A summary of today's developments
- Boris Johnson has been celebrating after “Super Thursday”, the biggest electoral event outside a general election in modern British history, opened with the Conservatives winning Hartlepool from Labour with a huge, 16-point swing.
- Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to redouble efforts to regain the trust of the British public following Labour’s defeat in Hartlepool - but he and his allies have found it hard to articulate how this could be achieved. Labour leftwingers have said he should embrace Jeremy Corbyn’s policy agenda, Peter Mandelson has said the party needs to show that it understands “Brexit values” and Andrew Adonis has in effect said that Starmer should resign.
- Nicola Sturgeon has played down the prospects of winning an overall Holyrood majority. The SNP picked up key seats in Edinburgh Central - where former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson replaced the one time Scottish Tory boss Ruth Davidson - and in Ayr and East Lothian. But under Holyrood’s proportional representation system, those successes could see it lose seats on the regional list ballot.
- Labour’s Jackie Baillie held on to her Dumbarton constituency - which had been the most marginal seat in all of Scotland and a top target for the SNP.
- In Wales, Labour has won 26 constituency seats, five short of a majority, with votes to elect a further 20 regional seats due to be counted on Saturday.
- London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey won the most votes in the Ealing and Hillingdon constituency and the West Central constituency over Labour rival Sadiq Khan.
That’s all for our election blog this evening but we will be back in the morning with more results, analysis and reaction.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon has played down the prospects of winning an overall Holyrood majority despite a late surge in wins for the Scottish National party.
The first minister and Scottish National party leader told reporters in Glasgow “a majority has always been a very, very long shot” as counts across the country showed support for sitting Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates.
But the first day of results left the SNP with a significant and unassailable lead over their closest rivals, the Conservatives and Labour, taking 38 of the 47 constituency seats which declared on Friday.
Speaking earlier, Sturgeon said: “I’m feeling extremely happy and extremely confident that we are on track in the SNP for a fourth consecutive election victory and to have the ability to form a government again and that’s an extraordinary achievement for any political party.”
Mark Drakeford’s Welsh Labour has declared its strong Senedd election performance as “an extraordinary set of results in extraordinary times” as the party look favourite to retain control of the Welsh government, PA reports.
The party has exceeded expectations as counting for the Welsh Parliament election continues, having so far lost just one of its seats and taking Rhondda from Plaid Cymru’s former leader Leanne Wood.
Commenting on the “remarkable turnaround”, a Labour spokesperson said: “It is increasingly clear that people across Wales have put their faith in Welsh Labour and Mark Drakeford to lead the next Welsh Government and lead Wales out of the pandemic.”
Health minister Vaughan Gething held his Cardiff South and Penarth seat with 18,153 votes (49.89%), a increase of 4,879 votes from 2016, and said Labour and Mr Drakeford’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic was a “major factor” in the party’s results.
Updated
Footage of a cat being whisked away from a polling station in Scotland.
Here is where we are. With 47 constituency results declared on Friday, the SNP have 38 seats, Liberal Democrats four, Conservatives three and Labour two.
Nicola Sturgeon’s hopes of winning an overall majority for the SNP at Holyrood election are hanging in the balance, PA reports.
The SNP picked up key seats in Edinburgh Central - where former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson replaced the one time Scottish Tory boss Ruth Davidson - as well as as in Ayr and East Lothian.
But under Holyrood’s proportional representation system, those successes could see it lose seats on the regional list ballot.
Labour’s Jackie Baillie held on to her Dumbarton constituency - which had been the most marginal seat in all of Scotland and a top target for the SNP.
With some constituencies still to be counted on Saturday, when the crucial regional list results will also be declared, Sturgeon said it was “not impossible”.
The coronavirus pandemic meant traditional overnight counts were abandoned after Thursday’s Scottish Parliament election.
Updated
After all that Jackie Baillie holds Dumbarton for Labour with an increased majority - so the “SNP majority” talk is on hold for tonight. Focus turns to Aberdeenshire West tomorrow
— Philip Sim (@BBCPhilipSim) May 7, 2021
Bailey wins Ealing and Hillingdon constituency in London mayoral race
London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey was given a further boost by winning the most votes in the Ealing and Hillingdon constituency.
The Conservative candidate scored 79,863 first preference votes, ahead of his Labour rival, Sadiq Khan, who scored 74,854 votes.
The Green Party’s Sian Berry was third, with 13,041 votes.
Jackie Baillie retains Dumbarton seat
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie has retained the Dumbarton seat, increasing her majority in what was the country’s most marginal seat.
Baillie won 17,825 votes, compared to 16,342 for the SNP’s Tony Giugliano.
In 2016, the Dumbarton seat went to the Labour deputy leader by just 109 votes, but increased to 1,483.
Former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood loses Rhondda Senedd seat
NEW: As I reported some hours ago, Leanne Wood has lost Rhondda. Labour has GAINED the seat- majority 5497
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 7, 2021
This is a very good night/day for Welsh Labour.
Alex Salmond has said this election was “perhaps too early to make the breakthrough we were looking for”.
Asked by the BBC about his Alba Party’s prospects, the former Scotland first minister said “whether we will make it tomorrow, I don’t think so on the results we’ve seen”.
“I think probably we will take out of this election the arguments we have been putting forward will be proven to be correct. Firstly that independence should be front and centre of election campaigns if we want to persuade people to vote for it.
“And, secondly, it looks like, though it is not certain, that the SNP will be poised on an overall majority but there won’t be the backing in terms of the enthusiasm for getting on with the independence referendum.
“Crucially, it seems perhaps a million, perhaps even more than a million, SNP votes on the regional list are going to elect perhaps one, perhaps two MSPs on that section of the ballot paper across Scotland. What a waste.”
Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, scored a greater number of votes in the West Central constituency than his Labour rival Sadiq Khan.
Bailey polled 53,713 first preference votes compared with 51,508 for Khan.
Sian Berry, from the Green Party, was third with 10,239 first preference votes.
Greens are taking seats from absolutely everyone, absolutely everywhere.
— Patrick English (@PME_Politics) May 7, 2021
If you're looking for a #SuperThursday narrative beyond Keir Starmer and the Red Wall today, this is it. https://t.co/XL9b5VjzIg
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said she hoped and expected that Boris Johnson would not block another independence referendum.
“When we get to that point we will take the action, introduce the legislation that would be necessary for an independence referendum, and if Boris Johnson wants to stop that he would have to go to court,” she told Channel 4 News. “I hope and expect that wouldn’t happen because actually Boris Johnson is not exempt from the rules of democracy.” Sturgeon added: “If this was in almost any other democracy in the world it would be an absurd discussion.”
Or perhaps not. https://t.co/eOPxipNZeS
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) May 7, 2021
A dent in the largely theoretical, ‘Londoners voting for pro-cycling candidates’ narrative. https://t.co/F5cizNfXqr
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) May 7, 2021
Updated
Scottish Labour retain Edinburgh Southern
Scottish Labour has held Edinburgh Southern, its first seat of the Scottish election so far.
Daniel Johnson won 20,760 votes to SNP candidate Catriona MacDonald’s 16,738. The Scottish Conservatives took 5,258 votes and the Scottish Liberal Democrats 2,189.
Updated
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party was “offering nothing” to voters.
Asked if Starmer should quit, the former Labour leader told Channel 4 News: “It’s up to him what he decides to do. “But the important thing is that this party represents a real, radical alternative to inspire people. “Offering nothing, offering insipid support for the government causes people either to vote for somebody else or simply to stay home and disappear.”
Updated
Earlier on Friday, the SNP’s Paul McLennan won 17,968 votes in the East Lothian seat, which was held by the former Labour leader Iain Gray until his retirement this year.
Gray boasted a majority of 1,127, but after a 2.58% swing that has now shifted to a 1,179-vote lead for the SNP. The Scottish Labour candidate Martin Whitfield won 16,789 votes with a turnout of 69%.
Updated
SNP win Ayr seat by 170 votes
In Ayr, the SNP’s Siobhian Brown defeated the Tory incumbent, John Scott, who had held the seat since 2000, by 18,881 votes to 18,711.
Brown reversed a majority of just 750 votes, winning by 170.
Scottish Labour won 4,766 votes in the seat, while the Liberal Democrats took just 808, with a turnout of 68% of the electorate.
Updated
Speaking after winning the Edinburgh Central seat, Angus Robertson said: “In this most European of capital cities, people have resoundingly rejected the party of Brexit and Boris Johnson.
“The public has rejected all of the parties that want to block an independence referendum.”
He added: “This result is an emphatic and an unparalleled victory for the SNP in Edinburgh Central.
“We have just won the seat of the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives and recorded the best ever SNP result.”
Welsh Labour appears to have exceeded expectations as counting for the Welsh parliament election continues.
Only one of Wales’ so-called red wall seats, the Vale of Clwyd, fell to the Welsh Conservatives, while Labour sources are also confident of unseating the former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood in Rhondda, PA reports.
Changes to ensure social distancing at venues means counting for all constituencies may not finish on Friday, which would see the process being adjourned until Saturday morning. Some regional counts also look set to be pushed back to Saturday.
The first minister, Mark Drakeford, said Labour’s performance reflected the “real enthusiasm” he had encountered on doorsteps but said it was “too early to say” whether results meant the party could win an outright majority.
Updated
This makes *really* grim reading for Labour... https://t.co/v3x8YvVyZS
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) May 7, 2021
Former SNP leader Angus Robertson wins in Edinburgh Central
The former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson has won the Edinburgh Central constituency in the Holyrood election formerly held by ex-Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.
Robertson reversed a Conservative majority of 810, winning 16,276 votes.
The Tory candidate, Scott Douglas, won 11,544 votes, giving the SNP a majority of 4,732.
Updated
Updated
Early evening summary
- Boris Johnson has been celebrating after “Super Thursday”, the biggest electoral event outside a general election in modern British history, opened with the Conservatives winning Hartlepool from Labour with a huge, 16-point swing. Hartlepool has had a Labour MP continuously for almost 60 years, but Jill Mortimer won it with a majority of almost 7,000. (See 7.16am.) The Brexit party got 26% of the vote here in the general election, its successor party got just 1% in the byelection, and if it had not been for the Brexit party splitting the anti-Labour vote in 2019, Hartlepool would have joined other “Red Wall” Labour seats turning Tory 17 months ago. But a delayed shock result is still a shock result. Most of the “Super Thursday” election results have yet to be declared, and counting will continue over the weekend and even into Monday, but day one has been triumph for the Conservatives. The latest results are here.
- Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to redouble efforts to regain the trust of the British public following Labour’s defeat in Hartlepool - but he and his allies have found it hard to articulate how this could be achieved. (See 8.29am and 4.36pm.) Labour leftwingers have said he should embrace Jeremy Corbyn’s policy agenda, Peter Mandelson has said the party needs to show that it understands “Brexit values” (see 1.07pm) and Andrew Adonis has in effect said that Starmer should resign. (See 12.29pm.)
That’s all from me for today. My colleague Nadeem Badshah is now taking over.
I’ll be back tomorrow for another full day of results coverage.
Updated
Labour MP says his party has been captured by 'woke social media warriors'
The Labour MP Khalid Mahmood says his party has been taken over by “woke social media warriors”. In an article for Policy Exchange, a conservative thinktank, about why Labour lost Hartlepool he says:
My view is simple: in the past decade, Labour has lost touch with ordinary British people. A London-based bourgeoisie, with the support of brigades of woke social media warriors, has effectively captured the party. They mean well, of course, but their politics – obsessed with identity, division and even tech utopianism – have more in common with those of Californian high society than the kind of people who voted in Hartlepool yesterday. The loudest voices in the Labour movement over the past year in particular have focused more on pulling down Churchill’s statue than they have on helping people pull themselves up in the world. No wonder it is doing better among rich urban liberals and young university graduates than it is amongst the most important part of its traditional electoral coalition, the working-class.
It has also emerged that Mahmood has quit his post as a shadow defence minister, but Jonathan Walker from the Birmingham Post and Mail says that that happened several weeks ago, and was not related to the issues in his article.
I'm told by @khalid4PB that he left the Labour front bench four weeks ago, and it wasn't related to the issues he raises today https://t.co/k3rGFlWJry
— Jonathan Walker (@jonwalker121) May 7, 2021
This is from Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) thinktank, summarising what has happened in the English local elections so far.
We’re still only about a third of council results in but at this stage it’s clear that the Conservatives are consolidating their position in Red Wall and non-metropolitan areas. As well as significant victories in Hartlepool and the Tees Valley mayoralty, they have taken control of four councils and won over 128 seats overwhelmingly at the expense of Labour.
The swing against Labour has been concentrated in those seats last contested in 2016 and not in 2017, suggesting that today’s results are a continuation of an existing trend in British politics rather than a sudden shift.
These results will have a real impact on local areas. It will reinforce the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda but is also likely to strengthen the government’s preference for driving this through targeted interventions and grant funding. This could be disempowering for local government as a whole and will be particularly concerning for places that do not neatly fit the ‘levelling up’ profile.
Updated
In her acceptance speech in Glasgow Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said she would hold a referendum on Scottish independence “when the time is right”.
After defeating the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, by 19,735 votes to 10,279, Sturgeon said her party seemed on course to win the election. She went on:
If that is indeed the outcome of this election, I pledge today to get back to work immediately to continue to steer the country through the crisis of Covid, to continue to lead this country into recovery from Covid.
And then, when the time is right, to offer this country the choice of a better future.
As PA Media reports, Sturgeon also took aim at elements of the far right who stood in the Glasgow Southside seat, including the former Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen - whom Sturgeon described as a “racist and a fascist” during a confrontation on election day. Sturgeon said:
The far-right thug who led that confrontation got 46 votes and I am proud that once again Glasgow Southside has shown the racists and the fascists that they are not welcome in Glasgow Southside, they are not welcome in Glasgow, and they are not welcome anywhere in Scotland, and let that be a note of unity.
Updated
The Scottish Conservatives expect to lose their Edinburgh Central seat to the SNP after record numbers of voters turned out to vote in the Scottish capital, PA Media reports. PA says:
Scottish Labour’s Daniel Johnson has also said he is confident of retaining his Edinburgh Southern seat, while in Edinburgh Western fellow incumbent – Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton – also expects to be returned to Holyrood.
Turnout in three of Edinburgh’s Holyrood constituencies – Central, Southern and Western – were all higher than at any other Scottish parliament election
Updated
How true are Johnson's claims about benefits of Brexit?
Here is a request from below the line.
I don’t always factcheck all of Boris Johnson’s claims because a), if I did, there would not be time for anything else, and b) Politics Live readers are generally quite well informed, and so it is safe to assume a fair amount of background knowledge.
But, since you ask, here goes. Johnson made four claims about Brexit earlier. (See 3.33pm.) One was true, but the other three were either questionable, misleading or false.
1 - “Thanks to Brexit that we have been able to go ahead with the freeport in the whole of Teesside,” Johnson said.
This is misleading. Freeports are allowed in the EU, although with the UK outside the EU, they can arguably operate in a more expansive form. See here or here for more.
2 - Outside the EU the UK can “take back control of our borders”, Johnson said.
In the sense that the UK is no longer bound by EU free movement rules, this is true.
3 - Outside the EU the UK could block the European Super League, Johnson said.
This is arguable, but unproven. When the super league plan emerged, Johnson threatened to use a “legislative bomb” to stop it. But No 10 never said what this might mean. Conceivably there might have been legislation impossible under EU competition rules, and conceivably this threat killed off the scheme, but we just don’t know. When Johnson made this claim in the Commons, at the subsequent lobby briefing the PM’s spokesman failed to provide evidence to back up the claim when asked to do so.
4 - Outside the EU the UK would not have been able to roll out vaccines as quickly as it did, Johnson said.
This is untrue. It is possible that, if the UK had remained in the EU, the government may have decided to just go along with the EU vaccine procurement programme. But it would not have been forced to do that. Even when the UK was a member, successive governments, Labour and Conservative, acted independently of the EU when they thought it was in the national interest, and if the UK had remained in the EU it would have been free to run its own vaccine programme. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency confirmed this last year.
Updated
Prof Sir John Curtice also said that Alex Salmond’s chances of getting elected to the Scottish parliament as a regional list MSP were not looking good because his Alba party was getting just 2% in the Aberdeen Donside constituency (an area where it might be expected to do well).
John Curtice reports Alba at 2 per cent in Aberdeen Donside list
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) May 7, 2021
The leading psephologist Prof Sir John Curtice told the BBC a few minutes ago that he thought the SNP’s performance so far was not good enough for them to get an overall majority. He explained:
They don’t need a dramatic increase in their support, two or three points up, two or three points down for their opponents would be enough. But so far at the moment the SNP vote is running about a couple of points down on what it was in 2016 .... At the moment at least there aren’t signs of the consistent progress on the kind of scale that the SNP need that would translate into an overall majority.
But Curtice also stressed that we are at an early stage in the counting, and things could change.
Updated
Liverpool votes in UK's first directly elected female black mayor
Liverpool has made history by choosing the UK’s first directly elected female black mayor and the first woman to lead the city, Joanne Anderson.
In one of the few good news stories for Labour on Friday, Anderson beat Stephen Yip, an independent. The Conservative candidate, Katie Burgess, lost her deposit. Anderson won 59% of the total votes (46,493 to Yip’s 32,079), although the race went to second preferences for the first time in its history.
The leftwing socialist has spoken of making politics more inclusive. When she was chosen as Labour’s candidate, she spoke of growing up in Thatcher’s Britain in the 80s, feeling as though she was “the bottom of the pile” and “wouldn’t amount to much”, particularly as a young black woman.
Anderson has committed to transforming the culture of the city council. She will have a steep challenge to rebuild trust after a damning emergency inspection painted what the communities secretary described as a “deeply concerning picture of mismanagement”, amid estimates that as much as £100m of public money was squandered by a “dysfunctional” council at the centre of corruption allegations.
The scandal threw the region, which dispatches 14 Labour MPs to Westminster, and the city, which has not had a Conservative councillor since 1998, into political turmoil. The catalyst for the inspection was the arrest of the former mayor, Labour’s Joe Anderson (no relation), in December along with other council officials as part of an investigation into allegedly corrupt building and development contracts. He has denied any wrongdoing, but stood aside from the mayoral race.
Anderson, a former business consultant, has pledged to make violence against women and girls a personal priority and her crowdsourced manifesto promised to introduce a “triple lock” to each council decision so that it is gauged by its impact on inclusion, the environment and social value.
Updated
Starmer says he's 'bitterly disappointed' by results and promises to 'rebuild trust'
Sir Keir Starmer has said that he is “bitterly disappointed” by the election results and that he will take full responsibility, not just for what happened, but for fixing things. He told Sky News:
I take full responsibility for the results, and I will take full responsibility for fixing things.
We have changed as a party, but we haven’t set out a strong enough case to the country. Very often we’ve been talking to ourselves instead of to the country and we’ve lost the trust of working people, particularly in places like Hartlepool.
I intend to do whatever is necessary to fix that.
When asked whether that meant moving to the left or to the right, Starmer said that was not the issue. He explained:
This is not a question of left or right. It is a question of whether we are facing the country.
We have changed as a party but we’ve not made a strong enough case to the country, we’ve lost that connection, that trust, and I intend to rebuild that and do whatever is necessary to rebuild that trust.
But when asked to explain what that meant in policy terms, Starmer would not elaborate. He said it meant “stopping as a party quarrelling amongst ourselves” and instead setting out a “bold vision for a better Britain”.
Updated
Ben Houchen wins re-election as Tory mayor of Tees Valley by landslide
Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, has been re-elected by a landslide. He got 121,964 votes (73%), beating Labour’s Jessie Joe Jacobs, who got 45,641 (27%).
Teesside used to be seen as a Labour heartlands area and when Houchen won the inaugural mayoral contest in 2017 that was seen as a surprise result for the Tories. On the first count four years ago he was more or less neck and neck with Labour on 39%, meaning this year he’s achieved a swing of 22.5%.
Labour loses control of Sheffield council
Big news from the Steel City, where Labour has lost control of Sheffield following a Green and Lib Dem surge.
The Greens made five gains and now have 13 councillors. The Lib Dems took three seats from Labour and now have 29 councillors. Labour is still the largest party, with 41 seats, but that is two short of the majority needed to rule outright. The council is now in no overall control.
The Greens have been nibbling away at Labour’s majority for several years, capitalising on a row over tree felling, which saw one Green councillor prosecuted by the council for her role in protests. Alison Teale was later cleared of all charges. The Greens also received a massive popularity boost thanks to the highly charismatic Magid Magid, a young refugee who made headlines around the world when he became Sheffield’s Lord Mayor and later Green MEP for Yorkshire.
Bob Johnson, who has been Sheffield’s Labour leader for just six months, lost his seat to the Greens in Hillsborough. The Conservatives won their first in Sheffield in 20 years, winning Stocksbridge and Deepcar. In the general election in 2019 the Tories won the corresponding Westminster seat of Penistone and Stocksbridge.
Labour has lost control of Sheffield council, my colleague Helen Pidd reports.
Wowsers. Labour has lost control of Sheffield city council and its leader, after a Green and Lib Dem surge https://t.co/MFsJzcTk5r
— Helen Pidd (@helenpidd) May 7, 2021
Sturgeon says getting majority was always going to be 'very, very long shot' for SNP
Speaking at her count in Glasgow, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said all parties should be pleased by the high turnout.
Asked about the prospects of the SNP winning an overall majority, she replied:
A majority has always been a very, very long shot. The Holyrood system is a proportional representation system. In 2011 [when the SNP won a majority] we effectively broke that system, so it would be good to do but I have never taken that for granted.
That has always been on a knife’s edge, a small number of votes and a small number of seats. So we’ll wait to see how the votes pan out over today and tomorrow, but at this stage in the results - and there’s a long, long way to go - I’m feeling extremely happy.
Updated
From Ian Jones from PA Media
Biggest swings so far in Scotland:
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 7, 2021
Banffshire & Buchan Coast 10.3% SNP to Con
Aberdeen Donside 6.2% SNP to Con
Clydebank & Milngavie 5.8% SNP to Lab
Orkney Islands 4.8% LD to SNP
Dundee City West 4.2% Lab to SNP
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has arrived at her count in Glasgow saying that getting an overall majority was always “a very, very long shot” for the SNP, the BBC’s Lynsey Bews reports.
Nicola Sturgeon arrving at Glasgow count: "A majority has always been a very, very long shot"
— Lynsey Bews (@lynseybews) May 7, 2021
The BBC’s Philip Sim says this is just expectation management.
To continue my role today as party-pooper, this is standard expectation management and entirely what you'd expect her to say https://t.co/Nnvh6JSpIj
— Philip Sim (@BBCPhilipSim) May 7, 2021
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has retained his Perthshire North seat, PA Media reports. Swinney polled a total of 19,860 votes, extending his majority over the Conservatives in the constituency.
Speaking in Hartlepool, Boris Johnson also claimed that the country was now benefiting from Brexit. He explained:
This a a place that voted for Brexit. We got Brexit done and then we are able to do other things thanks to that.
It’s thanks to Brexit that we have been able to go ahead with the freeport in the whole of Teesside, do things like take back control of our borders.
We are able to deal with things like the European Super League and, of course, we are able to do things a bit differently when it comes to the vaccine rollout that has been so important and enabled [us] to deliver that faster than other European countries.
Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, has told the BBC that voters do not know what Sir Keir Starmer stands for. Starmer promised to make the “moral case for socialism” when he was elected leader, McCluskey said, but had failed to do so. McCluskey said Starmer now had to “press the reset button”.
Time for @Keir_Starmer to press the reset button. My interview with @bbcnickrobinson for his Political Thinking podcast. Watch it clipped here, or listen in full later 🔽https://t.co/IbqTv5fs3e pic.twitter.com/lk9YfdKukK
— Len McCluskey (@LenMcCluskey) May 7, 2021
A rare hopeful moment for Labour, as counting of second preference votes begins in Liverpool’s Tennis centre for the city mayoral race. The two candidates through to the second round are Labour’s Joanne Anderson (39%) and independent Stephen Yip (22%).
Either candidates would make history: Anderson would be the first directly elected black female mayor in the country, and the first woman to lead the city, and Yip would be the first mayor of Chinese descent.
Turnout was at 30.5%, around the same as 2012’s mayoral election, which Labour hopes means that their vote held up. It has been an unusually unpredictable election. Although Liverpool is normally a Labour stronghold, the city was plunged into political turmoil when former mayor Joe Anderson (no relation) was arrested exactly six months ago. He denies all charges, but stood aside.
The final result is expected in the next couple of hours. Here is the full breakdown of votes:
Liverpool mayoral election results - first round
Joanne Marie Anderson, Labour - 38,958
Roger Bannister, TUSC - 2,912
Katie Maria Burgess, Conservative - 4,187
Tom Crone, Green - 8,768
Richard Kemp, Liberal Democrats - 17,166
Steve Radford, Liberal - 7,135
Stephen Barry Loy Yip, Independent - 22,047
Liverpool Labour mayoral candidate Joanne Anderson (centre) at the count at the Wavertree Tennis Centre, Liverpool. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Labour is “on the brink of irrelevance”, according to Dave Ward, general secretary of the CWU union. He wants the party to commit to a bold policy agenda designed to appeal to working people.
It was the CWU that infuriated Sir Keir Starmer’s supporters by commissioning a poll a month ago that suggested the Tories were on course for a seven-point win. (In fact, they won by 23 percentage points.) The poll also showed strong support in the constituency for some of the measures in Labour’s 2019 manifesto.
Statement on election results from @DaveWardGS
— The CWU (@CWUnews) May 7, 2021
People don’t know what Labour stands for. pic.twitter.com/UWFlxIhnZ3
Six Labour group leaders - including two council leaders - lose seats in north and Midlands
Labour is having a shocker in the north and Midlands. So far two Labour council leaders — in Sheffield and Oldham — have lost their seats, along with the opposition group leaders in Nottinghamshire, Northumberland, Leicestershire and Derbyshire.
Ousting a council leader is always a big prize for any opposition party, which tend to put a disproportionate effort into claiming such a big scalp. In Sheffield, it was the Greens who did for Labour’s Bob Johnson, beating him by over 300 votes. In Oldham, Sean Fielding was replaced by the Failsworth Independents, an off-shoot of a fractious hyperlocal Facebook site renowned for its anti-Labour chatter.
Updated
The Green party says it is making gains across the country. It put out a news release about 40 minutes ago saying it had won 22 council seats, of which 17 were gains from the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Green councillors have also been elected to four authorities for the first time: Northumberland, Stockport, Hastings and Derbyshire.
Jonathan Bartley, the party’s co-leader, said:
There is still a long way to go, but I’m delighted to see Greens winning across the country, including gaining our first seats in Stockport, Northumberland, Hastings and Derbyshire. It’s clear that there are no no-go areas for Greens anymore.
We are winning seats in areas that have traditionally been thought of as Labour and Conservative. Green politics is on the rise and it is only the Green party that is offering a clear vision of a better future, with thousands of Green jobs, warmer homes, safer streets, thriving local economies and stronger communities.
Johnson claims his government more serious about 'uniting and levelling up' than its predecessors
Speaking to Sky’s Beth Rigby, Boris Johnson said the government had delivered on getting Brexit done and that people now wanted it to deliver on everything else. He went on:
What people want us to do now is to get on with delivering on everything else.
Number one is continuing the vaccine rollout, making sure that we go from jabs, jabs, jabs to jobs, jobs, jobs, making sure we have a strong economic recovery.
But then get on with the massive project for this country, and it is a very ambitious thing, and every government has tried it to some extent but I don’t think any government has tried it as wholeheartedly as this government is trying, and that is uniting and levelling up.
And the basic idea is that there is genius and talent and enthusiasm and flair and imagination everywhere in the country, but opportunity is not evenly distributed. That’s the basic idea and that’s what we’re trying to change.
Johnson made “levelling up” a central theme of his 2019 general election campaign, but the claim that his government has been more serious about it than any of its predecessors is a “bold” one, to put it politely. Ministers have done little to define what “levelling up” actually means, and Johnson has only just got round to appointing a levelling up adviser, and promising a white paper.
But Johnson’s answer does suggest that he has finally come up with a definition of levelling up in his own mind; it means promoting equality of opportunity.
Updated
The SNP MSP Alasdair Allan has held his Western Isles seat, PA Media reports. Allan won with a majority of 3,441.
In Hartlepool Boris Johnson is asked what he will do if the SNP wins a majority in Scotland. Johnson sidesteps the question, saying: “Let’s wait and see.”
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Russell George, a Conservative, has been re-elected in Montgomeryshire in the first Welsh Senedd result to be declared, PA Media reports. He polled just over 12,000 votes, 48% of the total, with a 7,528 majority over Plaid Cymru’s Elwyn Vaughan.
Boris Johnson is in Hartlepool where Sky’s Beth Rigby is interviewing him.
Asked if the vote was really about Brexit, Johnson says people want a government focused on change. He mentions plans for the local free port. That is part of the vision for the north-east as part of the green revolution, he says. Those will be well-paid jobs that will allow people to feel they are doing something worthwhile.
Q: Is a deeper shift under way?
Johnson says people voted Tory in 2019 to get Brexit done. They have seen the government did get Brexit done. Now they want it to get on with other things.
He says he wants to move from “jabs, jabs, jabs to jobs, jobs, jobs”.
And he stresses his commitment to levelling up. No government in the past has been as serious about it, he claims.
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Gavin Barwell, the former Conservative MP (he used to represent Croydon Central, and wrote a good book on How to Win a Marginal Seat) and Theresa May’s former chief of staff, has written an astute Twitter thread on the problems facing Labour. It starts here.
Many Labour MPs put all the blame for their 2019 defeat on Jeremy Corbyn. He was certainly a big factor but this narrative obscures the huge underlying challenges Labour faces. It is in a tougher situation today than the mid 1980s THREAD 1/n https://t.co/UToEQka9Fr
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) May 7, 2021
And here is one of his arguments.
Second, it's an electoral trap. The Conservative vote is becoming increasingly aligned with Leave, the Labour vote with Remain. But although the referendum result was close, the Remain vote was heavily concentrated in London, Scotland and NI 7/n
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) May 7, 2021
This means that in constituency terms Leave has a big advantage. And the Conservatives have a virtual monopoly on the Leave vote whereas the Remain vote is split between Labour, the LDs, the Greens and Nationalists in Scotland and Wales 8/n
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) May 7, 2021
This is from Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader.
Tory gains are bad news for jobs, the environment & public services for the many not the few. With millions not voting, these results show a loss of hope. We must offer a bolder vision to transform people’s lives & give them the confidence to strive for a more equal world.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 7, 2021
On Sky News Andrew Fisher, who was Corbyn’s head of policy, has just said that in 25 years he has never seen such a vacuous Labour campaign.
But he said he thought some Labour mayoral candidates would do well. That was because they had clear policies, he said.
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The SNP has held the Aberdeen Donside seat at the Scottish parliament. Jackie Dunbar was returned as the MSP for the constituency with an 18,514 majority.
But the Tories are celebrating an eight-point increase in vote share.
Incredible job by @Harriet4Donside managing to increase @ScotTories vote by 8% in Aberdeen Donside!
— Andrew Bowie MP (@AndrewBowie_MP) May 7, 2021
SNP win but clear, the @Conservatives are the real opposition in the North East. #SP21 pic.twitter.com/ekoaCOCrIB
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This is from Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster,
The news that turnout is up across Scotland is a victory for democracy and shows people are engaged in this historic election.
— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) May 7, 2021
🏴 I’m proud @theSNP extended the vote to 16 & 17 year olds, refugees and foreign nationals with leave to remain - with many voting for the first time.
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Steve Turner, a Conservative, has been elected Cleveland police and crime commissioner in the first round of voting. He received more than 54% of the vote, with Labour’s Matthew Story second with almost 29%, in the first of 39 police and crime commissioner results to be announced.
At the last election the post went to a Labour candidate.
UPDATE: From ConservativeHome’s Mark Wallace
Quick reminder that Labour’s Cleveland PCC campaign was undermined by the original candidate jumping ship to fight the Hartlepool by-election instead. That went well... https://t.co/sxaDWjJzjD
— Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) May 7, 2021
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In the local elections the Conservatives are doing particularly well in places where there was a strong leave vote in 2016, or where Ukip did well in 2016 and 2017, according to Prof Will Jennings, a politics professor at Southampton University and a Sky News analyst.
As we get more data for @SkyNews, the Conservatives are cleaning up in places where UKIP did well in 2016 and 2017. pic.twitter.com/TgpsV1POyx
— Will Jennings (@drjennings) May 7, 2021
From the results so far, the Conservatives are making largest gains and Labour feeling most pain, in areas that voted strongly for Brexit in 2016. pic.twitter.com/ie3pQP6ZiY
— Will Jennings (@drjennings) May 7, 2021
The Liberal Democrats have held the Orkney seat at the Scottish parliament election, with Liam McArthur returned as the MSP for the island constituency in the first result to be declared, PA Media reports.
McArthur had 62% of the vote, down 5 points on 2016. The SNP’s Robert Leslie was in second place on 29%, up five points.
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Alex Salmond, the former SNP Scottish first minister who launched the new Alba party to fight the Holyrood election, sounds as if he is not expecting to do well, my colleague Severin Carrell reports.
Interesting: some very clear expectation management from @AlexSalmond Q: what counts as @AlbaParty victory? A: "Registering as a political party" He doesn't say winning seats #Holyrood21 https://t.co/KuVlEhdzG1
— Severin Carrell (@severincarrell) May 7, 2021
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Mandelson says Labour must embrace 'Brexit values' if it wants to win back places like Hartlepool
In an interview with Sky News earlier Lord Mandelson, a former MP for Hartlepool and one of the architects of New Labour, said the party had to embrace “Brexit attitudes” if it wanted to win back voters in places like his old constituency. He said that during the campaign voters did not raise the issue of leaving the EU on the doorstep. But he suggested that “Brexit attitudes” were now more important than class in determining how people voted, and that Labour had to respond. He said:
People in Hartlepool regard this as a done deal. It’s behind them. Yes, they gave their votes in many cases to the man who they think delivered Brexit for them - that was Boris Johnson. But they weren’t seeking to reopen that issue and they weren’t laying it at the doorstep of the Labour candidate.
Having said that, I would acknowledge this, and I think it is a broader and frankly more interesting point, that Brexit attitudes - the sort of cultural or social values or outlook that we associate with Brexit, rather than the issue itself - [are] still present in voters in Hartlepool, and elsewhere in northern England. And that’s something the Labour party has got to understand and to come to terms with.
In a sense it’s Brexit values, or a cultural set of attitudes, that have overlain the economic interests, or the class identity, that people have in a constituency like Hartlepool. And the Labour party is not making that cultural connection with those people.
And it’s not about whether or not we’re in the European Union. It’s about broader social attitudes and a broader cultural outlook that people have, which the Labour party has got to understand and connect with once again if we’re going to stand any chance of winning back the support and votes of those people.
Mandelson was making a broad point about culture and values, rather than an argument about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU. As a former European trade commissioner, he was a leading figure in the campaign against Brexit in 2016.
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Johnson says Tories doing well because they've focused on 'people's priorities'
Boris Johnson has just delivered his first public reaction to the election results. He told Sky News:
It’s early days but a very encouraging set of results so far, and I think that’s really because we’ve been focusing as government on our priorities, people’s priorities, bouncing back from the pandemic as far as we can, getting through it, and it’s been very good to be here at Severn Trent, talking to them about the 500 kickstarters they’re employing.
[That’s] what everybody wants to see as we go through, towards the end of the roadmap, really making sure that we’re getting people into work, getting the economy bouncing back very, very strongly in the way that I know it will.
Johnson said he would be saying more on the elections when he visited Hartlepool later.
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A Conservative candidate who went viral this week for his bizarre campaign video roaming around a dilapidated Blackburn playground has beaten his Labour rival.
Taxi driver Tiger Patel won the Audley & Queen’s Park Ward by 113 votes.
Please enjoy his campaign video, which sees him silently stalk the play equipment to a Bhangra soundtrack, raising his alarms aloft like Jesus on the cross in front of some obscene graffiti.
Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) thinktank, has put out this statement about the local election results so far.
What we can say with certainty already is that the results in large parts of the north-east and in Hartlepool, and the likely results in some other so-called Red Wall areas in the Midlands, will reinforce the Conservatives’ ‘levelling up’ agenda – especially if they retain the Tyne Tees and the West Midlands mayoralties. At present this agenda is being pursued largely through targeted grants and interventions.
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Labour cannot win with Starmer as leader, says Andrew Adonis
Mostly the Labour figures criticising Sir Keir Starmer this morning – or even calling for him to go (see 7.44am) – have come from the left. But in an article for the Times’s Red Box (paywall), Andrew Adonis, the Blairite peer and former transport secretary, has said that the party cannot win with Starmer as leader.
Here’s an extract.
The root cause of Labour’s malaise nationwide is the absence of a Labour leader trusted to deliver a better economic future meeting popular aspirations, an especially critical concern in northern towns that have fared so badly in recent years in terms of jobs, public services, education and prospects for young people. Average wages in Hartlepool are lower in real terms than in 2010, yet the Tories have just won an election there! As an experienced Labour councillor put it to me after canvassing in the town: ‘We had no leader or message apart from our candidate, a great local GP – which just drew attention to the vaccine, which is Boris’s equivalent of Thatcher’s Falklands triumph.’
I supported Keir to replace Jeremy. There was no one else credible and retrieving the leadership from the hands of the Marxist far left was the first step towards electability. I hoped that Keir, an effective ex-public prosecutor, might have sufficient leadership capacity and modernising social democratic vision to reshape Labour. Unfortunately, he turns out to be a transitional figure – a nice man and a good human rights lawyer, but without political skills or antennae at the highest level.
The question now is what Keir transitions to and when; and whether Labour needs to lose another general election, to Boris or Rishi Sunak, before choosing a leader who can win. If this happens only after an unprecedented fifth defeat in a row, there may not be much of a Labour party left, and some other political vehicle — maybe a populist one — could seize the anti-Conservative cause in England.
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Adrian Masters, ITV Cymru’s political editor, has posted a thread on Twitter setting out what is expected in Wales. It starts here.
At this stage I can only pass on speculation and what people within the parties are telling me about their and others' performances. It's based on their feelings from canvassing and whatever they can glean from the verification process.
— Adrian Masters (@adrianmasters84) May 7, 2021
Scotland set for very high turnout, party sources say
Scotland’s political parties are reporting extremely high turnouts across the country, with many polling stations showing record voting levels matching or exceeding the turnout in the 2014 independence referendum.
One Labour source said the numbers were “stonkingly high” across the country. A Scottish National party source added: “We’re getting reports of high turnout, but it’s not uniform across the country.”
There had been widespread anxieties the Covid crisis and public weariness could suppress numbers. Holyrood turnouts have been historically weaker than UK general election turnouts: in 2016 it was 55.6% and in 2011, the year Alex Salmond and the SNP won Holyrood’s first and so far only overall majority, 50.6%.
Anecdotal reports of unexpectedly high turnouts included one polling place in Gourock, a relatively well-off coastal town in Inverclyde, where the turnout hit 92%, including postal ballots.
In Edinburgh Central, which the Tory leader Ruth Davidson unexpectedly won in 2016, turnout rates overtook the 2016 total by early evening. The SNP is expected to win there. In Anniesland, Glasgow, a place with historically low turnouts, the rate hit 70%. Postal vote returns in Edinburgh overall were at 89%, said another source.
With no seats yet declared and constituency counting still at an early stage, these sources believe most incumbent MSPs and parties are likely to hold their seats. Labour is expected to comfortably hold Edinburgh Southern; the Lib Dems are expected to hold North East Fife and Labour may well hold East Lothian, against the national trend.
Nicola Sturgeon’s vote in Glasgow Southside is also reportedly very strong, defying local fears it may fall given the challenge from Anas Sarwar, the locally-raised Scottish Labour leader, whose father Mohammad Sarwar was Labour MP for a contiguous Westminster seat from 1997. There has been a “substantial turnout” there.
These data follow a record number of people registering for this year’s Holyrood election and making postal vote applications. The Electoral Commission said 1,010,638 people took postal ballots this year (nearly 24% of the electorate), and 4,280,785 people registered to vote overall, only 3,153 fewer than record numbers in the 2014 independence referendum.
Further to his “I told you so” outburst earlier (see 10.10am), the Sage of Barnard Castle has been sounding off some more on Twitter. In short, Dominic Cummings says that he thinks Sir Keir Starmer is useless but that if he weren’t, Labour could win the next election easily. You can read the thread from here.
KS is a beta-lawyer-gamma-politician, like ~all in SW1 he obsesses on Media Reality not Actual Reality, he’s played the lobby game (badly) for a year WITHOUT A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTRY, now the pundits will a/ savage him, b/ tell him he needs to focus on them more, more exclusives!
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 7, 2021
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Here is some more comment on the Hartlepool result from elections experts.
From Prof Jane Green, head of the British Election Study
This feels, for now, like the 2019 general election result but without the Brexit Party standing in Lab seats and with local election levels of voting for Greens and Lib Dem’s.
— Jane Green (@ProfJaneGreen) May 7, 2021
Labour in an accentuated pincer movement on both sides.
Let’s not forget: Johnson delivered Brexit, the PM is popular among Leave voters, the Tory govt spent staggering amounts of £ in the pandemic and overseen an amazingly successful vaccine rollout so we’re now very optimistic, and the economy is rebounding....
— Jane Green (@ProfJaneGreen) May 7, 2021
From James Johnson, who worked as No 10 pollster when Theresa May was PM
Brexit, or even putting up a Remainer, does not explain why Labour are losing. Brexit itself is dead as a doorstep issue. They are losing because of the values divide that came before Brexit & underpinned it in the first place - & the fact they are seen as on the wrong side of it
— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) May 7, 2021
As I’ve written about before, the difficulty for Lab is that most swing seats in England, even the supposedly liberal south, have more views in common with the Hartlepool side of this divide than the Islington one https://t.co/weumVlP1Yr
— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) May 7, 2021
From Carl Shoben from Survation, a polling company
Been doing quite a bit of polling in Hartlepool recently. Rather than focussing on Peter's '2 Cs', I have two '2 Bs' which effected the byelection far more: Brexit, Boris. One structural, one shorter term. This is Labour's challenge in areas like this.
— Carl Shoben (@CarlSurvation) May 7, 2021
Shoben is referring to Peter Mandelson saying two Cs, Covid and Corbyn, largely explained the Hartlepool result. See 9.33am.
Those who are arguing Labour needs to move to the left to win seats may want to consider the result in Clay Cross North in Derbyshire, which has just gone Conservative for the first time.
Derbyshire county council leader Barry Lewis (Con), tweeted that he “never did imagine” it would be possible to push Labour into second place in the ward, for so long a Labour stronghold.
Clay Cross was home to Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover, who lost his parliamentary seat to the Tories in 2019. Clay Cross is a totemic area for the far-left, thanks to the defiant stance taken by its Militant-dominated Labour council in the 1970s. One of Skinner’s brothers, David, was among those taken to court for refusing to implement the Housing Finance Act, which forced councils to increase rents to a level comparable to the private sector.
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From Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall
These are all seats held by Cabinet Ministers in Blair's first government. None are held by Labour today.
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 7, 2021
Sedgefield-Tory
Kirkcaldy- SNP
Edinburgh South West-SNP
Copeland-Tory
Ashfield-Tory
Darlington-Tory
Redcar-Tory
Hartlepool-Tory
Airdrie and Shotts-SNP
Edinburgh East-SNP
These are from Ian Jones from PA Media.
Labour's 20-year retreat. pic.twitter.com/ITCGICNenO
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 7, 2021
Labour has failed to increase its share of the vote in every fully-contested by-election since the 2016 referendum. pic.twitter.com/hizcOb0Vfh
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 7, 2021
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These are from Prof Will Jennings, a politics professor at Southampton University and a Sky News contributor.
Analysis of early ward-level returns for @SkyNews. The Conservative vote is rising most in areas where the UKIP vote was higher in 2016 and 2017. pic.twitter.com/UHhJS9jkCC
— Will Jennings (@drjennings) May 7, 2021
It's all a very similar story to the 2019 general election. The Conservative vote is rising most in areas with fewer graduates. pic.twitter.com/IuwcB73mDd
— Will Jennings (@drjennings) May 7, 2021
While Labour leftwingers are calling for a rethink this morning, Labour MPs who support Sir Keir Starmer are saying he should stick to his current strategy.
This is from Stephen Kinnock, a shadow foreign minister.
Devastating defeat in Hartlepool. My heart goes out to all of our campaigners who worked so hard.
— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) May 7, 2021
We need to understand the scale and pace of the transformation our party needs and we will stand 100% with @Keir_Starmer in supporting him to deliver this programme of change. https://t.co/ngMqui02AX
And these are from Wes Streeting, shadow schools minister.
I’m so sorry for @PaulWilliamsLAB and the brilliant team who’ve been slogging their guts out in Hartlepool in recent weeks.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) May 7, 2021
Our leadership has changed for the better, but the voters aren’t convinced that Labour has too. This is a huge and urgent task. Keir gets it. So must we.
I wrote this for @thefabians ahead of the leadership election last year. Feels painfully relevant today.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) May 7, 2021
You can read the full essay here: https://t.co/WS57RxMuj9 pic.twitter.com/ZSLIQAq0nN
This is from Sky’s Beth Rigby on Dudley, where the Conservatives have gained control of the council. See 9.30am.
Dudley pic.twitter.com/nGycB0rHLc
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) May 7, 2021
Here is my colleague Josh Halliday’s story about the Hartlepool result.
And HuffPost’s Paul Waugh has filed a very good analysis of the factors that contributed to Labour’s defeat.
Six Reasons Why Labour Lost The Hartlepool By-Election
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) May 7, 2021
An early inquest: https://t.co/wW43JOJ5df
This is from Matt Singh, an elections specialist.
Biggest % point increases in gov party vote share in post-war Westminster by-elections:
— Matt Singh (@MattSingh_) May 7, 2021
7.3 (Lab, Preston 1946)
8.5 (Con, Copeland 2017)
8.9 (Lab, Hull N 1966)
9.8 (Con, Barnsley 1953)
12.0 (Lab, Bournemouth 1945)
23.0 (Con, Hartlepool 2021)
This increase was possible, of course, because of the collapse of the Brexit party vote in Hartlepool. In 2019 the Brexit party got 26% of the vote. In its new incarnation, Reform, it got 1%. See 7.16am.
Shadow cabinet reshuffle would be a mistake, says McDonnell
In an interview with BBC News John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, said some of the policies advocated by Labour at the last election, like moving Treasury civil servants out of London and investing in infrastructure, were being implemented by the Tories. He said he developed these ideas from visits to places like Hartlepool, although he also said he thought the Conservatives were not fully committed to this agenda.
He said Labour now needed policies that were even more radical.
Now we need to be more radical than we were in December 2019 because the problems that people face are so much more severe.
Asked if Sir Keir Starmer should respond to the defeat with a shadow cabinet reshuffle, McDonnell said that would be a mistake. He said:
Shadow cabinet members can’t make a statement without the approval of the leader’s office. They can’t go on the media without the approval of the leader’s office. So to actually then blame the shadow cabinet and do a reshuffle for the failure of this campaign I think would be unfair, and I think it would be a real mistake as well.
McDonnell said that when Starmer was elected Labour leader he said he would build upon the 2017 and 2019 manifesto promises [a reference to this statement from Starmer]. “He should fulfil that promise on which he was elected,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell also said that Starmer should follow the example of Harold Wilson and have a shadow cabinet incorporating the left, the right and the centre. “They were rumbustious, but as a result of that debate we got better policy decisions,” McDonnell said.
Updated
Here is my colleague Marina Hyde on the Hartlepool result. It won’t make for happy reading in Labour HQ. Here is an extract.
Increasingly, Labour’s stated mission to rekindle its lost heartlands feels a bit maudlin and entitled. It’s got the flavour of one of those stories where a man sets up a piano beneath his ex-girlfriend’s window and vows to play it until she gets back with him. Journalists who don’t really get it cover the story with headlines like “The last romantic”. All normal women who read it are just thinking: I know exactly what kind of guy he is. I hope she and her new boyfriend will eventually be able to relax in witness protection.
And here is Marina’s article in full.
And Dominic Cummings, the Vote Leave campaign director and Boris Johnson’s chief adviser in No 10 until he resigned near the end of last year, says the Hartlepool result shows that his realignment strategy has been vindicated.
When pundits who ‘explained’ why Vote Leave’s plan to realign politics was mad/stupid/impossible now give post hoc ‘explanations’ for why it’s all so logical/inevitable … ignore their babble… Pundits = noise not signal. Eg ‘the centre ground’ DOES NOT EXIST, it’s pundit fiction
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 7, 2021
Eg. 2014 https://t.co/ZZBMDQX9Gr & 2016, CTRL+F centre ground - https://t.co/K55PYgHIQ1. Vote Leave strategy in 16 & 19 was based on SW1 theories re ‘centre ground’ = false. SW1 didn’t learn after 2016 & provided a chance for us to win again in 19, ignoring pundit howling pic.twitter.com/rdMKEiDM9c
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 7, 2021
Cummings is probably right about the “centre ground” being, if not a fiction, a concept that is misunderstood (see this by ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman for a good take), but most of the best Brexit “pundits” would have agreed with him. The case against Vote Leave from the remain punditocracy was not that Cummings’ strategy would not work, but that it was based on claims about Brexit that were unfounded.
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This is from Ben Wallace, the defence secretary.
congratulations to @Jill4Hartlepool and Boris Johnson @BorisJohnson on the by-election win! I have represented a Lancashire seat for 16 years. Labour swapped the North and it’s voters for fashionable lefty elites long ago and are now paying the price. #Conservatives
— Rt. Hon Ben Wallace MP (@BWallaceMP) May 7, 2021
Speaking to reporters after her election victory, Jill Mortimer, the new Conservative MP for Hartlepool, said:
I’m just overwhelmed by the support of the people of Hartlepool. It confirms what I heard on the doorstep - they just want positive change, and that’s what we’re going to bring them.
This town needs to be regenerated, it has been in decline for a long time. There is so much to do. I’ve got a great big long list and I’ll be on it.
Mortimer also confirmed that she would now be looking for a home in the constituency. “I will be going to the estate agents, probably this weekend if I get a minute,” she said.
Nicola Sturgeon is heading for a significant victory in the Holyrood elections but could well end up one seat short of an overall majority, the elections expert Prof Sir John Curtice has said.
Curtice told BBC Radio Scotland that, based on the last five opinion polls, the Scottish National party could win 64 of the Scottish parliament’s 129 seats. The intervention by Alex Salmond and his nationalist Alba party had likely cost the SNP some vital list seats, he said, cutting their chances of an overall majority to around 50-50.
Although Alba has been polling at around 3% on the lists, making it unlikely it will win seats, it still shaved off SNP support. The Scottish Greens meanwhile are on course for a record number of seats, reaching 10% in regional list seat polling. That implies there will be a widely forecast majority of pro-independence MSPs, once all the results are out later on Saturday.
As polling closed on Thursday night, sources in the SNP, Labour and the Tories reported record turnout but added that it was also patchy in some places. Many observers expect significant levels of anti-independence tactical voting in Labour, Tory and Lib Dem marginals.
Speaking on Good Morning Scotland, Curtice said:
If you take the five opinion polls that were conducted in the last week or so of the campaign, they suggest that on average the SNP are running at 49% on the constituency vote, although much lower – about 38% - on the list.
The Conservatives are narrowly ahead of Labour – about 22% Conservatives to 21% for Labour on the constituency vote - but the Conservatives enjoy a comfortable four-point lead on the list vote and that’s going to be the crucial one so far as seats are concerned.
If you take all of those numbers and you do the dangerous game of trying to predict what the outcome might be, you get to 64 SNP seats – which really means there is a 50% chance the SNP will get an overall majority, but equally a 50% chance that they might fail.
Indeed, it’s probably all going to turn on the outcome in nine really marginal, opposition held seats – some held by Conservative, some held by Labour – but all with majorities of less than five points.
If the national polls are roughly right, it is a question of how many of those seats the SNP manage to pick up and that’s one of the things you really cannot tell from national polls, whether that’s going to happen or not.
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Mandelson says Hartlepool defeat shows why Labour needs to change
In an interview on the Today programme Lord Mandelson, a former Labour MP for Hartlepool and a key architect of New Labour, said that he was “gutted” to see the Conservatives win the seat. He also argued that the party had been on a losing streak every since the Tony Blair era. He told the programme:
I also feel, I have to say, a mild fury, that the last 10 years of what we have been doing in the Labour party nationally and locally has brought us to this result, because that is above all fundamentally an explanation of what’s happened today ...
What I would say is this, and remind the party we have not won a general election in 16 years.
We have lost the last four, with 2019 a catastrophe – the last 11 general elections read: lose, lose, lose, lose, Blair, Blair, Blair, lose, lose, lose, lose.
We need for once in this party to learn the lessons of those victories as well as those defeats, and I hope very much that when Keir and his colleagues in the shadow cabinet say this means that we have got to change direction that they actually mean it.
Mandelson also said that he had spent a lot of time in Hartlepool during the byelection campaign. He said the defeat was explained by two Cs, Covid and [Jeremy] Corbyn, with Brexit, and promises of government spending, also factors. Corbyn was “still casting a very dark cloud” over Labour, Mandelson claimed. He said:
Believe it or not, not on one door that I knocked did a single voter mention Brexit to me.
The one thing they did raise with me however is Jeremy Corbyn – he is still casting a very dark cloud over Labour. Labour voters are not letting this off lightly, he still gets them going on the doorstep.
One person said to me, ‘Sort yourselves out, sort yourselves out. You picked the wrong brother and you ended up with Corbyn so that’s goodbye to you. When you’ve sorted yourselves out, we’ll look at you again.’
That is what the Labour party has got to do.
Updated
The full results from Dudley are now in. The Conservatives have gained the council, from no overall control previously. They gained 12 council seats, and Labour lost 12.
This is from Jonathan Walker from the Birmingham Post and Mail.
Tories gaining control of Dudley isn't that significant in itself. The council has always been marginal and switches hands a lot. But blimey, Labour lost a lot of seats to the Tories last night
— Jonathan Walker (@jonwalker121) May 7, 2021
The leftwing Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who was implicitly criticising Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership on Twitter overnight (see 6.24am), says he wants Starmer to be less “Brittas Empire tribute act” (it’s a TV show) and more Joe Biden.
Disappointing results overnight: we can’t just double down, we need to reflect how to demonstrate our values better and connect with people - more Olympic opening ceremony, proud of our history warts and all and less Brittas Empire tribute act.
— Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP🌹🏳️🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 7, 2021
If Keir wants to be a “British Biden” he should learn from USA Democrats, where policies united the party, the left was brought into top table not pilloried, reforming polices are presented as common sense and Uncle Joe speaks for woke liberals and blue collar left at same time.
— Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP🌹🏳️🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 7, 2021
In an interview earlier this week Starmer claimed that he did want to be like Biden in offering bold, transformational policies, although the examples he cited were very generalised and devoid of specifics.
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Labour should never fight election again 'naked, without policy programme', says John McDonnell
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, told the Today programme that Sir Keir Starmer should respond to the Hartlepool loss by developing more radical policies.
Asked if Labour needed a new leader, McDonnell said:
Keir’s got to be given his chance and I’ve said that all the way along. I’m not going to be one of those people treating [him] the way they treated Jeremy - always challenging him, coups and all the rest.
Keir now needs to sit down and think through what happened in this campaign, and what I’ve been saying to him is you need to demonstrate to people the sort of society you want to create, the policy programme that will achieve that society, and you need to get back to that real grassroots campaign.
We must never again send our candidates into an election campaign almost naked, without a policy programme, without a clear view on what sort of society you want to create. That’s the sort of thing that we need now.
Updated
The Conservatives have taken control of Dudley council in the West Midlands, with several seats still to declare.
The council previously had an even split of Labour and Conservative councillors, but the Tories have already taken nine seats from Labour in a dramatic swing in their favour.
The Conservatives are eyeing up gains across the West Midlands today, in Walsall, Wolverhampton and perhaps even in Sandwell, where Labour previously held 65 of the 72 council seats.
The Guardian columnist Owen Jones, who supports the Labour left, has posted a thread on Twitter about the Hartlepool result. It starts here.
Responsibility for the Hartlepool catastrophe - and it is a catastrophe - belongs with the Labour leadership.
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) May 7, 2021
In 2015, Labour won 35.6% of the vote, less than 2019.
In 2017, Labour won 52.5%.
Even in the 2019 disaster, Labour won 37.7%.
In 2021, Labour won *28.7%*.
And this is Owen’s conclusion.
Labour has to offer a vision that inspires people to vote for it in a time of crisis. If Keir Starmer cannot offer that vision, then he needs to reconsider his position.
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) May 7, 2021
The Conservatives have taken control of Northumberland from no overall control after gaining one seat, with Labour losing one, PA Media reports. The new council line-up is Conservatives 34, Labour 21, independents seven, Liberal Democrats three and Greens two.
This is from Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall.
Similar situation in Northumberland where the Conservatives have taken control of the council from NOC. Labour/Conservative conversions higher than it looks but net obscured by Tory losses to the greens. Keep your eye on the greens throughout the day btw-good performance so far. pic.twitter.com/IYQzmvWdrh
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 7, 2021
Lib Dems stage comeback in Stockport
The Liberal Democrats have staged a comeback in Stockport in Greater Manchester and look likely to form a minority administration after narrowly beating Labour into second place.
Don’t read too much into their victory. Stockport used to be a Liberal Democrat stronghold — two of the four MPs there were Lib Dem until 2015 — and they still have an army of dedicated supporters in the borough.
Still, it will make life that little bit more difficult for Andy Burnham, or whoever is declared mayor of Greater Manchester tomorrow. In order to get things done, the mayor often needs the approval of the ten local council leaders, and having one more off-side (the Tories have been running Bolton in a minority administration since 2019 as the sole non-Labour council) makes life a bit tougher.
That said, it was Stockport’s Labour leader who caused Burnham the biggest headache earlier in December when she withdrew the borough from the Greater Manchester spatial framework, a controversial plan to build tens of thousands of new houses. These local rows so often come down to the green belt.
One other Stockport nugget: the Greens have won their first seat there, taking Reddish South, an urban seat on the Manchester border, from Labour. The Green party look to have had a good night in the north of England, taking seats in Northumberland and South Tyneside too.
Elsewhere in Greater Manchester, Labour has held Rochdale and Oldham, though the latter’s dynamic young leader, Sean Fielding, lost his seat to a hyperlocal party, the Failsworth Independents.
As explained in an article last month, hyperlocal parties are now a growing force in local politics.
This is from Paul Williams, the defeated Labour candidate in Hartlepool.
A massive thank you to everyone in Hartlepool who voted for me, and to the incredible Labour volunteers who worked so hard#Congrats to Jill Mortimer.
— Dr Paul Williams (@PaulWilliamsLAB) May 7, 2021
I’m off to do the important job now of taking the kids to school.
Shadow cabinet minister says Labour must 'speed up movement back towards British people'
Steve Reed, the shadow communities secretary, was also interviewed about the Hartlepool result on the Today programme by Nick Robinson and he struggled to explain what the party meant when it said the result showed it needed to change more. (See 7.36pm.)
Reed argued that the party was still recovering from a historic defeat at the general election. He said people thought the party was “inward-looking” and not focused on aspiration. He said the pandemic meant that, as leader, Sir Keir Starmer had never been able to deliver a speech to a live audience.
When Robinson put it to him that he was blaming Jeremy Corbyn, Reed replied: “I haven’t specifically said that.” But Reed repeated the argument that the 2019 result meant Labour had a “mountain to climb”.
Robinson then said that, when Labour said it had to change, people did not know what that meant. All they got was “waffle”, Robinson said. What did change mean?
Reed replied:
One of the things that happened in the long breakdown in trust between the British people and the Labour party is that we talked to ourselves too much. I don’t want us to do that right now. I want us to get out there and I want us to speak to the British people.
Robinson then put it to Reed that, by choosing an anti-Brexit candidate in a pro-Brexit seat like Hartlepool, Labour was acting like the stereotypical Englishman abroad who, when he failed to make himself understood, just shouted more loudly. Robinson asked if Labour needed to do something different.
Reed replied:
There’s something in what you’re saying here but I don’t think it’s fair to pin this result on one individual. Paul [Williams] was a good, credible candidate ...
The problem runs far, far deeper than that. People don’t trust the Labour party. I’ve seen focus group holding where people were presented with a policy and they liked it, until they were told it was a Labour party policy ...
What we need to do - and you might not like the answer, and think it sounds waffly, but actually I think it’s very important - we have to bring the Labour party back to Britain. All of us have to get out there and listen to voters telling us what they don’t like about the Labour party, what we’re doing wrong, but also what are their ambitions and their aspirations for themselves.
Robinson finally asked Reed to clarify that, in Starmer’s mind, ‘change’ did not mean moving back to the left. Reed said:
Keir believes that we need to change direction and speed up our movement back towards the British people. That will certainly not mean going back to what took us to our historic 85-year defeat in December of 2019. We must become the party of aspiration again, or we will not deserve to win a future election.
Labour’s Ros Jones has been re-elected mayor of Doncaster.
I would like to thank those residents of Doncaster who have voted for me. I am privileged and humbled to lead our beloved borough as the Labour Mayor for a third term.#DoncasterIsGreat
— Ros Jones (@MayorRos) May 7, 2021
On the second round of voting Jones got 31,232 votes, beating the Conservative James Hart who was on 21,019 votes.
Here are the final results from Hartlepool:
Updated
The Guardian’s Today in Focus devoted an episode earlier this week to Hartlepool, and the factors that made it likely to turn Conservative. You can listen to it here.
Two Labour MPs who were prominent supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have also said that Sir Keir Starmer should rethink his approach urgently.
This is from Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary.
Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy #HartlepoolByElection
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) May 7, 2021
And this is from Richard Burgon, the former shadow justice secretary and secretary of the Socialist Campaign group.
Incredibly disappointing defeat in Hartlepool.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) May 7, 2021
We are going backwards in areas we need to be winning.
Labour's leadership needs to urgently change direction.
It should start by championing the popular policies in our recent manifestos - backed by a large majority of voters.
And this is from Andrew Fisher, who has Corbyn’s chief policy adviser.
The line peddled by leadership this AM:
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) May 7, 2021
Labour now has a leader the public see as a credible future PM, who lost Hartlepool
(Don't say: an apparently less credible leader held it twice)
And the party is the problem not the leader
(Who is responsible for the party? Don't ask!)
And Steve Howell, who was Corbyn’s deputy head of communications and strategy before the 2017 general election, says Starmer should resign.
Hartlepool - there is no excuse for this.
— Steve Howell (@FromSteveHowell) May 7, 2021
2021 - Labour by-election share of vote - 28.7%.
Labour vote share in winning Hartlepool in the last four elections:
2019 - 37.7% - Corbyn
2017 - 52.5% - Corbyn
2015 - 35.6% - Miliband
2010 - 42.5% - Brown
Starmer should resign.
Steve Reed, the shadow communities secretary, has the miserable task of doing broadcast interviews for the party this morning. He has been using the script briefed out by party sources earlier. (See 6.14am.) This is what he told BBC Breakfast.
I congratulate Jill Mortimer on her victory, but it was for me as a Labour party member absolutely shattering to see a Conservative MP elected in a place like Hartlepool after nearly 50 years.
I think what this shows is that although we have started to change since the cataclysm of the last general election, that change has clearly not gone far enough in order to win back the trust of the voters, and we’ve just seen that in spades in Hartlepool.
Momentum says Hartlepool result shows Starmer's strategy has 'comprehensively failed'
Momentum, the Labour group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn and his agenda when he was party leader, has released a statement describing the Hartlepool result as a “disaster”. Andrew Scattergood, the Momentum co-chair, said:
This result is a disaster. In 2017, we won over 50% of the vote in Hartlepool.
67% of voters in the constituency want to increase investment in public services, 57% agree with taking Royal Mail into public ownership, and 69% support free broadband.
A transformative socialist message has won in Hartlepool before, and it would have won again.
Starmer’s strategy of isolating the left and replacing meaningful policy with empty buzzwords has comprehensively failed. If he doesn’t change direction, not only will he be out of a job - but the Labour party may be out of government forever.
Scattergood was referring to a poll of voters in the constituency, commissioned by the leftwing CWU union last month, suggesting there was strong support in the constituency for some of the policies in Labour’s 2019 election manifesto. You might think that if Hartlepool wanted Corbynism, it would not have voted for a Tory MP, but the argument from the left is that voters would respond better to bold, ambitious policies than to cautious centrism.
Doncaster is the only mayoral contest where counting started overnight. In 2017 Labour’s Ros Jones won with more than 50% on the first ballot. This time she got 44% of the vote on the first count, down 7 points, while her Conservative opponent, James Hart, got 28%, up 7 points. Mayors are elected under the supplementary vote system, which means the votes of candidates excluded after round one get re-allocated according to second preferences, and the second of counting is now underway.
Hartlepool byelection results in full - Tories win with 16-point swing
Here are the Hartlepool results in full, from PA Media.
Jill Mortimer (C) 15,529 (51.88%, +22.96%)
Paul Williams (Lab) 8,589 (28.69%, -8.99%)
Sam Lee (Ind) 2,904 (9.70%)
Claire Martin (Heritage) 468 (1.56%)
John Prescott (Reform) 368 (1.23%)
Rachel Featherstone (Green) 358 (1.20%)
Andrew Hagon (LD) 349 (1.17%, -2.97%)
Thelma Walker (Ind) 250 (0.84%)
Chris Killick (ND) 248 (0.83%)
Hilton Dawson (NE Party) 163 (0.54%)
W Ralph Ward-Jackson (Ind) 157 (0.52%)
Gemma Evans (Women) 140 (0.47%)
Adam Gaines (Ind) 126 (0.42%)
The Incredible Flying Brick (Loony) 108 (0.36%)
David Bettney (Soc Dem) 104 (0.35%)
Steve Jack (FA) 72 (0.24%)
C maj 6,940 (23.19%)
15.97% swing Lab to C
Electorate 70,768; Turnout 29,933 (42.30%, -15.62%)
And here are the 2019 general election results.
2019: Lab maj 3,595 (8.76%) - Turnout 41,037 (57.92%)
Hill (Lab) 15,464 (37.68%); Houghton (C) 11,869 (28.92%); Tice
(Brexit) 10,603 (25.84%); Hagon (LD) 1,696 (4.13%); Bousfield (Ind)
911 (2.22%); Cranney (Soc Lab) 494 (1.20%)
Amanda Milling, the Conservative party co-chair, has put out this statement about Jill Mortimer’s win in Hartlepool.
This is a historic result. We’re delighted that the people of Hartlepool have put their faith in Jill and the Conservatives to deliver on their priorities: to bring the change, investment and jobs Hartlepool deserves.
The work to repay that faith starts right now, as we continue with our agenda to level up and build back better from the pandemic.
Winning Tory candidate Jill Mortimer says Labour has taken Hartlepool for granted for too long
Jill Mortimer is giving her victory speech now. She starts by thanking the police and other candidates.
She says her campaign was based “on real issues of local concern”.
She is “immensely proud” to be the first Conservative MP in Hartlepool for 57 years. And she is the first woman ever to be elected as the town’s MP, she says.
She says Labour has taken taken the people of Hartlepool granted for far too long.
She says she looks forward to working with Ben Houchen, who she hopes will be re-elected as the Tees Valley mayor.
Tories win Hartlepool with majority of almost 7,000
In Hartlepool the result is now being announced. Here are the key figures.
Jill Mortimer (Con): 15,529
Paul Williams (Lab): 8,589
Mortimer has won with a majority of 6,940
And here is a picture of the Boris Johnson inflatable outside the Hartlepool count in daylight. The real version is expected to visit the town later to celebrate the Tory win, which has still not yet been formally announced.
Ahead of the council elections, the Greens said they were confident of both picking up new seats, and doing so in areas that were not their traditional areas – and early results seem to suggest the party wasn’t wrong.
So far the Greens have gained two seats from Labour on South Tyneside council with a huge rise in their vote, from Labour in Stockport, from the Conservatives in Northumberland, and from the Lib Dems in Colchester.
One of the subplots of Labour’s bad night could be the party losing voters, and council seats, to the Greens in traditional heartlands, seemingly in part a result of Labour moving more to the centre under Sir Keir Starmer.
The Greens’ co-leader, Jonathan Bartley, was swift to hail the success. “Now that’s quite a swing,” he tweeted, as the result from Stockport saw the Green vote rise by 41%.
Now that’s quite a swing👇 Many congrats @GaryLawson53 !!! https://t.co/7lndCYa2hG
— Jonathan Bartley (@jon_bartley) May 7, 2021
Most councils start counting today, but some have counted overnight and the Conservatives have gained control of two - Harlow, and Nuneaton & Bedworth. There are details on our results tracker.
This is from the Harlow MP Robert Halfon.
Proud of @HarlowTories Councillors. Won 11 seats, including 7 from Labour as well as defeating the Harlow Labour Council leader. Harlow Council now under @HarlowTories@Conservatives control for only the second time in the history of our town. pic.twitter.com/TEMJlAzimi
— Robert Halfon MP -Working Hard for Harlow- (@halfon4harlowMP) May 7, 2021
From the BBC’s Richard North
The piles of votes in Hartlepool to date. The biggest stack by far belongs to Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer. Labour’s Paul Williams a clear second. Looks like Independent Sam Lee has third biggest. Have heard they may be only candidates out of 16 who keep their deposits. pic.twitter.com/7lZXbrJvbk
— Richard Moss (@BBCRichardMoss) May 7, 2021
In a blog this morning, James Forsyth, the Spectator’s political editor, argues that Sir Keir Starmer cannot just blame Labour’s defeat on Hartlepool on wider factors because decisions he took about how to contest the byelection contributed to the party’s defeat. Here’s an extract.
While there are, obviously, big structural forces at play in Labour’s defeat, some of the tactical decisions that Starmer’s team have taken have not helped either. First, they chose an MP defeated at the last election — and one who had tried to stop Brexit — as their candidate. This gave the Tories an opening to talk about that issue. Second, they decided to hold the by-election on the same days as the Tees Valley mayoral contest, allowing the relatively unknown Tory candidate to link herself to Ben Houchen, the hugely popular Tory mayor.
The problem for Starmer is that the building blocks of Labour’s traditional electoral coalition are moving ever further apart from each other. If Starmer moved further to try to win back support in seats such as Hartlepool, he would risk alienating Labour’s metropolitan base in cities such as London and Bristol — in those places, Labour is expected to win the mayoralties at a canter.
Hartlepool is yet to declare, but already there is evidence of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour critics arguing that his leadership strategy is to blame. This is what the leftwing MP for Brighton Kempton, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, tweeted shortly after midnight.
Good to see valueless flag waving and suit wearing working so well... or not?
— Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP🌹🏳️🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 6, 2021
Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Elections show 'Labour has not yet changed nearly enough', says party source
According to remarks from a Labour source briefed to journalists, the message that Sir Keir Starmer is taking from Hartlepool, and from the elections generally, is that the party has not changed enough. The source said:
We’ve said all along the north-east and the Midlands would be difficult. We also said the places declaring Thursday would be particularly difficult.
But, the message from voters is clear and we have heard it. Labour has not yet changed nearly enough for voters to place their trust in us.
We understand that. We are listening. And we will now redouble our efforts.
Labour must now accelerate the programme of change in our party, to win back the trust and faith of working people across Britain.
People don’t want to hear excuses. Keir has said he will take responsibility for these results – and he will take responsibility for fixing it and changing the Labour party for the better.
Good morning. We expected the Hartlepool byelection result to have been announced before the live blog launched this morning, but it has taken longer than expected and now we’re in time for the declaration.
As my colleague Josh Halliday reports, Labour has already all be conceded defeat.
This will be the first dramatic result from yesterday’s “Super Thursday” elections, which amount to the biggest electoral event outside a general election in modern British political history. We will be covering the results here as they come in today and over the weekend.
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s guide to what to expect.
And here is the Guardian’s results tracker.
We are also expecting a Downing Street press conference at about 5pm this afternoon. It will be about the easing of Covid travel restrictions, but of course the election results will come up.
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