorry, seven constituencies have now declared in the London mayoral elections, so to clarify, Curtice’s forecast was made before the Bexley and Bromley results were declared.

Sadiq Khan needs to win a simple majority of ballots cast, as the rules for the mayoral race were changed to a first-past-the-post voting system.

With six of the 14 constituency results declared, elections expert John Curtice is forecasting that Sadiq Khan will be re-elected as London mayor for an historic third term.

Curtice, who is a polling expert for the BBC, anticipates that the outcome in terms of votes will approximately be as follows:

• Sadiq Khan (Labour) – 43%

• Susan Hall (Conservative) – 33%

According to the BBC, this would represent a swing of 2.5% from Conservative to Labour since 2021.

Steve Rotheram has said his re-election is a “vote of confidence in devolution”, according to the PA.

He said:

From a standing start we’re starting to see the advantages and a greater understanding of devolution’s benefits; devo [devolution] is delivering innovation, regeneration and renaissance, like 60,000 jobs, 30,000 apprenticeships, 30,000 new homes.

The country’s first publicly owned trains in a generation, the best publicly owned and run digital connectivity in the country, and meaningful action to fix the broken bus market, real, tangible, progressive policies that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

The road to Downing Street runs through transformative Labour administrations in local and regional Government; with Labour in Westminster, we will get to see what real devolution is like, not the limited decentralisation that we have at the moment.”

Alan Rusbridger, editor of Prospect and former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, has shared his thoughts on Boris Johnson’s efforts to use his Prospect magazine sleeve, on which his name and address had been printed, as voter ID.

“Delighted Boris Johnson is a subscriber to Prospect. Warning to potential subscribers: the magazine is miraculous in many ways, but may not be used as photo ID,” tweeted Rusbridger.

Steve Rotheram has accused Rishi Sunak of “squatting in Downing Street”, according to a report by the Press Association (PA).

The re-elected Liverpool City Region mayor said:

The prime minister is squatting in Downing Street and I say, come out and face the voters, Mr Sunak, call a general election, we’re ready when you are, but while we’re waiting our work will continue unabated.”

He added:

This result isn’t just a rejection of the Tories, voters in our city region aren’t easily kidded, it’s a ringing endorsement of what we’re doing locally too, and they weren’t hoodwinked by pie-in-the sky populist pledges.

It’s no less dishonest, you know, to promise to deliver undeliverable things locally than it is to advertise to £350m a week for our NHS on the side bus if we left the EU.

It appears that for some, mud slinging and smear tactics are still the weapon of choice in the armoury of the deceitful and desperate.”

James Ball, political editor at the New European, says on X that the mayoral results in Greenwich and Lewisham mark a “good start” for Sadiq Khan.

He’s compared the Labour and Conservative votes of 2024 with those of the mayoral election in 2021.

Ball notes that “the good start for Khan continues in Merton and Wandsworth”.

For those wanting to check his working, he’s shared it in this thread.

Jessica Murray is at the West Midlands mayor count in Birmingham:

Andy Street has arrived at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham where the results of the West Midlands mayoral election are due to be announced this afternoon.

Polls have shown Street and Labour candidate Richard Parker are neck and neck, but sources inside Labour were yesterday claiming the Conservatives had won it.

They were suggesting Labour’s stance on Gaza could have lost the party many votes in areas with large Muslim populations.

The result looks set to be incredibly close and all eyes will be on the region to see who comes out on top.

After reports that the London mayoral race may be closer than expected, here’s a glimpse of Susan Hall’s plan for London.

According to the official London Elects booklet posted to London constituencies, Hall’s ‘“plan written by Londoners” consists of:

• Make London’s streets safer: Recruit extra police for our streets, stop the closing of London’s police stations, bring back borough-led policing.

• Cut the cost of travelling around London: Scrap Ulez expansion on day one, support local councils to remove unwanted low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), no driving charge for every mile you drive.

• Build more affordable family homes: Prioritise building more affordable family homes, stop the building of unwanted tower blocks in our suburbs, prioritise building on brownfield sites – not London’s remaining greenbelt.

Just to clarify, the London mayoral and assembly election votes were verified (the process to check that all ballots are accounted for and are in the correct ballot boxes) yesterday and then the votes are counted today.

According to London Elects, all votes are counted manually and counting started at 9am on Saturday 4 May.

More from Keir Starmer speaking at a rally in Mansfield this morning.

The Labour leader said: “It now is upon us to deliver that change to each of those people that put their faith in us in the vote here in the East Midlands and we will do so with a positive case for the country.”

He listed Labour’s plans to “pick up the NHS”, make sure the streets are safe, build affordable homes, and provide secure jobs.

Starmer said: “That falls to us, because today is the day that we celebrate the beginning of the turning of the page, one of the last milestones now as we go into that general election.”

He added: “Let’s turn the page on decline and usher in national renewal with Labour.”

For those in the comments expressing concern about Larry the cat in all of this local election chaos, rest assured that he* has been sharing updates on X. In particular, Larry shared this important message on Thursday:

*may not be actual Larry the cat tweeting.

Just in case you’re wondering what’s on the cards today, here is an explainer of the key mayoral and local election results still to come:

Keir Starmer is at a rally in Mansfield where he has congratulated Labour’s Claire Ward for her victory yesterday. Ward was elected the first mayor of the East Midlands, beating the Conservative Ben Bradley by more than 50,000 votes.

Starmer told the crowd: “Claire and the whole team here – this is a fantastic victory. A really important victory. You fought for this with a very, very positive campaign. I came here myself to campaign with you. I was struck by the positivity of the case that you were making, and you were rewarded with the trust and confidence of the voters in the East Midlands.”

Starmer called the East Midlands “a really, really important area for us”. He said:

The underlying constituncies, the voters across the whole of the East Midlands came out and voted Labour and that is a very significant moment in our history.

And when the history books are written about this period of our political history in the UK, this will be part of that story; the day you were able to persuade people that we are a changed Labour party with a positive plan to take to the country and they can safely out their vote agianst the Labour cross.”

He repeated that it was a “very, very significant and important victory” and one he said “vindicates the hard work of the last few years changing the Labour party”.

“I think the message here is very, very clear and I think across the East Midlands there’s been a sending of that message to the government, which is ‘we’re fed up with your division, your chaos, your failure’.”

Starmer said the Conservatives “do not deserve to be in government for a moment longer”. He described the East Midlands result as a “vote for Claire, the East Midlands, for the country and it was a vote for change”.

As we await the London mayoral election results (and we’ll be waiting a while as they’re not due for a few hours yet), let’s take a look back at Daniel Boffey’s profile on the Conservative London mayoral candidate, Susan Hall. Here’s a taster:

Hall’s candidature was born out of scandal when the favourite, Daniel Korski, a former Downing Street adviser, pulled out over allegations of sexual misconduct, and it is a rare week that Hall’s past tweets or tendency to “shoot from the hip”, as one ally generously described it, has not been exploited by the Khan camp to highlight her “Trumpian” approach to the climate emergency and potentially controversial views.

She has called for the government to delay its commitment to be carbon net zero by 2050 and there was much consternation when comments emerged in which Hall, 69, claimed that there was a “problem with crime” in the black community, something her allies say was born out of concern for people of colour. But she had also replied to a social media post in 2019 from former Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins describing Khan as “our nipple-height mayor of Londonistan” with the words “thank you Katie” and was forced to apologise for liking a tweet in 2020 that had a picture of Enoch Powell captioned “it’s never too late to get London back”.

Hall, a London assembly member, has explained this away as a tendency a few years back to spend “too much time on Twitter”, but then there are the more recent campaign gaffes.

Criticising Khan’s record on crime, Hall had claimed to be a victim of pickpocketing on the underground. It later emerged her purse had been found lodged between seats on the Jubilee line with her £40 still in it.

It is suggested that Hall, a loyal foot soldier of the Tory party, is acting in line with its general trend since 2016 – and could prove to be a harbinger of its post-general election shape. “The Conservatives appear to be going down a post-Brexit right-wing rabbit hole”, the source added. Hall’s campaign has been all about cars and crime.

You can read Boffey’s full piece on Hall’s London mayor bid here:

Local election results so far demonstrate Rishi Sunak has “very little to show” for his efforts to recover the Conservative brand following Liz Truss’s premiership, John Curtice said, reports the Press Association (PA).

The election expert told the BBC:

There is nothing in these results to suggest contrary to the opinion polls that the Conservatives are actually beginning to narrow the gap on Labour, and that so far at least, Rishi Sunak’s project which has tried to recover from the disaster – from the Conservatives’ point of view – of the Liz Truss fiscal event, that project has still got very little to show for it. That in a sense is the big takeaway.

Now the Conservatives, as when all parties do badly in elections, they always want you to focus on the exception rather than the rule, and Tees Valley and probably the West Midlands are the exceptions not the rule.”

On Labour losses over its stance on Gaza, Curtice said:

At the moment I think what we would find if we had a general election is that Labour might well fall back in some of these seats, but because the Labour party is already so strong, they would probably still succeed in winning the parliamentary election.

But yep, this is a big message to Labour from these local elections, is that you are indeed now in trouble with some of your Muslim former supporters.”

In an opinion piece for the Guardian, columnist Jonathan Freedland writes:

It was not an opinion poll. These were local elections about local issues. The results tell you only about where we are now, not where we might be come the autumn, or whenever it is that Rishi Sunak finally submits himself to the judgment of the country.

You know all the caveats, to which we can add one more: some of the biggest results, namely the mayoral contests in London, Manchester and the West Midlands, won’t come until Saturday. And yet, taken together, the votes cast on Thursday form an increasingly clear picture. It is a bleak one for the Conservatives – while for Labour it contains both cheer and a perhaps unexpected warning.

Make no mistake, the core story contained in these numbers is yet more confirmation of the disastrous standing of the Conservative party. As loudly and clearly as they can, voters are telling the Tories that their time is up. Nowhere was that message more deafening than in the Blackpool South byelection, where – yet again – the Conservatives suffered a colossal swing to Labour: at 26%, the third biggest such swing in history. (The second biggest came less than three months ago, in Wellingborough.) Those results can’t be written off as midterm blips or one-off protest votes. These are tremblings of the seismograph, saying an earthquake is coming.

You can read Freedland’s full opinion piece here:

My colleagues Alex Clark and Ashley Kirk have put together a visual analysis of what the local election 2024 results may signal for a general election.

You can take a look at the maps, charts, data and analysis here:

My colleague, Eleni Courea, previously detailed the England local and mayoral election results to look out for, and this is what she had to say about this weekend:

Saturday afternoon
The West Midlands metro mayoralty – perhaps the most closely fought major contest in this set of elections – is expected to declare its result on Saturday around 3pm. Andy Street is seeking re-election for a third term but faces a challenge from Labour’s Richard Parker, with polls suggesting the pair have been neck and neck.

The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are also 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. The Greater Manchester contest, which Andy Burnham is all but certain to win, is also due.

This last set of results, which will include some councils and police and crime commissioners declaring on Saturday and Sunday, will complete the picture of these local elections and determine just how much trouble the Conservatives are in.

Following an evening of sweeping local election losses, Conservative MP Andrew Griffith said it was “clearly a very difficult night” and “very regrettable” as results show setbacks for the party ahead of a general election.

The science minister said while it was expected to be “difficult going in” and “obviously it has been” as the party suffered one of its worst performances since the 1990s, Griffith pointed to an “extremely difficult” recent years after the global coronavirus pandemic and energy costs from the war in Ukraine.

“A difficult night and clearly very regrettable for so many of my hardworking colleagues in local government, no doubt about that,” Griffith told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Saturday. “I don’t want to overstate it, clearly a very difficult night.”

When asked why in areas like Dorset, where Conservatives have dominated for the last five decades and on Friday evening lost control to the Liberal Democrats, Griffith said “these things take time”.

“On a low turnout election, about one-third of people seem to have voted in these byelections and over these local government elections, there’s a lot more we have to do over the coming months,” he said. “We’re going to keep delivering the plan.”

As mentioned earlier, the Liberal Democrats’ victory in Dorset yesterday was a significant result for the party.

Commenting last night on the result, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said:

The Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country. This is a historic result.

After our stunning parliamentary byelection wins in Tiverton and Honiton, and Somerton and Frome, and our fantastic local election victories in the last two years in Somerset and Devon, and now Dorset, the Liberal Democrats are truly on the up in the West Country.”

Labour also won inaugural mayoral contests in the East Midlands and the north-east, and gained nine police and crime commissioner posts from the Tories, including in Cumbria, Avon and Somerset, and Norfolk.

It also took a Tory scalp by winning the Blackpool South byelection.

But in a smattering of councils, the opposition party lost seats to independents and George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, all apparently over the party’s stance on Gaza.

Overall, Labour won control of eight councils as it saw a net gain of 204 seats, while the Liberal Democrats gained 92 seats and the Greens 58.

The Liberal Democrats’ most significant victory was winning control of Dorset council from the Conservatives, where it now has 42 of the 82 seats after gaining 15.

The Greens fell narrowly short of taking overall control of Bristol, one of their top targets, despite gaining 10 seats.

Closing out the first day of results, Sunak suggested there was still hope for his party despite already suffering bruising defeats in the final test of voters before a general election.

He wrote in the Telegraph newspaper:

Thursday’s results showed that voters are frustrated and wondering why they should vote. The fact Labour is not winning in places that they admit themselves they need for a majority, shows that Keir Starmer’s lack of plan and vision is hurting them.

We Conservatives have everything to fight for – and we will because we are fighting for our values and our country’s future.”

Sunak pointed to his party’s recent commitment to increase defence spending, and measures to grasp migration as clear dividing lines with Labour.

Starmer meanwhile hailed his party’s victory in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral race on Friday afternoon as “truly historic”.

The region, which covers Sunak’s Richmond constituency, is somewhere Labour has historically struggled to compete in parliamentary elections.

The police and crime commissioners in England and Wales election results left to declare are:

• Cheshire

• Dorset

• Hertfordshire

• Kent

• Merseyside

• Sussex

• Thames Valley

• Warwickshire

• West Midlands

• Wiltshire

The Greens were celebrating a spectacular win in Bristol yesterday, where it became by far the largest party, as it headed for a record number of councillors in local elections across England.

Party officials said they believed they were on track to finish with more than 800 members on more than 170 councils.

In Bristol they fell narrowly short of taking overall control, winning 34 of the 70 seats and leaving Labour trailing a distant second with 21. The Bristol Green group, which will lead the council, becomes the largest the party has had.

Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the party in England and Wales, said it was an “exciting result”, telling the Guardian:

It’s really encouraging to see so many voters are giving their confidence to the Greens. It’s also a very promising sign for the general election.

The party picked up all 14 seats in the heart of the city, a boost to its chances of winning the Westminster seat of Bristol Central.

Boris Johnson has thanked three villagers who turned him away from a polling station on Thursday for attempting to vote without a valid ID.

Writing for the Daily Mail, Johnson said he attempted to use a copy of Prospect magazine as a form of identification, but was turned away by local electorate officials.
Mr Johnson wrote:

I want to pay a particular tribute to the three villagers who on Thursday rightly turned me away when I appeared in the polling station with nothing to prove my identity except the sleeve of my copy of Prospect magazine, on which my name and address had been printed.

I showed it to them and they looked very dubious... within minutes I was back with my driving licence and voted Tory.

The requirement to provide photo ID was introduced by Mr Johnson during his time in Downing Street as part of the Elections Act 2022.

Beneath the euphoria of Labour’s wins in places such as Blackpool, Hartlepool and Thurrock lies a nervousness about the party’s performance in urban areas, with campaigners warning it had lost ground in both London and Birmingham.

By Friday afternoon, the party had gained more than 140 council seats and won the Blackpool South byelection with the third biggest swing in post-war history. But party sources said they were not confident of winning the marginal West Midlands mayoral race and that the Tory candidate for the London mayoralty, Susan Hall, could also run Sadiq Khan unexpectedly close.

Rob Ford, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said:

The Labour strategy was to do better in parts of the country they had lost since 2016: leave areas, more rural areas, more Tory areas, whiter areas. They have done better across the board in all those areas.

They also have seen trouble brewing up on their left flank. There has been a substantial loss of support in heavily Muslim areas and they are going backwards a bit in progressive areas and areas with students. It is progress at a price.