Labour has gained control of Tower Hamlets council, over which no party previously had overall control, the Press Association reports. The party has won 23 of the 45 available seats, though some wards are still to declare.
With that, we’re going to close this live blog. Thanks for reading.
According to the Press Association, 149 of the 150 councils have now declared, with only Tower Hamlets’ results to come. Here’s how the main parties stand:
Labour
Councils: 73 (-1)
Seats: 2,308 (+77)
Conservatives
Councils: 46 (-2)
Seats: 1,230 (-93)
Lib Dems
Councils: 9 (+4)
Seats: 536 (+77)
Greens
Seats: 39 (+8)
Ukip
Seats: 3 (-57)
The former cabinet minister, Justine Greening, has hit out at her party colleagues in the Eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG), accusing them of behaving a “little bit like Russia ... vetoing things that they don’t like” during the Brexit deliberations.
The rightwing group, led by the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, must understand that “no one is going to quite get their perfect outcome”, the former education secretary told Sky News.
The sooner they all realise that and then work through the give and take and find a sustainable long-term solution on Brexit, the sooner we’ll be able to get on with the implementation planning around that which is urgent, and the sooner we’ll be able to get on with running the country and get on with the domestic agenda - for me the equality of opportunity - and the issues that are really at the heart of what I think people want tackled.
Asked if the ERG was being given too much attention, Greening said:
Well look, I think what we can’t have is a group of MPs who behave a little bit like Russia does on the Security Council - vetoing things that they don’t like.
We have got to go forward on Brexit as a country together. That will mean give and take and people need to understand that, whatever wing of my party they are on, and whatever elements of the Leave/Remain debate they are on. I’m afraid no one is going to quite get their perfect outcome.
She also told the broadcaster she was concerned the Brexit war cabinet would find itself out of step with the Tory party when it discusses what sort of customs arrangement it wants with the European Union post-Brexit.
I think it’s time for the moderates in the party like myself to work with the prime minister on a sensible approach to the customs policy and a broader package and then make sure this is something we can get through Parliament.
Here’s an update on the 146 councils out of 150 that have declared so far:
Labour
Councils: 70 (-1)
Seats: 2,133 (+72)
Conservatives
Councils: 46 (-2)
Seats: 1,295 (-85)
Lib Dems
Councils: 9 (+4)
Seats: 528 (+79)
Greens
Seats: 33 (+3)
Ukip
Seats: 3 (-57)
There is no overall control in 21 councils (-1)
Updated
Labour retains Hounslow, winning 33 of the available 60 seats. The Conservatives have won six seats so far, with 21 still to declare.
Here are some analysis articles about the local elections that are worth reading.
The pendulum is stuck. The traditional laws of political gravity predict a swing away from the party of national government in local elections, but it has been a while since British politics followed the obvious arc of precedent.
If last night’s council election results conform to any pattern, it is the laudable habit that voters have acquired of giving party leaders cause to scratch their heads and wonder what the hell is going on. There is no big national winner. Since the Tories were braced for a mauling and escaped without one, Theresa May will be feeling relatively relaxed today. Labour needed to demonstrate that last year’s general election gains were a staging post on the road to national power; that destiny was calling Jeremy Corbyn. Destiny didn’t hang up the phone, but it has put the opposition on hold. Labour had ambitious targets – Tory bastions in London such as Westminster and Wandsworth – that did not fall.
One pro-remain Conservative told me last night’s results were “a bit of a disaster for our side.” He said they would encourage Tories to see Brexit supporters as their core demographic and prioritise pleasing them. At the same time, he worried, Labour would now feel it has to go hunting lost Brexit support to make up vital electoral ground outside London.
The more hardline amongst the Brexit-supporting Tory MPs might be emboldened by the overnight results in some pro-leave areas of England. Those who have been waving around letters to Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, calling for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May, could in the tense weeks and months ahead feel that throwing the pieces in the air and seeing where they land, even if it heightens the risk of a general election, is not such a risk as some have suggested and preferable to what they see as a heavily diluted Brexit.
When is a victory a defeat? Labour won its best local election results in London – and the Tories their worst results – since 1971. Although the Tories largely benefited nationally from the implosion of Ukip, as things stand, Labour have dozens of net gains. That doesn’t mean Labour doesn’t need to learn lessons and act on them (it does) or that these results are good enough (they’re not). But the surreal triumphalism of Tories and pundits – who are desperate to return to a world before Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour won 40% of the vote and ended a generation-old political consensus – is almost pitiful.
The Conservatives have so far made 163 seat gains and suffered 165 losses. As a result they will likely end the day with a similar overall tally as the one they started with. Most, 89, of the Conservative losses were in London, and most, 132, of their gains were outside London. This differential in the Tory performance is part of a broader pattern whereby the Conservatives won more votes and seats in places which were more supportive of Brexit. As a result, the councils the party has won (Basildon, Peterborough, Redditch) are all places that voted to leave the EU at a rate of 61 per cent or more in 2016.
The exception to this rule tells an important story linked to the row over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Of the wards across the country where the BBC collected the votes, Labour is up by just 3 points where more than 4 per cent of the population is Jewish, but the party is up by 7 points on average elsewhere. This correlation had a particular impact in both Barnet and Bury where the Jewish population is relatively large. That Labour not only failed to take its (notionally) easiest target in London, but the Conservatives actually managed to gain six seats and take control of Barnet (where 38 per cent voted Remain) is quite remarkable.
I first advanced the theory that Labour’s electoral coalition might simply be becoming less likely to turn up in off-years under Ed Miliband as a possible explanation for why Labour were underperforming relative to the opinion polls. Of course, that wasn’t true in 2015, but it doesn’t mean it won’t turn out to be true in the future. Labour’s coalition has been getting younger, more likely to live in a city and more diverse pretty steadily since 2001 and it took a big leap forward in that direction in 2017. My feeling is that at some point that is going to mean that the predictive value of local election performances at general elections is going to change and change big. We may have reached that point already, but then again it may not.
Mr Corbyn has a proud history of leaving commentators with egg all over their faces. He can summon up charisma when he needs it and has an extraordinary ability to keep battling on regardless of circumstances. He also has some huge advantages on his side. A Tory party that is deeply divided over the most important issue facing the country; an establishment that thinks that Brexit is a Tory-made disaster; a generational divide that has left people under 40 struggling to get their feet on the property ladder; and a widespread sense that the country’s infrastructure, from the NHS to the transport system, is on the verge of collapse. Even so, Corbynmania is now officially dead.
That’s all from me for today.
My colleague Kevin Rawlinson is now taking over.
Almost 4,000 people may have been denied vote by voter ID pilots, says Electoral Reform Society
The Electoral Reform Society has warned of what it calls a “dark day for politics” after saying that almost 4,000 would-be voters were turned away from polling stations for not having the necessary ID in the five boroughs which tested out voter ID schemes on Thursday.
The tally – carried out by the Democracy Volunteers group – estimated that 3,981 people were denied a ballot paper in all, 1.67% of the total number of votes cast.
The scheme, which could be extended nationwide in future elections, saw varying ID requirements in Bromley, Woking, Gosport, Watford and Swindon.
Critics had warned the trail was targeting a tiny problem of voter impersonation at polling booths, and risked putting off more vulnerable voters who might not hold the necessary documents, for example older people and the homeless.
The total was reached by extrapolation of observations in the five areas, which saw 1.67% of voters turned away, and does not take into account those who might have come back later with the correct ID.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said:
Britain prides itself on being a leading democracy – but it is a dark day for politics when thousands of blameless people turn out to vote only to be refused.
Our estimates, based on evidence gathered by electoral observers, reveal the shocking scale of the problem. These trials have been shown up to be the chaotic, undemocratic mess many predicted.
-
Update: To clarify, while Democracy Volunteers provided the 1.67% figure, the extrapolation was done by the Electoral Reform Society; of it is independent.
Updated
According to the BBC, the Conservative party has reinstated a candidate who won a seat in Sunderland who had been suspended over offensive social media posts, including one about Diane Abbott from several years ago.
Abbott has posted a message on Twitter suggesting this shows the Tories are not taking the problem seriously.
Is this how seriously the Conservatives are taking online abuse?..https://t.co/7plcRJFGJc
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) May 4, 2018
Here are some results that have come in in the last hour or so.
Hackney
Lab No change
Lab gain 2, C gain 1, LD lose 3
New council: Lab 52, C 5
Lewisham
Lab No change
Lab gain 1, Green lose 1
New council: Lab 54
Haringey
Lab No change
LD gain 7, Lab lose 7
New council: Lab 42, LD 15
Newcastle-under-Lyme
NOC No change
Boundary change
Ind down 6, C down 5, Lab down 5
New council: Lab 20, C 18, Ind 3, LD 3
Cherwell
C No change
C 12, Lab 3, LD 1, Vacant 1
Boundary change
Lab up 1, LD up 1, C down 1, Ind down 1
New council: C 36, Lab 9, Ind 1, LD 1, Vacant 1
Manchester
Lab No change
Boundary change
LD up 1, Lab down 1
New council: Lab 94, LD 2
Tories gain control of Pendle council by reinstating racist joke councillor
A former mayor whose reinstatement gave the Conservatives control of a council by one seat has “sincerely apologised” over a racial Facebook joke which saw her suspended from the party, the Press Association reports. Rosemary Carroll, who made a post comparing an Asian with a dog last June, rejoined “as the votes were being counted” on Friday, giving the Tories narrow control of Pendle council in Lancashire.
Conservative group leader Paul White said:
The post was shared in error but Rosemary fully accepted the potential upset caused and sincerely apologised. Having served her suspension period she rejoined the party and completed additional diversity training.
Carroll, a former mayor of Pendle who represents the Earby ward, previously said she meant to delete the post but accidentally published it in error.
Leader of the Labour group, Mohammed Iqbal, said the situation was an “appalling state of affairs”. He said:
Here’s a councillor who brought shame on the borough on an international level and was welcomed back into the fold with open arms simply to grab control to the council. She turned up with a Conservative rosette literally as the votes were being counted.
Dan Jarvis used his victory after being elected as Sheffield city region’s mayor to call for a wider devolution deal for Yorkshire. The post has only just been established, and the job does not yet come with agreed powers, an agreed budget, or even an agreed salary. He said:
I understood that the exceptional nature of my candidacy [ie, remaining an MP] would raise some eyebrows and it has. But I believed then, as I know now, that the exceptional circumstances of this mayoralty and the importance of devolution for the future of the UK meant that I couldn’t stand on the sidelines and that I had to step forward.
I say this because I believe that the issue of devolution goes to the heart of two of the most important strategic issues that our country faces - how we respond to the causes of Brexit and how we prepare for a post-Brexit Britain.
If we are to find the right answer to these questions we must be prepared to reform every aspect of our political system.
Labour hold Birmingham
Labour has retained control of Birmingham council, the Press Association reports. It has got 51 of the 101 seats, with 14 two-councillor wards yet to declare.
Birmingham, which is the largest council in Britain, is one of the areas that has had all-out council elections (with all seats being up for grabs, not just the usual one third) following boundary changes.
These are from the BBC’s Kathryn Stanczyszyn.
Revising numbers - now #Labour sources saying expected to get between 57-63 seats out of 101 in #Birmingham which would be much closer to the status quo #localelection2018
— Kathryn Stanczyszyn (@stanchers) May 4, 2018
We’re getting to the business end now and I’m hearing it’s likely to be status quo - Labour around 64, Con around 29, Lib Dem 8, Green 1. And yet there has been churn in percentage and some key people. #BrumVotes18 #localelection2018
— Kathryn Stanczyszyn (@stanchers) May 4, 2018
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster so far - some big individual upsets like loss of #Conservative deputy leader Randal Brew and #Labour Lord Mayor-elect Lynda Clinton. And yet it’s looking increasingly like something pretty close to the existing percentages. #BrumVotes18
— Kathryn Stanczyszyn (@stanchers) May 4, 2018
Lord Heseltine, the Conservative former deputy prime minister, has told Sky News that he thinks the election results amount to a “stalemate”. He says he thinks Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has hit a “glass ceiling”.
Lib Dems gain South Cambridgeshire from Tories
The Lib Dems have gained South Cambridgeshire from the Conservatives. Here are the figures.
South Cambridgeshire
LD gain from C
Boundary change
LD up 16, Lab up 1, C down 25, Ind down 4
New council: LD 30, C 11, Lab 2, Ind 2
Burnham says Labour must take 'much firmer grip' on antisemitism problem
Labour’s two most senior mayors have both within the last few minutes said that party must do more to address its antisemitism problem.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, told Sky News that Labour had to take a “much firmer grip” on the issue because the anger against the party was “painfully real”. He said:
It is clear that antisemitism was a very real issue in this campaign, not everywhere, but in areas where particularly there is a large Jewish community. That is true here in Greater Manchester. If you look at the Kersal ward in Salford, I was out there myself and it was a pretty sobering experience, to be honest, because the hurt and the anger is painfully real in those places.
So what I would say back to Ken Livingstone and others how have made this argument that it’s all a smear designed to just undermine Jeremy Corbyn, let’s hope that these elections draw a very firm line under these arguments and basically knock it out, because the truth of the matter is there is a very real sense of rawness in the Jewish community. And the Labour party needs now to reach out in a much more convincing way to those communities and take a much firmer grip on this issue of antisemitism, and come to a resolution on some of the outstanding issues on it.
And Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said Jewish people in the capital did not fee comfortable voting for Labour. He told the BBC.
I think there are lots of voters, Jewish people in London, who don’t feel comfortable voting Labour. That can’t be right. It can’t be right that anybody feels that the Labour party is a safe place for anyone who is an antisemitic person. Antisemitism is racism. We should have no truck with that. We need to make sure that we investigate any allegations made against anybody.
I’m really please Jeremy Corbyn has now tasked the new general secretary, Jennie Formby, to investigate speedily those members of our party against whom allegations have been made. They should be kicked out if those allegations are upheld.
Dan Jarvis elected mayor of Sheffield city region
The Labour MP Dan Jarvis has been elected mayor of Sheffield city region on the second count.
Here are the second round voting figures.
Dan Jarvis (Lab) 144,154
Ian Walker (C) 50,619
Boris Johnson claims Tory customs union policy helped deliver electoral success
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is arguing that the local election results show why the government should remain committed to taking the UK out of the customs union.
Fantastic effort by @BrandonLewis , @JamesCleverly and all Conservative activists who worked tirelessly and delivered results beyond expectations 1/3
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 4, 2018
I would also like to pay personal tribute to Ray Puddifoot and all the incredible @Hillingdon_Tory team for holding and increasing the majority despite everything that Labour threw at them 2/3
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 4, 2018
Jeremy Corbyn has been abandoned in many leave areas – his pledge to stay in the customs union means he is not trusted to deliver Brexit. PM’s clear Mansion House vision for leaving the single market and customs union a key part of Tory electoral success 3/3
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 4, 2018
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP and chair of the European Research Group, which is pushing for a harder Brexit, is saying the same thing. Commenting on this Tweet ...
BBC polling expert John Curtice: Conservatives have been reminded that “the electorate that it now has is disproportionately a Leave electorate… 70% of the Conservative vote are people that voted Leave… it has to deliver Brexit.” pic.twitter.com/DxKh6zhC8Q
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) May 4, 2018
Rees-Mogg responded with this:
Sir John Curtice’s view that the local election result means the government must deliver on Brexit is surely right, he usually is. https://t.co/xTHNzUlaAa
— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) May 4, 2018
Here are some more results that have come in over the last hour or so.
Islington
Lab No change
New council: Lab 47, Green 1
Woking
C No change
C 5, LD 3, Lab 1, Ind 1
LD gain 1, C lose 1
New council: C 16, LD 8, Lab 3, Ind 3
Blackburn with Darwen
Lab No change
Boundary change
Lab down 7, C down 4, LD down 2
New council: Lab 37, C 13, LD 1
Camden
Lab No change
Lab gain 4, LD gain 1, C lose 4, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 43, C 7, LD 3, Green 1
Elmbridge
NOC No change
C 10, LD 3, R 3
C gain 3, LD gain 1, R lose 4
New council: C 24, R 15, LD 9
Watford
LD No change
LD 9, Lab 3
LD gain 1, Lab lose 1
New council: LD 26, Lab 10
Crawley
Lab No change
Lab 8, C 4
New council: Lab 20, C 17
According to the Press Association, 133 out of 150 councils have now declared. Here are the latest figures.
Conservatives
Councils: 44 (no change)
Seats: 1,142 (-44)
Labour
Councils: 63 (-1)
Seats: 1,741 (+75)
Lib Dems
Councils: 6 (+2)
Seats: 408 (+39)
Greens
Seats: 33 (+4)
Ukip
Seats: 3 (-55)
And here is the BBC’s estimate of what the House of Commons would look like if there were to be a general election with people voting in the same way as they did at the local elections.
What would the House of Commons look like based on #elections2018 voting patterns? pic.twitter.com/VxoYh0N0cO
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 4, 2018
The BBC projection, like the Sky projection (see 2.18pm), anticipates a hung parliament. But the BBC has Labour on course to gain 21 seats, and the Tories on course to lose 38 seats, while Sky just anticipates more modest Tory losses.
There’s a different between the two projections because the BBC and Sky use different methods to calculate how the local election results can be converted into a national share.
The Liberal Democrats have gained Three Rivers, south-west Hertfordshire, from no overall control, the Press Association reports. They had eight councillors elected last night compared to four for the Conservatives and one for Labour.
Here are the figures.
Three Rivers
LD gain from NOC
LD 8, C 4, Lab 1
LD gain 1, Ind lose 1
New council: LD 20, C 16, Lab 3
Updated
The Labour MP Chuka Ummuna told the World at One that he wanted the party’s national executive committee to conduct a proper inquiry into why it did not do better at the elections. He said:
From a Labour point of view there needs to be a proper post-mortem - I think the national executive committee should appoint somebody to do that - on this result.
We haven’t gone forwards and if we are looking to form an election-winning majority, we cannot be confident of that happening based on the results yesterday.
The sole Green councillor in Islington, Caroline Russell, has held her seat in Highbury East.
This is from Caroline Lucas, the Green party co-leader.
Great result from @CarolineRussell - thank goodness there’s still a bold Green voice on Camden council, holding Labour to account & standing up for what matters https://t.co/uTgc1CPGNv
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 4, 2018
Tories and Labour level pegging on 35% of projected national share - Analysis
What do these projected national share (PNS) figures (see 2.31pm) actually mean? As usual, it depends.
How it’s good for Labour
- Labour is getting the same of the vote as the Conservative party. They did not at the 2017 general election, and so in that respect they are moving forwards.
- Labour is also doing much better relative to the Tories than it was in the 2017 local elections (which were held a few weeks before the general election). In that contest the Tories had an 11-point lead on PNS.
-
At 35%, Labour’s local election share of the PNS is the highest it has been since 2012 (when it was 38%). That was a year when the Lib Dem vote had collapsed, because of Nick Clegg going into the coalition, but the big Ukip rise had not fully materialised.
How it’s bad for Labour
- Opposition parties almost always have to be ahead in mid-term local elections if they are going to go on and win the subsequent general election. Labour is not ahead.
- Labour is doing worse relative to the Tories on this measure than it was in 2014, when most of these seats were last fought. Four years ago Labour came out two points ahead on PNS. (The figures are here.) It is also doing worse than it did relative to the Tories in 2016, when on a relatively disappointing local elections night Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was still one point ahead of the Tories on PNS.
- Excluding general election years, this is the first year since 1988 when Labour has been in opposition and it has not been ahead of the Conservatives on PNS at the local elections.
There is a table with all the PNS figures going back to 1982 here.
Tories and Labour both on 35% of projected national share of vote, BBC reports
The BBC has now produced its projected national share figure. This is not the share of the vote figure in the actual elections (a fairly meaningless figure, because the councils where elections took place were not representative of Britain as a whole.) It is a calculation as to what the vote share would have been if all wards in Britain had voted in the same way as people voted yesterday. (More on how this works here.)
These are the figures:
Conservatives: 35%
Labour: 35%
Lib Dems: 16%
Others: 14%
Labour has retained Crawley after winning seven of the 12 seats being
contested, the Press Association reports. The Conservatives won four, with one result to come.
And the Tories are on course to retain control of Woking council in Surrey.
According to Sky News, if there were a general election and people voted as they did in the local elections yesterday, there would be a hung parliament. Here are their figures.
The only party that would celebrate a result like this would be the Lib Dems. They won 12 seats at the 2017 election, and so on the basis of this notional result, they would be up 14.
Theresa May won 317 seats last year. On the basis of this result, she would be down 12. And Jeremy Corbyn, who won 262 seats at the general election, would be down one seat too.
The Labour MP Dan Jarvis is on course to be elected mayor of the new Sheffield city region, but he did not win on the first round (ie, he did not get more than 50% of first preference votes.) Here are the first round results.
Dan Jarvis (Lab) 122,635 (47.99%)
Ian Walker (C) 37,738 (14.77%)
Hannah Kitching (LD) 27,146 (10.62%)
Mick Bower (Yorkshire) 22,318 (8.73%)
Rob Murphy (Green) 20,339 (7.96%)
David Allen (Eng Dem) 14,547 (5.69%)
Naveen Judah (Save NHS) 10,837 (4.24%)
The last four candidates have been eliminated, and their second-preference votes are being counted.
Turnout was just 25.36%.
Turning away from the local elections for a moment, my colleague Rajeev Syal has some good news for the Unite general secretary Len McCluskey.
Sources saying that @LenMcCluskey has survived an attempt to force a rerun of his leadership election by @gerard_coyne. Union watchdog will continue to hear other allegations next month, but these won't oust Unite leader from office. Huge relief for Corbynites.
— rajeev syal (@syalrajeev) May 4, 2018
From my colleague Heather Stewart
Hearing the LibDems could be in for a really good result in Kingston, which they’ve been targeting heavily. Rumours the Tories could even go down to single figures.
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) May 4, 2018
Here’s a BBC video clip with Prof John Curtice explaining what he thinks the election results means. His main takeaway is that, apart from the collapse of the Ukip vote, not a huge amount changed since 2014.
Conservatives have lost Mole Valley, Surrey, to no overall control after losing one seat to the Liberal Democrats, the Press Association reports.
Updated
The first results of the day are in from Manchester, with Labour holding on to all three seats in the Woodhouse Park ward, on a turnout of 18.04%, the Press Association reports. Manchester is holding “whole council” elections rather than the usual thirds, due to boundary changes; 32 wards will elect 96 councillors. Turnout ranges from 17% in Fallowfield to 46% in Chorlton.
Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Jamie Grierson.
Last week my colleagues Jessica Elgot and Heather Stewart reported that the Labour MP Heidi Alexander - a centrist, in Labour terminology, not a Corbynite - was thinking of standing down as an MP to take up a post working for Sadiq Khan at City Hall.
According to Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick, we may get the announcement this afternoon.
I hear Heidi Alexander may make an announcement in this later today https://t.co/EUE8br6S1Y
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) May 4, 2018
She has a 21,000+ majority, so a by-election shouldn’t be a problem for a Labour, though it’s very inconvenient and costly for the party https://t.co/Z0bigQx8ON
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) May 4, 2018
Rokhsana Fiaz was comfortably elected as mayor of Newham, east London with the Labour candidate achieving 73% share of the vote, Dan Sabbagh writes.
She said she would use her mayoralty to “put people at the heart of what we do” and suggested that a Labour party rocked by the antisemitism crisis needed to do the same.
“In this borough I will make sure we work closely with Muslim, Jewish and other communities to build bridges. I’m desperately sorry Labour lost in Barnet and I’m sure the party will reflect closely on what has happened in Barnet and elsewhere,” she said, speaking to the Guardian a few minutes after she was elected.
Fiaz takes over the former Olympic borough after 23 years of rule by Sir Robin Wales, who she defeated in a primary contest earlier this year.
The new mayor’s share of the vote was 12 percentage points higher than Wales achieved in 2014. One of her first steps will be to introduce a consultative youth citizen assembly in the borough; she also plans to review the finances in a borough that had to write off £52m in loans for the repurposing of the Olympic stadium for football in December.
Liberal Democrat former cabinet minister, Ed Davey, said it had been a “brilliant night” for his party.
Speaking at the Kingston-upon-Thames count, Davey said: “We’ve won councils like Richmond, we might well win here in Kingston, and there are one or two other counts coming later elsewhere in the country where we might well win control of the council.
“So we might end up winning more councils net from the previous position than any other party.”
Davey, who said the party had focused on local issues rather than simply Brexit in its campaigning, added: “Across the country this looks like a real fightback for the Liberal Democrats.”
Labour sources at the count in Birmingham say it doesn’t look like a good performance for them, reports political editor Heather Stewart.
All of the seats are up for grabs, and they’re being fought on new boundaries - but reports suggest Labour is struggling in white, working-class wards; while advancing in the inner city.
Birmingham is hosting the Conservative party conference this year, as the party celebrates the success of Andy Street in winning the metropolitan mayorality.
With the balance of power on the city council before yesterday’s poll 79 Labour seats to 29 Tories, there is no danger of Labour losing control, say those on the ground - but the party’s majority could be significantly reduced. The count is ongoing.
In the West Midlands, Conservatives gained control of Redditch, taking two seats from Labour and one from Ukip.
They have 16 seats out of 29, with two results to go.
Latest tally from the Press Association:
State of parties after 101 of 150 councils
Conservatives: 31 councils; 892 seats (-26)
Labour: 52 councils (-1); 1,444 seats (+59)
LibDems: 4 councils (+1); 327 seats (+40)
Green: 22 seats (+7)
UKIP: 3 seats (-47)
Independent: 58 seats (-57)
Liberal: 1 seat (-1)
Ratepayers and Residents: 41 seats
No overall control: 14 councils
There is mounting interest in the result in Birmingham, where there are suggestions Labour could lose, in what would be significant blow to the party.
The Conservatives have already made gains in West Midlands, in Dudley and Walsall.
Hearing Labour could lose Birmingham. Conservatives have already made gains in the West Mids, in Dudley and Walsall #LocalElections2018
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) May 4, 2018
Counting well under way in the biggest council area, Birmingham. A generally low turnout suggests final result may come before the projected 5-6 pm
— Patrick Burns (@PatrickBurnsBBC) May 4, 2018
Labour’s failure to take Barnet council from the Conservatives is directly related to the antisemitism scandal that has plagued the national party, say local activists and councillors.
The north-west London council was Labour’s prime target in the capital. The party hoped to seize control from the Conservative-led administration whose focus on outsourcing earned them the nickname “Easycouncil”.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said Barnet was a Conservative “crown jewel” Labour could win, but overnight the Tories took back the council from no overall control.
Barry Rawlings, Barnet’s Labour leader, laid the blame directly on the party’s antisemitism crisis, which has led to Jewish leaders and members of the community protesting against Jeremy Corbyn in Westminster:
I want to speak directly to our Jewish brothers and sisters. I am extremely grateful to members of the Jewish community who cast votes for Labour. But too many didn’t.
It wasn’t because they disagreed with our manifesto, but because they felt the Labour party has failed to deal with antisemitism on a national level. They are right.
The prime minister has visited Wandsworth in south London to congratulate Conservatives on seeing off a challenge from Labour to hold on to control despite losing six seats.
Theresa May said: “Labour thought they could take control, this was one of their top targets and they threw everything at it, but they failed.
“The people of Wandsworth re-elected a Conservative council, and that’s for a simple reason. You charge the second lowest council tax in the country, you provide excellent local services like the weekly bin collection.
“That’s the message of these elections across the country - that Conservative councils deliver great local services at lower taxes.”
To cheers from activists waving Conservative banners, May added: “We’ve seen other success in London. We’ve held Hillingdon, Barnet, Westminster.
“And outside of London, we’ve made progress in places like Dudley and Walsall. We’ve taken control in Basildon and Peterborough. And that’s all the result of the really hard work of our councillors, our activists, our supporters and our revitalised campaign machine.
“But we won’t take anything for granted. We will continue to work hard for local people and we will build on this success for the future.”
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson told the BBC: “We have consolidated the base we made after the General Election. If you looked at the national polls, it showed the parties were neck-and-neck and we have done rather better than that in some areas.”
Mr Watson said Labour now has more councillors in London than at any time since the 1970s.
“You can always do better, but we think we have consolidated our base and we are quietly satisfied with the result,” he said.
The Conservatives became the biggest political party in the Black Country town of Walsall today, and are expected to form a minority administration.
The Tories ended up with 30 seats, while Labour lost two to be left with 26, with the remaining four seats split between the Liberal Democrats and independents.
They also made gains from UKIP, who lost all three of their councillors in Walsall.
Previously Labour was in control with 28 seats to the Tories’ 24.
Walsall Conservative leader Mike Bird is confident of getting the support he requires to run a minority administration.
Labour was expected to hang on to power, with some activists claiming they would take an overall majority.
It follows the Conservatives’ Eddie Hughes unexpected victory in the general election last year in Walsall North.
Updated
Labour has called on the Government to scrap voter ID as a matter of urgency after a trial saw people in England turned away from polling booths for not carrying the necessary documents.
Cat Smith MP, shadow minister for voter engagement and youth, said:
There was absolutely no case for introducing voter ID in the first place but after yesterday’s fiasco, it is impossible for the Government to justify rolling it out.
After completely ignoring a number of serious warning signs, the Government decided to pilot discriminatory measures which denied people their right to vote.
We cannot allow the Conservative Party to undermine our democracy, which is why Labour is calling on the Government to scrap their voter ID plans as a matter of urgency.
Ken Livingstone has been on Sky News talking about the local election results and the impact of allegations of antisemitism on the Labour party, from which he is currently suspended.
Livingstone, who has been accused of antisemitism himself, denied previously labelling Adolf Hitler as a Zionist. He said:
If you go on Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial website, one of the documents you can download is about the deal that the Zionists did with Hitler did with the Zionists in the thirties.
Hitler wanted to get all the Jews out of journey, and the Zionists wanted to move them all and create a Jewish state in Palestine. They collaborated, they didn’t like each other but they collaborated together to do that.”
The former Labour MP and London mayor accepted that claims that he was antisemitic had hit the result in Barnet, where the Tories gained control:
If anybody believes I said Hitler was a Zionist then yes, that is damaging. What’s been so bad is that two years on this smear about me is still there unchallenged.”
Sky News presenter Adam Boulton suggested that “the best advice might be not to bring Hitler into contemporary politics”.
“I only do it when I ask a question like you’ve just done,” Livingstone said. “I’ve never written a speech or article about Hitler.
“It always gets you into trouble if you tell the truth,” he added.
Asked if he should just retire, Livingstone said: “I’m not going to my grave without this issue being resolved.”
Livingstone said the antisemitism row was a “distraction” from discussing Labour policies and also blamed moderate Labour MPs for attacking the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
He said: “If we hadn’t had two years of Labour MPs undermining Jeremy, if they’d been out there campaigning, we only needed to take another seven seats and Jeremy would be leading a minority government … his policies connects with people.”
He added: “Part of the problem is for the last month everything in the media about the Labour party has been about antisemitism. Any serious debate about our policies just hasn’t happened.”
Livingstone said he was optimistic that he will not be expelled from the party.
Updated
The leader of the Barnet Labour Group, Barry Rawlings, has issued a statement, in which he addresses the group’s “Jewish brothers and sisters”. He said Labour has failed to deal with “anti-semitism”. He said:
I want to thank all Labour members in Barnet for their support and hard work, not just over the past few weeks, but over the past four years, and our wonderful candidates who could not have done anything more.
We campaigned hard, we gave the Conservatives a tough time over their failure to run a fair, effective Council for the people of Barnet, and we have built, and will continue to build, good relationships with all of Barnet’s communities.
That wasn’t enough this time. I am confident we can bounce back from this but to do so we will need to work harder still.
I want to speak directly to our Jewish brothers and sisters.
I am extremely grateful to all members of the Jewish community who cast votes for Labour yesterday.
But too many didn’t. It wasn’t because they disagreed with our manifesto, but because they felt the Labour Party has failed to deal with anti-Semitism at a national level. They are right.
I pledge that Barnet Labour will be a beacon to the rest of the Labour Party in tackling and defeating this anti-Semitism virus that has infected our party. For me dealing with anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hate is not an electoral issue, win or lose, it’s a moral responsibility that defines who we are as a Party.
I am so proud of the work we have done both within and across communities, faiths, backgrounds.
We either fix this or our values of equality, social justice and human rights die.
I pledge that Barnet Labour will be at the forefront of this collective effort by the Party we all love and wish to see succeed.
Labour now well placed to win general election - Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, has issued a statement on the local election results.
Labour achieved a solid set of results in the local elections. We have consolidated and built on the advances we made at last year’s General Election, when we won the largest increase in Labour’s share of the vote since 1945.
In these elections we have won seats across England in places we have never held before. We won Plymouth from the Tories, who lost control of Trafford, their flagship northern council. And Labour has won even more council seats than at our high watermark of 2014.
Last year Labour showed the difference we can make in a full national campaign. This year our members and supporters campaigned in impressive numbers. And their energy, talent and enthusiasm will continue to take Labour’s message of real change to communities across the whole country.
In a sign of how worried they are about Labour’s advance, the Tories talked up our chances to unrealistic levels, especially in London. The results show they’re right to be worried - we came within a whisker of winning Wandsworth for the first time in over 40 years.
The Labour Party is now well placed to fight and win the next General Election – and form a government that will work for the many, not the few.
Updated
Labour MP Lisa Nandy says last night’s performance for Labour, losing ground in Wigan, Bolton and Dudley, underlines the fact that Labour’s message is failing to appeal to voters in Britain’s towns.
While Labour comfortably held her own local council of Wigan last night, the Conservatives got more votes there than at any time since 1979.
“For a lot of people who choose to forgo the fast pace and diversity and access to culture of cities, the reason they do that is because they value the sense of community you feel very strongly in places like mine,” she says.
She says politicians, including Labour, have failed to address the decline in local jobs and opportunities that has eroded this sense of community.
“Towns like mine have really found themselves at the sharp end over the last 30 years. Demographic changes mean we have an ageing population - young people who used to go away to study and come back, have found there’s nothing to come back to. Wages are low, which accounts for the decline of high streets and pubs.”
“People have looked to politics for some time to solve this and seen us obsessed with a city-centric model which is reliant on the benefits trickling down.”
She warns: “Unless Labour gets to grips with that, the next election is far from secure, with Labour piling up the votes in cities, and the Tories having a near-monopoly on the countryside”.
“It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs jobs,” she says. “Politicians need to catch up. Whoever gets this towns argument will win the next general election and the one after that.”
Theresa May has tweeted congratulations to a couple of councils, which saw holds and gains for her Conservative party in the local elections.
Congratulations to @CllrCornelius and the @BarnetTories team for their increased majority in Barnet – and successfully retaking the council! pic.twitter.com/3fMFVFv98n
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Thank you to Cllr John Holdich and the @PbConservatives for campaigning hard for every vote across the city and gaining control of the council. A great result! pic.twitter.com/QM1AYc62Nn
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Congratulations to @CllrDavidRenard and the @TorySwindon team for a great result, ensuring residents will continue to receive excellent public services.
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Congratulations to @RaviGovindia1 and all the @Wandsworth team for holding control of the council. I know you will continue to keep council tax low and provide great local services. pic.twitter.com/ErEkOssLbs
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Congratulations to Cllr Patrick Harley and the whole Conservative team in Dudley for making great progress. I visited Dudley recently and was so impressed at the support you are giving to businesses that create better, higher-paying jobs.
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Huge congratulations to Cllr Mike Bird and the Walsall Conservatives team for a great result, becoming the largest party on the council.
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) May 4, 2018
Updated
State of parties after 98 of 150 councils:
Conservatives: 30 councils; 878 seats (-31)
Labour: 50 councils (-1); 1,424 seats (+57)
LibDems: 4 councils (+1); 324 seats (+41)
Green: 21 seats (+6)
UKIP: 2 seats (-44)
Independent: 61 seats (-49)
Liberal: 1 seat (-1)
Ratepayers and Residents: 37 seats (-4)
No overall control: 14 councils
Ukip general secretary Paul Oakley has insisted it was not “all over” for the party and has defended his party by comparing it favourably to the Black Death.
He said the plague had caused a lot of disruption in the Middle Ages before going “dormant”.
“It’s not all over at all,” Oakley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. It comes along and it causes disruption and then it goes dormant, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Our time isn’t finished because Brexit is being betrayed.”
Challenged over whether he wanted to compare his party to a plague that killed millions of people, Oakley said: “Absolutely. What’s wrong with that?”
He pointed to positive outcomes from the Black Death: “It also led to economic growth and the Renaissance. It got rid of the whole issue of servitude, basically, and allowed people to go into the towns and escape their landlords and create their own businesses.”
Anti-racism group, Hope Not Hate, has hailed the demise of “far right and radical right” political parties in the local elections.
Hope Not Hate said it had been a “disastrous” night for Ukip, which it accused of plying anti-Muslim rhetoric under its leader Gerard Batten.
Far-right parties – such as the British National Party and Anne Marie Waters’ For Britain Movement – also failed across the board, the group said.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of HOPE not hate, said: “We should take a moment to enjoy the decline of extremist parties. It’s down to the hard work of thousands of anti-racist campaigners up and down the country, as well as incompetence and defections on the part of Ukip and the far right.”
The Guardian’s associate editor, Dan Sabbagh, has written an analysis of the local election results.
Labour made limited progress, but failed to produce the kind of surge that would allow the party to claim it is a government-in-waiting, he writes, while Theresa May can be modestly relieved, although the results do not necessarily point to her party winning an overall Westminster majority either.
Read the full piece here:
More from Jeremy Corbyn on the local election results.
Asked whether the night’s results showed that Labour had passed the point of “peak Corbyn”, Corbyn said: “No, no, there is much more to come and it’s going to get even better.”
The Labour leader told Sky News: “We were defending seats that were last won in 2014, which was a particularly good year for Labour in local government.
“Obviously, I am disappointed at any places where we lost a bit of ground, but if you look at the overall picture, Labour gained a lot of seats across the whole country, we gained a lot of votes in places we never had those votes before.”
He added: “We are ready for a general election whenever it comes. A year ago, a general election was surprisingly called and we had the biggest swing to Labour for decades.
“We are absolutely ready for it. We have got members, we have got organisation, we have got enthusiasm.”
The Jewish Labour Movement, the affiliated society for Jewish Labour supporters, say they will be holding an urgent meeting with Labour’s new general secretary Jennie Formby to discuss the impact anti-semitism had on the party’s local election results.
JLM’s spokesman Ivor Caplin said: “For the second time within a year, England has seen the electoral impact of the Labour Party’s problem with antisemitism.
“For the Party of anti-racism to lose seats because of antisemitism is a sad chapter in our proud history. JLM will be meeting with Jennie Formby next week and will be urgently raising this.”
Updated
Labour’s Jess Phillips take on the local election results:
Up and at em. I see everyone is claiming failure as victory.
— Jess Phillips (@jessphillips) May 4, 2018
In other election news, Sinn Fein are celebrating in Northern Ireland with a by-election victory in West Tyrone.
Orfhlaith Begley, 26, declared herself a history maker as she became the first woman elected as MP for the West Tyrone constituency.
The solicitor from the Co Tyrone village of Carrickmore secured an almost 8,000 majority in the parliamentary by-election, ahead of second placed Democratic Unionist Thomas Buchanan, though Sinn Fein’s percentage of the vote did drop from more than 50% in last year’s general election to 47%.
The political newcomer comfortably held on to a seat relinquished by party colleague Barry McElduff when he quit amid a furore over a controversial social media post.
McElduff resigned as MP for the area in January, 10 days after a controversy flared when he posted a video of himself with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the notorious Kingsmill massacre.
Jeremy Corbyn made an early-morning visit to Plymouth to celebrate his party seizing control of the city’s council.
Surrounded by cheering activists at Plymouth Hoe, the Labour leader said he was “delighted” by the result, adding: “The South West has the unenviable title of being the low-pay capital of Britain. That’s got to change and a Labour government will offer that change.
“Today, winning Plymouth is a sign Labour is back in this part of Britain. Labour is back to gain parliamentary seats.
“The mission of Labour is always to stand for a decent society and stand up against poverty in Britain, and that means local government must be properly funded by central government, and local councils that want to deal with the housing crisis and the social care crisis, and want a cleaner, better environment, are the ones that they should be supporting.”
Brandon Lewis, the Conservative party chairman, said his party had a “reasonable night, a good night”.
“We’ve seen interesting results across the country,” he told BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “When we look at what Labour were predicting... that simply hasn’t happened.”
“When they were claiming the whole of London was going to turn red, they’ve not gained a single council.”
Asked if the Tories have problem in urban areas, he said: “We’re working hard all over the country.
We have to work and learn from that over the next few years as we go towards the next general election as we’re delivering on those domestic agendas on issues that matter to people in their lives every day.
Adam Langleben, a Labour councillor who lost his seat in Barnet, told the Guardian:
We knew this was a possibility since last night, that this was worse than the general election in 2017. Things have definitely shifted since June. Every Jewish Labour household we visited, people said, “not this time.” Activists were being told, “this is a racist party, an anti-Semitic party”, doors were slammed in their faces. We as Jewish Labour activists were told we were endorsing anti-semitism. The reason we have lost here is the inability to deal with this issue and to tackle anti-semitism.
Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to come here tomorrow for a victory speech. We want him to come to Barnet anyway, to apologise to Jewish Labour activists, to Barnet Labour and to the Jewish community here so we can start the healing process. We won this election on ideas, the Tories just ran a relentlessly negative campaign. But just look at the wards with high Jewish populations where we lost, East Barnet, Brunswick Park, West Hendon. The seats with even higher Jewish populations, where Labour didn’t target as hard, the Tories have huge landslides.
The Labour leadership and people around them have seen the signs for a long time and they have not acted.
I’m not quitting, this is about the health of our democracy. We have two parties of government in this country and one has a sickness that it needs to deal with. People need to join the party; they need to educate people and those who are anti-Semitic need to be immediately expelled. But first of all, the party can start by listening to Jewish activists and the community.
Updated
Barnet Labour leader Barry Rawlings has admitted there is an issue with anti-Semitism and inaction in the Labour party pic.twitter.com/zxfjhrJtPn
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 4, 2018
Labour group leader in Barnet @BarryJohnRawlin tells me antisemitism played “the biggest part” in Labour’s “defeat”. He says Labour leadership acted too late “If it had of happened a couple of years ago Barnet would now be a Labour council” @BBCRadioLondon #Londonelection2018 pic.twitter.com/eBpSMUvKdP
— Susana Mendonça (@susana_mendonca) May 4, 2018
Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s national campaign coordinator and a shadow communities minister, admitted the anti-semitism row had led to the Conservative victory in Barnet.
“It disappoints me,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.
We have got a job to do to rebuild trust and confidence with the Jewish community across the country. I’m sure that is the case. I see it as my job to help rebuild that trust with the Jewish community. There are so many Jewish people who do share Labour’s values.
Looking at the overall picture, Gwynne said “there was always going to be a limited number of gains we could make”.
“It was an election of consolidation,” he said. He cited Labour victory in Trafford as a significant achievement but admitted there had been some “disappointing results in other parts of the country”.
Asked about Labour’s performance in London, Gwynne said: “We did pick up seats in those areas.”
“What we’ve seen is that politics is very polarised,” he said. “All published opinion polls show Labour and Tories pretty much neck and neck.”
Updated
Here’s some reaction from the Twitter commentariat to the result in Barnet, which saw the Conservative win control, taking it back from “no overall control”.
And there it is: Barnet remains Conservative. All three of Labour's big targets in the capital - the “crown jewels” for the taking according to Sadiq Khan - have stayed blue. Momentum misfire. #LocalElections2018
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) May 4, 2018
Crucial point about Barnet is its not just Jewish Labour voters who have been disgusted by the party's handling of its antisemites - it's non Jews too.
— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) May 4, 2018
Tories take Barnet, which I think we can attribute pretty directly to the Labour anti-Semitism scandal https://t.co/6piUAOFhXx
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) May 4, 2018
Conservative gain in Barnet from overall control. Needed a tiny swing to Labour for them to win it. No doubt anti-Semitism hugely influential- in some wards turnout over 70%. Now looks certain there will be no Labour council gains in London (but overall seat numbers will go up).
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 4, 2018
People screamed at me for saying this. But I am not surprised at all that Barnet has stayed in Conservative control. I have never found such clear and consistent strength of feeling about an issue. https://t.co/ZnIh32EGux
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) May 4, 2018
Based on Tories holding Barnet and Hillingdon, there's a real possibility of Labour actually going backwards in London when the result in Harrow is announced at circa 5pm.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) May 4, 2018
I feel sorry for the defeated Labour councillors, but Labour had to be defeated in Barnet. A victory would have been taken as an endorsement of antiSemitism https://t.co/fuAIFS6uJe
— Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) May 4, 2018
How Labour has fared against those targets:
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 4, 2018
Swindon ❌
Trafford ❌
Amber Valley ❌
Westminster ❌
Carlisle ❌
Plymouth ☑️
Wandsworth ❌
Dudley ❌
Barnet ❌
Walsall ❌
Kirklees - still to come
Tower Hamlets - still to come#Election2018
Updated
Conservatives win key Labour target of Barnet
The Conservatives have won control of Barnet Council, taking it back from no overall control.
The seat was a Labour target and political commentators on Twitter are already putting the result down to the anti-semitism row engulfing the Labour party. Barnet has a significant Jewish population, according to census data, with the second largest religious group being Jewish.
Earlier, a defeated Labour councillor in West Hendon tweeted an apparent reference to the party’s anti-Semitism row, saying “we must NEVER have another election like this” after the Conservatives took all three seats from the party in the ward.
Outgoing councillor Adam Langleben, who also sits on the national executive committee of Jewish Labour, tweeted: “No community group should have their vote dictated by their safety. That should shame us UKLabour.”
The results are now in from 94 of the 150 councils holding elections. Here are the latest figures.
Conservatives
Councils: 28 (-1)
Seats: 776 (-11)
Labour
Councils: 48 (-1)
Seats: 1,291 (+44)
Lib Dems
Councils: 4 (+1)
Seats: 324 (+45)
Greens
Seats: 21 (+6)
Ukip
Seats: 2 (-41)
That’s all from me. My colleague Jamie Grierson is taking over now.
Here are the latest results from London.
Conservatives
Councils: 4 (-1 - Richmond)
Seats: 271 (-46)
Labour
Councils: 8 (no change)
Seats: 434 (+29)
Lib Dems
Councils: 2 (+1 - Richmond)
Seats: 94 (+18)
On the Today programme Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s co-leader, said the Greens had had “a really good night”. She said that they were now the official opposition in Richmond, that they had seats on four new councils and that some of the best results they were expecting were yet to come in, in places like Islington and Lambeth.
Martha Kearney, the presenter, said the BBC’s analysis was that the Greens were only getting 6.5% in the wards they were fighting, a drop of 1.5% compared with 2014.
In their morning email, the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush and Dulcie Lee reckon that the biggest winner of election night was the Lib Dems. Here’s an excerpt.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the winner of the local elections is .... Vince Cable.
The Liberal Democrats harvested local discontent effectively in Sunderland, gave Labour a fright in Hull, won back Richmond at a clip, held onto Sutton, Eastleigh and Cheltenham and are at time of writing the biggest gainers as far as seat gains go
It will silence - at least for a while - the noises off about Cable and his leadership.
I’m finally leaving Kensington town hall following a disappointing night for Labour.
The party had hoped to make gains in the west London borough, which is still dealing with the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, amid speculation that it had an outside chance of taking control of the council.
Instead Labour gained just one councillor as the Conservatives won another overwhelming majority, maintaining their control of a borough they have run since 1964.
Labour even failed to take wards such as Chelsea Riverside, which it had been confident of winning from the Tories, as some local party activists suggested Grenfell had not been the deciding issue for most voters in the election, especially in the wealthier south of the borough.
The final results left the Tories with 36 seats, and Labour on 13.
“We all recognise we still need to rebuild trust,” said Conservative leader Elizabeth Campbell. “We must be and we will be open to all voices of our communities.”
“We all live in the shadow of Grenfell. Grenfell was, Grenfell is, and Grenfell will be our first priority.”
There were few signs of a revival for the Lib Dems, who clung on to their single councillor while showing few signs of progress elsewhere, even in a borough that voted 69% in favour of remain at the EU Referendum.
It was even worse for the new Advance Together political party, which had been compared to French President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche movement. It ran candidates in most wards, declaring that the “narrow demands of party politics has ill-served the people of Kensington & Chelsea”. The people of Kensington & Chelsea felt otherwise and the party came consistently last.
Kensington and Chelsea is London’s smallest borough by population and just 37,000 ballots were returned in Thursday’s election. Despite this the final results were only declared at 6.30am, hours after many other larger councils had finished counting and gone home. Bleary-eyed Labour activists were left wondering what went wrong.
Updated
Richard Angell, director of Progress, the Blairite pressure group in the Labour party (which is much disliked by the Corbynites), says Labour would not win a general election on the basis of these results.
I went to bed with Labour on course for big gains and have woke up with only one Labour council gained and losses in councils like Derby. Such a disappointing result is heartbreaking and some brilliant candidates have been failed #LocalElections2018
— (((Richard Angell))) (@RichardAngell) May 4, 2018
Considering Labour has such a small number of targets and a huge number of activists is it sad that on these results Labour would lose seats like Battersea in a general election and not make the kind of gains that are desperately needed in places like Nuneaton #LocalElections2018
— (((Richard Angell))) (@RichardAngell) May 4, 2018
To become the next government Labour needs to do more than tread water #LocalElections2018 pic.twitter.com/1t53MeBYQ7
— (((Richard Angell))) (@RichardAngell) May 4, 2018
Nickie Aiken, the Conservative leader of Westminster city council, claimed her party’s victory in the borough was partly a vote against Momentum. She said:
Labour thought they could take Westminster city council, and the people of Westminster sent a very clear message that Westminster would remain Conservative.
The Labour party threw everything they had at us today. We had hordes of Momentum supporters throughout Westminster, particularly in the south, and the people of Westminster sent them the message ‘We do not like your politics’.
More from Prof John Curtice, the BBC’s elections analyst, on Labour. He said:
There is very little in the way of Labour gains. Yes, they have denied the Tories control of Trafford but that’s a very strong remain area. Beyond that, there isn’t very much for the Labour party to celebrate.
In London, with only a few wards yet to declare results, the Conservatives have retained control of Kensington and Chelsea.
And Labour have retained control of Brent after winning 33 seats, with the Conservatives on three and 24 results still to come.
Updated
The Tories have taken all three West Hendon seats from Labour in Barnet, the Press Association reports.
This is from the Independent’s Benjamin Kentish.
Labour source in Barnet says wards with the highest proportion of Jewish voters are looking like “a car crash” for them. Adds: “Vote down would be an understatement.”
— Benjamin Kentish (@BenKentish) May 4, 2018
Early morning summary
- Theresa May has emerged unscathed from her first major electoral test since the general election. In a night that saw all the major parties make some initial gains as the Ukip vote collapsed, preliminary analysis suggested that outside London there was a swing from Labour to the Conservatives. In London the trend was different, but Labour failed to secure some of the high-profile council gains that some in the party had been hoping might prove possible. Overall it was a mixed night, and very few councils have so far changed hands (see 4.02am), but that was a relief to the Conservatives who know that in local elections governing parties often do much worse.
- With results in from 87 of the 150 councils in England holding elections, all three main parties had achieved net gains in numbers of seats. Labour was on 1,072 seats (+30), the Conservatives 642 (+16) and the Lib Dems 278 (+24). Labour had won 44 councils (-1), the Conservatives 27 (no change) and the Lib Dems 3 (no change).
- Ukip were the biggest losers of the night. With results in from 87 councils, they had lost 35 seats, and won just 2.
- The BBC said its analysis of voting suggested that the Conservatives and Labour were either level-pegging, or else one party was marginally ahead of the other. Prof John Curtice, who analyses the figures for the BBC, said an early analysis of the figures suggested there had been a 1% swing to the Conservatives outside London, compared with 2014, but a swing to Labour in the capital. But his team is still analysing the results and firm figures will be released later.
- The Conservatives comfortably held off Labour challenges to some of their flagship councils in London. They have retained control of Wandsworth and Westminster, and Labour has conceded that the Tories will also hold Kensington and Chelsea. Governing parties expect to lose ground in mid-term local elections, but in some areas they were making progress. They gained control of Basildon and Peterborough, both from no overall control.
- Labour claimed the results showed the party had consolidated its position. It did not achieve a dramatic breakthrough, and party figures admitted the results were “mixed”, but it gained Plymouth from the Conservatives and won enough seats in Tory-led Trafford to tip it into no overall control. Curtice said, if Labour and the Conservatives ended the day roughly equal in terms of the national share of the vote, that would allow Labour to claim it had made progress since the general election, when the Tories were ahead. (See 5.37am.)
- The Lib Dems have won back Richmond from the Conservatives and are confident of gaining back Kingston-upon-Thames too, when counting there concludes later today.
Updated
This is from Sky’s Lewis Goodall.
Results confirm that the culture war is yielding two zombie parties.Labour strong in cities but struggling in small town Britain. Cons making gains in post industrial areas and semi-rural England. But inability to breakout means there’s no clear path to a majority for either.
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 4, 2018
On the BBC Jonathan Ashworth has just said that Labour has been too slow to deal with some of the allegations of antisemitism against party members. He said that one problem was that, when cases got taken to the national executive committee for disciplinary action, some NEC members were too willing to give the offenders the benefit of the doubt.
Prof John Curtice and his team analyse the election results to produce an estimate for the national share of the vote. (See 11.46pm.) He said that there was a small swing to the Conservatives, compared with four years ago, outside London, but that London was different. He said, in terms of the share of the vote, they were not quite sure whether Labour and the Conservatives were “exactly even-stevens” or whether one party was slightly ahead.
He went on:
Although these results are not particularly good for Labour, they are better, relatively speaking, than they were in the general election last year. So you certainly can’t argue that the Labour party has not made any progress as compared with last year’s general election [where the Tories were ahead]. But, on the other hand, you can’t necessarily argue the Labour party is in a stronger position than they were in the 2016 local elections as well as the 2014 local elections [in both of which Labour ended up ahead].
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told BBC News that the results were “mixed” for Labour. But he said the party was making progress. And he claimed that Labour thought, on the basis of the way people voted tonight, it would win the Putney parliamentary seat, which is currently held by the Conservative Justine Greening with a a majority of 1,554.
On the same programme John Curtice disputed this. He said that he thought the Tories would hold Putney on the basis of these results. But he said his own analysis of the Wandworth result suggested the Conservatives would now be on course to win Battersea (a seat Labour gained from the Tories at the general election, with a majority of 2,416).
This is from Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, on the results so far.
We’ve only seen a few councils change hands at this stage in the results but at present it looks like a better night for the Conservatives than many would have anticipated, while Labour results have not quite lived up to expectations.
In London, Labour were targeting flagship Conservative councils like Wandsworth and Westminster but have fallen short despite increasing their number of seats.
Labour needed to talk up the possibility of gains to get their vote out, but now risk disappointment even though Wandsworth and Westminster (both Conservative for more than 40 years) were always going to be a long shot.
Outside London the picture is one of Conservative consolidation. In places like Swindon, Nuneaton, Basildon and Southend, Labour need to win if they are to win a general election but the Conservatives are tightening their grip.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems made big strides in terms of numbers of councillors and swept away the Conservatives in Richmond presumably benefiting from being the only major party opposed to Brexit in the borough that recorded one of the highest remain votes in the country.
Overall though, we seem to be seeing an entrenchment of the status quo; a divided Britain in which big cities vote Labour and everywhere else votes Conservative.
A much-touted Labour attempt to wrestle control of Wandsworth – controlled by the Tories since 1978 - was foiled after the Conservatives successfully concentrated resources in key strongholds amid a significantly increased turnout.
However, Labour came close on a night when it gained seven seats on a flagship Tory council that has been known for its ultra low council tax and outsourcing of local services since 1978.
The final results left the Tories on 33 seats, Labour on 26 and one in the hands of Malcolm Grimston, a former Conservative-turned independent who had the largest personal vote of the night (4002).
Even before the results started to come in, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan had earlier sought to manage expectations when he arrived at the count in South London where his party had needed to take 12 Tory seats to win outright control.
“Of course we may not win councils but I think winning councillors who are Labour is a fantastic achievement,” he said, when it was put to him by reporters that he and other Labour figures had “talked up” the possibility of winning Wandsworth.
While Labour did make gains at the expense of the Tories, the latter fended of the challenge by bringing home increased votes to retain control of all seats in wards such as Fairfield, Thamesfield and Southfields.
Ravi Govindia, the Tory leader of the council, said:
The strategy was to take the message to every household to every door to every resident and convince them that this was a council that had not run out of steam.
Bright spots for Labour included Queenstown, where it made a gain from the Tories, and where councillors included 25-year-old Aydin Emre Dikerdem, who won a by-election in 2016.
Another story of the night was the sheer irrelevance of explicitly anti Brexit parties in a part of London that recorded a 75% for Remain during the referendum on membership of the EU.
Both the Liberal Democrats and Renew, a new party seeking to carve out ground on the centre, failed to make any real threats to the Tories or Labour in what was entirely a two-horse race. Renew’s founder, former Foreign Office anti-terrorist officer Chris Coghlan, said that he was “pretty happy” with Renew’s performance in target wards such as Balham, where he finished ahead of the three Liberal Democrats.
Updated
Here are the figures from Richmond. This is from OnLondon’s Dave Hill, who says the electoral pact that the Lib Dems and the Greens were operating in the borough seems to have worked.
Stonking win for @LondonLibDems in #Richmond, where the @LonGreenParty also won four seats. So the Lib-Green electoral agreement seems to have worked. Tories reduced to seven. Boy, did I call that one wrong. pic.twitter.com/f6EN4xiN6z
— Dave Hill On London (@DaveHill) May 4, 2018
And the Conservatives have held Westminster too.
Westminster
C No change
Lab gain 4, C lose 4
New council: C 41, Lab 19
Ukip has so far won two council seats - double the number the party won in last year's local elections. #Election2018
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 4, 2018
According to the Press Association’s Ian Jones, only 19 more councils will declare tonight.
Just 19 more councils left to declare tonight. The rest start counting in the morning. #Election2018
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) May 4, 2018
Tories hold Wandsworth
The Conservatives have held Wandsworth. It is a flagship Tory low tax borough, quoted approvingly by Theresa May at PMQs on Wednesday, and Labour would loved to have won it, although that was always a very high ask. Labour hasn’t won it since 1974.
Here are the figures.
Wandsworth
C No change
Lab gain 7, C lose 6, Ind lose 1
New council: C 33, Lab 26, Ind 1
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has just told BBC News that he thinks the Ukip vote is going to different parties. In some areas it was going to the Lib Dems, he said. That sounded counter-intuitive, he accepted, but it was in some respects a protest vote.
Here are the latest figures for London.
Conservatives
Councils: 1
Seats: 76 (+10)
Labour
Councils: 2
Seats: 118 (+3)
Lib Dems
Councils: 1
Seats: 33 (-11)
Tories are only 2 away from keeping Wandsworth, sounds pretty much like it's gone for Labour
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 4, 2018
Here is another slug of results.
Welwyn Hatfield
C No change
C 8, LD 6, Lab 5
LD gain 3, C lose 2, Lab lose 1
New council: C 25, Lab 15, LD 8
Bradford
Lab No change
Lab 20, C 8, LD 2
Lab gain 3, C gain 1, Ind lose 2, LD lose 1, Green lose 1
New council: Lab 52, C 22, Ind 7, LD 7, Green 2
Winchester
C No change
LD 9, C 6
LD gain 2, C lose 1, Ind lose 1
New council: C 23, LD 22
Hillingdon
C No change
C gain 2, Lab lose 2
New council: C 44, Lab 21
Daventry
C No change
C 11, Lab 2
Lab gain 2, UKIP lose 2
New council: C 30, Lab 5, LD 1
North East Lincolnshire
NOC No change
C 10, Lab 5, LD 1
C gain 3, Lab gain 2, UKIP lose 3, LD lose 1, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 19, C 18, LD 4, Ind 1
Sutton
LD No change
C gain 10, Ind gain 1, LD lose 11
New council: LD 33, C 18, Ind 3
Waltham Forest
Lab No change
Lab gain 3, C lose 2, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 46, C 14
Eastleigh
LD No change
Boundary change
C down 2, Ind down 2, LD down 1
New council: LD 32, C 4, Ind 3
Cheltenham
LD No change
LD 17, C 3, Ind 1
LD gain 3, Ind lose 2, C lose 1
New council: LD 32, C 6, Ind 2
The Lib Dems have gained Richmond and they are confident of gaining Kingston too, party sources says. They also held Sutton, Eastleigh and Cheltenham. They claim holding Sutton was significant because the Conservatives fought it hard.
On the BBC Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, says the results are pretty good for Labour. “We are making gains in the sorts of constituencies that will decide the next election,” he says, citing Chingford, Putney and Plymouth as examples.
The Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, a former soldier and MP for Plymouth Moor view, told the BBC that the government’s approach to defence had contributed to the Conservatives losing the city’s council. He said:
We’ve lost control of the council. I think across the country, clearly, it’s not been a good night for Labour, but certainly challenging down here.
It’s pretty clear to me the biggest factor in this city is defence. It always has been. I’ve made very public my concerns around the handling of defence at the moment and what the vision is.
On Sky News Sky’s election expert Michael Thrasher was asked whether it was fair to say this was a bad night for Labour. He did not want to go that far. But it was “certainly not a good night”, he said.
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, told the programme the results were at the higher end of his party’s expectations. He claimed that the results would lead to Labour party members wondering whether, under Jeremy Corbyn, the party was too London-centric.
More news snaps from the Press Association.
Labour looks set to retain control of its mayoral seat in Tower Hamlets with a party source saying they are “very confident” John Biggs will be returned
The Liberal Democrats have gained control of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames after winning at least 38 of the 54 seats.
The Conservatives have retained control of Hillingdon, after winning 35 of the 65 seats.
The Conservatives have retained control of Winchester City Council despite losing one seat to the Liberal Democrats.
Labour loses Derby to no overall control
Here are the figures for Derby.
Derby
Lab lose to NOC
C 8, Lab 5, LD 2, UKIP 2
C gain 2, UKIP gain 1, Lab lose 3
New council: Lab 23, C 20, LD 5, UKIP 3
Carrie Symonds, the Conservative party’s director of communications, has taken to Twitter to gloat.
If the results tonight in Derby North had been replicated in the last general election, Chris Williamson would have lost his seat.
— Carrie Symonds (@carriesymonds) May 4, 2018
Let's remember what Chris Williamson said just last week: "It's the easiest period to campaign for Labour in my entire life"
Wandsworth might have voted remain by 75% in the referendum on membership of the EU, but another story of tonight was the sheer irrelevance of explicitly anti Brexit parties.
Both the Liberal Democrats and Renew, a new party seeking to carve out ground on the centre, failed to make any real threats to the Tories or Labour in what was entirely a two-horse race.
If there is a tiny ‘civil war’ among the remain parties however, it was members Renew who were patting themselves on the back.
Its founder, former Foreign Office anti-terrorist officer Chris Coghlan, said that he was “pretty happy” with Renew’s performance in target wards such as Balham, where he finished ahead of the three Liberal Democrats.
The figures are small however: Coghlan polled 568 in a ward where three Tories romped home with more than 7,000 votes between them.
So what happened to the 75% remain vote? The answer may or may not be down to the fact that this was about bins rather than Brexit.
“The results will have been blurred by the fact that this was a local election,” said Coghlan. “We are also a startup and it’s about building ourselves as a party that is fundamentally about more than just being anti-Brexit.”
According to the Press Association, results are now in from 71 of the 150 councils where elections have been taking place.
Here are the figures.
Conservatives
Councils: 20 (nc)
Seats: 412 (+27)
Labour
Councils: 37 (-1)
Seats: 743 (+9)
Lib Dems
Councils: 2 (nc)
Seats: 180 (+21)
Greens
Seats: 15 (+4)
Ukip
Seats: 2 (-29)
And here are the councils that have changed hands.
Conservative gains
Basildon (from no overall control)
Peterborough (from no overall control)
Conservative losses
Trafford (to no overall control)
Plymouth (to Labour)
Labour gains
Plymouth (from Conservative)
Labour losses
Nuneaton & Bedworth (to no overall control)
Derby (to no overall control)
Labour has become the biggest party in Trafford, winning four seats from the Tories to take their total to 30. After a surprise double win by the Green party in Altrincham, the Conservative party was left with 29 seats, down from 33.
“I’m absolutely ecstatic,” said Andrew Western, leader of the Labour group on Trafford council. “This is far beyond our expectations. We hoped to tip the council into no overall control tonight, but to have become the largest party at the same time is a fantastic bonus. We could not be happier.”
Labour celebrating becoming the largest party in Trafford. Lab leader Andrew Western says result is an indictment of local Conservatives #LocalElection2018 pic.twitter.com/7rKyMqvhZz
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) May 4, 2018
Conservative council leader Sean Anstee said his party would have to reflect on the results. He said:
Elections in Trafford have always been tight and clearly, as the only Conservative-majority council in Greater Manchester, surrounded by a number of Labour councils, we’ve seen significant opposition activity into the borough over the last six months or so.
He said that wards that had changed hands also saw a significant increase in turnout. “A number of voters who ordinarily perhaps haven’t voted, turned out,” he said. “We’ll need to reflect on the reasons why they turned out in the way that they did and why they voted in the way that they did.”
While it didn’t surprise many to see the Conservatives lose their overall control of Trafford council, it had not been predicted that the Greens would land the final blow.
Geraldine Coggins, one of two Green candidates to take seats of the Tories in Altrincham, said:
The media hasn’t necessarily noticed, because we’re not very surprised. I spoke to a number of people in their 80s who said they had always voted Conservative but were going to vote Green for the first time in their lives, and a number of Labour members who said they were going to vote Green this time. There was a lot of momentum.
Dan Jerrome, who came second in the last set of council elections in the area, said that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Green party candidates could take seats from Conservatives. He said the pair – who are now Greater Manchester’s only Green councillors – had campaigned on a number of issues, but pointed to the council plans to chop down trees and large developments that residents felt they hadn’t been consulted on.
Greater Manchester’s new (and only) Green Party councillors. They say their campaign in Altrincham went below the media’s radar but that they aren’t surprised they won #LocalElections2018 pic.twitter.com/P5Lfs0WfxJ
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) May 4, 2018
On the BBC’s election programme Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, claimed a few minutes ago that Brexit was not a big factor in the local elections. He told the programme:
I didn’t get from voters on the doorstep ‘Brexit, Brexit’. That just was not what was coming across. It was about local issues.
But Fox had to be corrected by fellow panellists when he argued that, if Brexit was a factor, Labour would have done better in remain areas like Walsall at these elections. Walsall voted leave, he was told.
Rob Ford, an academic and elections specialist, says Fox is just wrong.
Cons doing markedly worse and Lab markedly better in areas with large ethnic minority populations
— Rob Ford (@robfordmancs) May 4, 2018
The really strong connection between Con performance and EU referendum vote seen in last year's general election is also very clear in this year's local elections. Brexit alignment remains in place. Pace Liam Fox, it was Brexit not bin collections
— Rob Ford (@robfordmancs) May 4, 2018
Updated
Labour gain Plymouth from Conservatives
Labour have gained Plymouth from the Conservatives.
That is the first council of the night that has switched from one party’s majority control to another’s.
Here are the figures.
Plymouth
Lab gain from C
Lab 11, C 8
Lab gain 4, C lose 4
New council: Lab 31, C 26
Updated
This is from the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush.
Basically, this is just the 2017 election - with one crucial difference: the Liberal Democrats are doing a lot better: https://t.co/FAJ7ZTHBOP
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) May 4, 2018
Ukip have actually won a seat. This is from Chris Doidge from BBC Radio Derby.
Breaking: Labour leader of @DerbyCC Ranjit Banwait loses his seat to UKIP.
— Chris Doidge (@BBCChrisD) May 4, 2018
Boulton ward, @DerbyCC
— Chris Doidge (@BBCChrisD) May 4, 2018
UKIP 1602 (Paul Bettany)
Labour 1128 (Ranjit Banwait)
Conservatives 1086
Lib Dems 165#LocalElections2018 pic.twitter.com/x0qboJEEen
If the results in London are quite different from the results outside London (see 3.14am), then in many respects that’s just a repeat of what happened at the last general election. Overall there was a modest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in 2017. But the swing in London was much, much larger than anywhere else. Here is another chart from Britain Votes 2017.
Early analysis suggests 1.5% swing from Tories to Labour in London, 1% swing to Tories outside, says BBC
According to John Curtice at the BBC, as reported on the BBC blog, their analysis from key wards in London shows “a 1.5% swing from Conservative to Labour, far short of what Labour needs to pick up anything other than perhaps Barnet, but in contrast to the position outside of London where there is so far a 1% swing from Labour to the Conservatives.”
Here is some comment on the Trafford result. (See 3.03pm)
Tim Montgomerie, who founded the ConservativeHome website, wonders if there was an Andy Burnham effect.
Sir Graham Brady confirms Tories have lost Trafford. Anyone have strong views on why? Is there an @AndyBurnhamGM effect? (I realise only small swing was needed).
— Tim Montgomerie (@montie) May 4, 2018
From Andrew Fisher, Jeremy Corbyn’s policy adviser
Labour now the largest party in Trafford - removing the last Tory council in Greater Manchester #Vote2018
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) May 4, 2018
From the Manchester Evening News’s Jennifer Williams
The Trafford result also means that every single politician round the top table in Greater Manchester is now set to be Labour.
— Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) May 4, 2018
Conservatives lose Trafford to no overall control
The Conservatives have lost Trafford to no overall control. Here are the figures.
Trafford
C lose to NOC
Lab 13, C 7, Green 2
Lab gain 4, Green gain 2, C lose 4, LD lose 1, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 30, C 29, LD 2, Green 2
More from Wandsworth.
This is from Matt Singh from Number Cruncher Politics.
Wandsworth ward swings:
— Number Cruncher Politics (@NCPoliticsUK) May 4, 2018
Queenstown 8.8% to LAB
Thamesfield 0.8% to CON
St Mary's Park is apparently a recount, which suggests 6-7% to LAB
And this is from Marsha de Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea.
Queenstown has three Labour councillors for the first time since 1990 - and what fantastic councillor’s they are!
— Marsha de Cordova MP (@MarshadeCordova) May 4, 2018
Massive congratulations Aydin, Maurice & Paula! pic.twitter.com/vMqnbqijTo
My colleague Ben Quinn has tweeted this from Wandsworth, which he says helps to explain why the Conservatives have fended off the Labour attack.
But here’s part of why the Tories seem to have fended off Labour in Wandsworth
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) May 4, 2018
They got their vote out in middle class strongholds like Thamesfield, where turnout was up by 6%, holding all 3 seats #LE2018 pic.twitter.com/9dvySwrFUV
Labour may have reached 'peak Corbyn', Justine Greening says
On the BBC election programme Justine Greening, the Conservative former education secretary and MP for Putney, said that, after three bad years for her party in London, there were some signs of hope. She said:
Labour were really trying to keep up, literally, the momentum. It doesn’t look to me - we’ve got lots of results to come through - like they’ve managed to do that. Maybe we are beginning to see something akin to peak Corbyn happening.
The results are now in from 53 councils. And only three councils have changed hands.
The Conservatives have gained Basildon and Peterborough - both from no overall control.
And Labour has lost Nuneaton, which is now under no overall control.
Here is another slug of results. I posted a large chunk of them earlier at 1.29am.
Councils where control has changed
Peterborough
C gain from NOC
C 7, Lab 6, LD 3, Green 1, Ind 1
C gain 1, LD gain 1, Green gain 1, Lab lose 1, UKIP lose 1, Lib lose 1
New council: C 31, Lab 14, LD 6, Ind 5, Lib 2, UKIP 1, Green 1
Councils where control has not changed.
Havant
C No change
C 13, Lab 1, LD 1
C gain 2, UKIP lose 2
New council: C 31, Lab 2, UKIP 2, Ind 2, LD 1
Sefton
Lab No change
Lab 17, C 4, LD 2
C gain 3, Lab gain 3, LD lose 4, Ind lose 2
New council: Lab 43, LD 12, C 8, Ind 3
Fareham
C No change
C 12, LD 3, Ind 1
New council: C 24, LD 5, UKIP 1, Ind 1
Gosport
C No change
LD 9, C 8, Lab 1
LD gain 4, C lose 3, Lab lose 1
New council: C 18, LD 14, Lab 2
Dudley
NOC No change
C 14, Lab 10
C gain 6, UKIP lose 6
New council: Lab 35, C 35, UKIP 1, Ind 1
Wolverhampton
Lab No change
Lab 19, C 3
Lab gain 2, C lose 1, UKIP lose 1
New council: Lab 51, C 9
Portsmouth
NOC No change
C 6, Lab 4, LD 4
Lab gain 4, LD gain 1, C lose 2, UKIP lose 2, Ind lose 1
New council: C 19, LD 16, Lab 6, Ind 1
Wokingham
C No change
C 11, LD 4, Lab 2, Ind 1
Lab gain 2, LD gain 1, C lose 3
New council: C 42, LD 8, Lab 3, Ind 1
Rochdale
Lab No change
Lab 16, C 3, LD 1
LD gain 1, Lab lose 1
New council: Lab 46, C 10, LD 3, Ind 1
Ipswich
Lab No change
Lab 12, C 3, LD 1
Lab gain 1, C lose 1
New council: Lab 34, C 12, LD 2
Liverpool
Lab No change
Lab 25, LD 3, Green 2, Lib 1
LD gain 3, Lab lose 3
New council: Lab 76, LD 7, Green 4, Lib 2, Ind 1
Colchester
NOC No change
C 10, Lab 4, LD 2, Ind 1
C gain 2, LD lose 2
New council: C 25, LD 12, Lab 11, Ind 3
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Lab No change
Boundary change
Lab up 2, LD down 1, Ind down 1
New council: Lab 56, LD 19, Ind 3
Lincoln
Lab No change
Lab 7, C 4
C gain 3, Lab lose 2, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 24, C 9
Hart
NOC No change
C 4, Ind 4, LD 3
Ind gain 3, C gain 1, R lose 4
New council: C 15, LD 8, R 6, Ind 4
Preston
Lab No change
Lab 13, C 5, LD 2
Lab gain 2, C lose 2
New council: Lab 35, C 17, LD 5
Chorley
Lab No change
Lab 14, C 2, Ind 1
Lab gain 2, C lose 1, Ind lose 1
New council: Lab 32, C 13, Ind 2
Sandwell
Lab No change
Lab 26
Lab gain 3, Ind lose 3
New council: Lab 70, Ind 2
Rugby
C No change
C 8, Lab 3, LD 3
C gain 1, LD gain 1, Ind lose 2
New council: C 24, Lab 9, LD 9
Tameside
Lab No change
Lab 17, C 2
New council: Lab 51, C 6
Stevenage
Lab No change
Lab 8, C 3, LD 2
LD gain 1, Lab lose 1
New council: Lab 26, C 9, LD 4
I’m at the count in Wandsworth where it looks increasingly like the Conservatives have held off the much talked about threat of a Labour takeover of a council that has been in Tory hands since 1978.
Sadiq Khan, who is at the count in South London, has been playing down Labour’s chances not just of ousting the Tories in a local authority where the mayor’s party would need to take 12 Tory seats, but also making more widespread gains.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the us making gains across London,” he said, when it was put to him by reporters that he and other Labour figures had “talked up” the possibility of winning Wandsworth. “Of course we may not win councils but I think winning councillors who are labour is a fantastic achievement.”
A rank and file Labour activist put his feelings about the party’s chances in Wandsworth more bluntly: “Glum, I’m glum. It was just too big a mountain to climb.”
Justin Greening, the Tory MP for Putney, said it appeared that the Conservatives have managed to “fend off” Labour.
Turnout is meanwhile up in many wards here, and by as much as 10 percent in many cases.
Matt Singh, who runs the Number Cruncher Politics website, reckons that people are making false assumptions about where the Ukip vote is going. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, and others have been arguing that they are going in disproportionate numbers to the Conservatives.
A lot of misreporting of how (eg) the UKIP vote is splitting. You don't know how it's splitting just from look at the net changes in a ward, that requires a proper analysis (and ideally individual level data). I wish people would stop it...
— Matt Singh (@MattSingh_) May 4, 2018
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has just told the BBC that his view is that Ukip voters are just returning to the parties they supported before they flocked to Ukip a few years ago.
On the subject of what happens to the Ukip vote, it is worth flagging up this chart in Britain Votes 2017, a useful collection of essays on the general election published by the Hansard Society. In the main essay David Denver says that, overall, the decline in the Ukip vote benefited the Conservatives.
But he also says that although people assumed that the Conservatives would benefit most in those constituencies where Ukip decided not to stand a candidate, actually the opposite happened and Labour saw their share of the vote rise the most. Here are the figures he cites to back this up.
The results are now in from 43 of the 150 councils where there are elections.
Here are the figures
Conservatives
Councils: 14 (+2 - Basildon and Peterborough)
Seats: 241 (+45)
Labour
Councils: 23 (-1 - Nuneaton)
Seats: 428 (-13)
Lib Dems
Seats: 65 (+8)
Greens
Seats: 7 (+1)
Ukip
Seats: 0 (18)
Conservatives gain control of Peterborough, from no overall control
Results are starting to come in thick and fast now. Here is a round-up from the Press Association.
The Liberal Democrat leader of Colchester Council, Paul Smith, has lost his seat in St Anne’s and St John’s ward to the Conservatives, who are hoping to take control of the council.
The Conservatives have gained control of Peterborough, winning seven of the 18 seats contested. It was under no overall control.
The Labour target of Carlisle remains in no overall control.
North East Lincolnshire will remain under no overall control after the results were declared in 12 of the 16 wards being contested. The council was a target for both Labour and the Conservatives.
Conservative sources say they expect to remain the largest single party on Worcester City Council. The Green party look set to gain a seat from the Tories.
Labour looks set to take Plymouth from the Conservatives, Labour Party sources say.
The result at Winchester is too close to call, Conservative and Liberal
Democrat sources say. The Conservatives currently have a narrow majority on the council, which is a Liberal Democrat target.
On the BBC election programme John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said that Labour was making “steady progress” but that “obviously we want to be doing better”.
He said the Ukip vote had largely gone to the Tories.
Sir Nick Harvey, the former Lib Dem MP, also told the programme that he thought the Ukip vote had gone to the Conservatives.
Here is some reaction to the result in Swindon, where Labour gained one seat from the Conservatives, but the Conservative retained overall control of the council
The Labour group leader Jim Grant said:
I’m bitterly disappointed. We need to sit down and analyse the figures. Turn-out was up all round. We got as many votes as we thought we would need to win. Clearly the Conservatives were able to increase their vote. How I don’t know. It may be the collapse of the Ukip vote and that has gone back to the Tories. But we are still in the game here. The majority is reduced to one. Next year one last haul and hopefully we will break the Tory monopoly on control of Swindon borough council. Jeremy [Corbyn] has inspired our active base and that is why we have got so many votes.
The Conservative group leader David Renard said:
We got our positive message across. Labour ran a very negative campaign here. They have thrown a lot of resource, brought in a lot of people and spent a lot of money trying to take up to six of our seats. They failed to take every one. We have shown the Labour party is a long way from forming a government and on the doorstep there is a lot of anti Jeremy Corbyn feeling. There are very few places in southern England where Labour has a foothold.
And this is from Robert Buckland, the South Swindon MP and solicitor general.
Labour were expecting to take control or for their to be no overall control. They failed. It’s a very bad night for them and a really strong night for the Tories.
Tory vote seems to be rising more than Labour's, says John Curtice
Who’s doing well and who’s doing badly? This is what John Curtice, the leading psephologist, told the BBC a few minutes ago.
The truth is, [all three main parties] are doing better than they were four years ago in terms of votes won. That’s a reflection of the fact that the Ukip vote is down.
However John McDonnell’s problem is that the Conservative vote, at least in the votes that we have had so far, which are all from outside London, is going up more than the Labour vote. That therefore means that, relative to the Conservatives at least, Labour are in a somewhat weaker position than they were in indeed in 2014 when most of the seats were [last fought] ...
That said, this ... is pointing to something like Conservative and Labour being equal, or probably the Conservatives being slightly ahead. This probaby does mean that the Labour party are in a stronger position than they were in the 2017 general election.
But the truth is, in so far as the Labour party would like to be able to demonstrate further progress, to be able to say that actually we’re beginning to come up with the kinds of leads in the local elections that we normally associate with oppositions that are heading for victory, I think John must be somewhat disappointed. The Labour party, relative to the Conservatives at least, are going back as compared with recent local election performances.
Follow rolling coverage of results from #LocalElection2018
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 4, 2018
Here's the current state of play https://t.co/LBKYeyD1TV pic.twitter.com/i6qxJGIqS1
At a Momentum election night event, Labour canvassers are taking a rest after a long day of door-stepping.
Laura Parker, the Momentum national co-ordinator, said the fact that the Tories seemed to be doing well in leave areas showed how divided the country was. She said:
There’s a more profound fracture in British politics on leave/remain lines. It’s clear the Labour party have to continue building in areas over a long period of time that it’s lost. It’s almost certainly the case the Tories have the same problem in reverse - they will struggle in remain areas and big cities.
This isn’t a healthy state of affairs. The distinguishing feature is Labour has a manifesto for the whole country, and of course expectations are high because we did so well in the general elections. But we’re comparing our results to 2014; there’s only so much we can gain. The Tories have had some of the worst few weeks on record; if I was the Tories I’d be talking up Wandsworth and Kensington too.
Swindon is obviously disappointing. It’s a place we were hoping to do better in. It’s all relative, that’s the thing about local elections.
One of the challenges for Labour is having a much bolder offering about local government but you can only do that when you’re in government. For the moment we’re mitigating the worst effects of austerity, which is a thankless task.
Momentum are hesitant to predict the results of today’s election this soon, but there are free beers and @jonlansman is... pic.twitter.com/o3yaS3NwtM
— Nadia Khomami (@nadiakhomami) May 3, 2018
Here are the results by council that are in so far, according to the Press Association.
Councils where control has changed
Basildon
C gain from NOC
C 11, Lab 2, Ind 2
C gain 5, Lab gain 2, UKIP lose 5, Ind lose 2
New council: C 24, Lab 11, UKIP 5, Ind 2
Nuneaton & Bedworth
Lab lose to NOC
C 11, Lab 6
C gain 8, Lab lose 7, Green lose 1
New council: Lab 17, C 16, Green 1
Councils where control has not changed
Tamworth
C No change
C 8, Lab 1, Vacant 1
C gain 2, Lab lose 1, Ind lose 1
New council: C 22, Lab 5, Ind 1, UKIP 1, Vacant 1
Thurrock
NOC No change
Lab 9, C 6, Ind 1
Lab gain 3, C gain 1, Ind lose 4
New council: C 20, Lab 17, Ind 12
Tandridge
C No change
C 4, LD 4, Ind 3, R 3
LD gain 3, Ind gain 3, R gain 2, C lose 8
New council: C 22, LD 9, Ind 7, R 4
Brentwood
C No change
C 8, LD 4, Lab 1
C gain 1, Ind lose 1
New council: C 25, LD 9, Lab 2, Ind 1
Wigan
Lab No change
Lab 18, Ind 4, C 3
Ind gain 3, C gain 2, Lab lose 5
New council: Lab 60, Ind 8, C 7
Cannock Chase
Lab No change
Lab 6, C 5, LD 1, Green 1
C gain 2, Green gain 1, Ind lose 2, UKIP lose 1
New council: Lab 21, C 15, Green 3, Ind 1, LD 1
Hartlepool
Lab No change
Lab 5, Ind 5, C 1
Ind gain 1, UKIP lose 1
New council: Lab 19, Ind 11, C 3
Swindon
C No change
C 9, Lab 9, LD 1
Lab gain 1, C lose 1
New council: C 29, Lab 26, LD
St Helens
Lab No change
Lab 13, C 1, LD 1, Ind 1
Ind gain 1, Lab lose 1
New council: Lab 41, LD 3, C 3, Ind 1
Halton
Lab No change
Lab 17, LD 1
New council: Lab 52, C 2, LD 2
Castle Point
C No change
C 9, Ind 5
C gain 4, UKIP lose 2, Ind lose 2
New council: C 27, Ind 14
The Tories are also optimistic about seeing off Labour in Westminster, my colleague Pippa Crerar reports.
And I've just heard from Tory sources that they're "optimistic" about Westminster.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 4, 2018
Labour has conceded defeat in Kensington and Chelsea and said there is little chance of the party taking control of the council, despite the Conservative administration’s chaotic handling of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
“We have piled up votes in Labour-held wards,” said Labour group leader Robert Atkinson, insisting his party’s gains would be limited because the Conservatives have managed to “frighten out” their vote across the west London borough.
Kensington and Chelsea has been controlled by the Conservatives since the council was formed in 1964 and Labour went into this year’s election with just 11 out of 50 seats – all representing areas in the poorer, north of the borough near to the burned-out shell of Grenfell Tower.
Last June’s catastrophe, combined with the unexpected victory of Labour’s Emma Dent Coad in the Kensington parliamentary constituency at the general election, prompted speculation that Jeremy Corbyn’s party could be on a cusp of an unlikely breakthrough.
Instead Labour is hoping to gain just a handful of councillors, with hopes pinned on the Chelsea Riverside and St Helen’s wards. The Liberal Democrats are targeting a single ward, while the new centrist political movement Advance looks to have sunk without trace.
Despite conceding defeat, Atkinson insisted the election showed how the Conservative council’s reputation has been hit by the disaster, even among core Tory supporters in ultra-wealthy parts of the borough.
“Grenfell is a symbol of incompetence of the council,” he said. “I’ve heard that from Chelsea ladies who always thought they had an efficient council. But both during and afterwards the council has just failed.”
Britain Elects has been calculating what has happened to the share of the vote so far. There has been a swing to the Tories, it says - about 2.5% since 2014.
Share changes of the results we have so far:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 4, 2018
Con: +9.0
Lab: +4.1
LDem: +3.8
Grn: +2.9
UKIP: -19.3
Swing to Tories.
I’ve just been speaking to councillor Andrew Western, leader of the Labour group on Trafford council, who is quick to dismiss the idea that his party could win overall control of the borough. “That was never the plan. We never thought that we could go to overall control this year. Absolutely not,” he said. He went on:
To be honest, I think the Tories were suggesting that by way of expectation management. But we never felt that we could take it this time. To win six seats [the number the party would need to take control] we would have to win three that we have never won in the history of Trafford.
Even to go to no overall control we would have to win one seat in Davyhulme East that we’ve never ever won. So I would say that, for us, no overall control would be a tremendous result. It really would.
Turnout in Trafford is slightly up on the last set of elections in 2016 – 42.9% (73,073 votes) compared to 41% (66,763) – something Western says is good for Labour. “I’d say we’re hopeful from the things that we’ve seen of picking up two or three seats, maybe, but it really is too early to tell.”
Sean Anstee, the council’s Conservative leader, also said, unsurprisingly, that it was too early to make predictions. He said:
We’ve seen a concerted effort from the Labour party, just as we’ve seen a concerted effort from our party. We’ll know later on tonight who’s has been successful.
I think it is important for Greater Manchester [where Trafford is the only Conservative council] to have a diversity of political opinion. We can see in city regions across the UK, where they’re dominated by a single party, that that doesn’t bring the variety of ideas that you would really want to have.
The Tories have sent out a briefing about Labour losing control of Nuneaton & Bedworth. They point out that in 2014 Labour had a 22-seat majority there. And they point out that my Guardian colleague Owen Jones, a very active campaigner for Labour, once cited Nuneaton as the sort of seat Labour should win.
Here are the latest figures from the Press Association, with the results in from 12 of the 150 councils.
Conservatives
Councils: 4 (n/c)
Seats: 62 (+20)
Labour
Councils: 7 (-1)
Seats: 110 (-16)
Lib Dems
Seats: 11 (+3)
Greens
Seats: 1
Ukip
Seats: 0 (-5)
My colleague Steven Morris has posted a picture of the Tories celebrating holding on to Swindon.
Happy Tories in Swindon - they have hung on to control. pic.twitter.com/LdQMlpRb1A
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) May 3, 2018
Conservatives gain Basildon
The Conservatives have gained Basildon. This is from the BBC’s Nick Sutton.
Conservatives gain BASILDON as UKIP loses 10 councillors. https://t.co/4ZuF8PS3wX#LocalElections2018 pic.twitter.com/WEyPxBx9OQ
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) May 3, 2018
The Tories have held Swindon, the BBC reports.
Tories have held Swindon - that will be big relief for tory hq and disappointment for Labour, Corbyn visited several times
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 3, 2018
Updated
In a statement released tonight Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, said that for Labour to win Wandsworth would be beyond the party’s “wildest expectations”. He said:
I’ve been campaigning across London and it’s quite remarkable to see us being competitive in boroughs that used to be “no go” areas for Labour in previous years. No more.
It would be truly astonishing if Labour were to take control of Wandsworth council - which has been a flagship Tory council for forty years - and winning here is above even our wildest expectations. We last won here in 1974 ...
In Wandsworth we stand a real chance of winning councillors in some wards that Labour hasn’t represented since I was born - but it would be a real earthquake if we were to win control of the council - above even our wildest expectations.
Whatever the outcome here tonight, it’s clear that London has turned its back on Theresa May’s Government - who neither like nor understand Londoners, our values or our way of life.
Labour loses control of Nuneaton with the Conservatives taking nine seats
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 3, 2018
Follow #LocalElection2018 latest results https://t.co/sJEvO3iz0u pic.twitter.com/DxR0WVVYgE
Britain Elects has the Nuneaton voting figures.
Nuneaton & Bedworth, result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Con: 51.0% (+21.1)
Lab: 35.9% (-5.6)
Grn: 9.0% (+2.5)
Oth: 1.6% (+0.8)
Ind: 1.1% (+1.0)
UKIP: 0.8% (-17.9)
Chgs. w/ 2014
The New Statesman’s Stephen Bush says these figures show why it is wrong to hold elections by thirds.
The thirds model is terrible: a clear vote for a Tory council - but it's hung instead. https://t.co/jq9tnRkNxs
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) May 3, 2018
Here are the Nuneaton & Bedworth results from the Press Association. These are the seats that were up for election - not all the seats on the council.
Con: 11 (+8)
Lab: 6 (-7)
Green: 0 (-1)
Updated
Labour lose control of Nuneaton & Bedworth
According to the Press Association, results are now in from six councils.
Con: 2
Lab: 3 (-1)
NOC: 1 (+)
The council that has changed hands is Nuneaton & Bedworth, which has gone from Labour to no overall control (NOC).
Updated
More on what the Tories are saying.
Tories reporting that Richmond-upon-Thames "isn't looking great" which is surprising - feeling was that it would be tough for Lib Dems to win despite being in Vince Cable's own back yard. However, Brexit. (The seat voted 75 per cent Remain). Lib Dems saying it's on "knife edge".
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 3, 2018
Post-Midnight latest: Tories think they'll "just" hold onto Swindon and take Dudley. But will lose Trafford to Labour, and Richmond to Lib Dems. The latter not expected, and would be a major anti-Brexit protest.
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
Lib Dem sources say the party expects to make a handful of gains in Liverpool.
This is from my colleague Pippa Crerar.
Tory sources saying they expect to lose Trafford to Labour, which would be a boost for Jeremy Corbyn who launched his local election campaign there (although Labour sources say they think it will be NOC).
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 3, 2018
Senior Labour and Conservative sources in Dudley, where either party could take control, say it is too close to call, the Press Association is reporting. Labour sources say it could come down to results in just two of the 24 wards being contested, Belle Vale and Wollaston & Stourbridge Town.
The Local Government Information Unit has a faster results service.
LAB hold for @HaltonBC
— LGiU (@LGiU) May 3, 2018
West Oxfordshire: CON HOLD
— LGiU (@LGiU) May 3, 2018
Sunderland: LABOUR HOLD
— LGiU (@LGiU) May 3, 2018
Wigan: LABOUR HOLD
— LGiU (@LGiU) May 3, 2018
Unsurprisingly @SunderlandUK is LAB hold and @BroxbourneBC a CON hold
— LGiU (@LGiU) May 3, 2018
Updated
The Press Association has posted the first full council result of the night.
Broxbourne
C No change
C 9, Lab 1
C gain 1, Ukip lose 1
New council: C 28, Lab 2
The Tories are saying Labour has lost control of Nuneaton. And the party has tweeted this particular result.
Slough (Nuneaton & Bedworth):
— CCHQ Press Office (@CCHQPress) May 3, 2018
Con: 66.8% (+25.4)
Lab: 33.2% (-25.4)
Con GAIN from Labour
Updated
On the BBC John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, says it is going to be “a complicated night”. It might be “quite boring” too, he says - to protests from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. He says suggestions that Labour could make great gains were wrong. Relatively few councils are likely to change hands, he says. And he says it is not clear what will happen to the Ukip vote. He says at the general election two thirds of the Ukip vote went to the Conservatives, and only one third went to Labour. He says Labour’s focus is on making “incremental gains”.
The Conservatives are doing well in Nuneaton, the BBC is reporting. Britain Elects has two of the ward results.
Poplar (Nuneaton & Bedworth) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Con: 52.0% (+23.0)
Lab: 48.0% (-23.0)
Con GAIN from Lab.#euref
Slough (Nuneaton & Bedworth) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Con: 66.8% (+25.4)
Lab: 33.2% (-25.4)
Con GAIN from Lab.
Conservatives in Welwyn Hatfield could lose overall control, party sources have told the Press Association.
These are from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
Couple of early tips - Tories sounding confident of holding Wandsworth, but might be disappointed in Basildon, Lab worried about losing control in Nuneaton, but optimistic about Plymouth
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 3, 2018
Senior tories expecting Labour to take Trafford - would be a big win for them, taking prosperous NW Tory area - currently only Tory council in NW
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 3, 2018
We’ve also got a byelection tonight in Northern Ireland. It was triggered by the decision of Sinn Fein’s Barry McElduff to resign as West Tyrone MP in January, 10 days after he provoked outrage by posting a video of himself with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the notorious Kingsmill massacre. McElduff had a majority of more than 10,000 and his Sinn Fein successor Orfhlaith Begley is expected to win.
This is intriguing, from the BBC Essex reporter Charlotte Rose.
Meanwhile in #Thurrock UKIP MEP @Tim_Aker says after tonight’s results he may have to think about whether he remains part of UKIP group in Europe #EssexElects
— Charlotte Rose (@CharlotteGRose) May 3, 2018
Ukip are expected to struggle enormously tonight. In 2014 their national share in the local elections was put at 17% on the PNS measure. (See 11.46pm.) Those elections coincided with the European elections, which Ukip won. But since the party achieved its key aim, and secured a leave vote in the EU referendum, it has been in turmoil. One indication of this is how few candidates it has put up. The figures are in this chart, from John Curtice’s PSA briefing.
Benchmarks for success in the local elections
It is hard to measure success in local elections because the seats and the councils where elections take place are not the same every year and therefore - as John Curtice pointed out in the briefing cited earlier (see 10.31pm) - the raw results can be misleading.
But parties and their supporters will want to know who is doing well and who is doing badly. Here are three measures you can use, with the relevant benchmarks.
Vote share
After the local elections psephologists look at the vote share the parties achieve and use those figures to calculate what the vote share would have been if people had been voting in the same way across the whole of Britain. They do this by looking at the demographic make-up of the wards where people were voting and extrapolating a national figure, based on what is known about voting behaviour.
Just to make things complicated, there are two versions of this figure. Curtice and his team produce one called the projected national share (PNS) which the BBC uses. And two other psephologists, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher produce one they call the national equivalent vote (NEV), which gets used by Sky. They tend to show the same trend, but the actual figures are not always the same.
At some point on Friday we will get PNS and NEV figures for these elections. There are at least three figures you can compare them to.
Vote share at the 2017 general election (for GB)
Con: 43.4%
Lab: 41%
LD: 7.6%
Vote share at 2017 local elections
Con: 38% (PNS); 39% (NEV)
Lab: 27% (PNS); 28% (NEV)
LD: 18% (PNS); 18% (NEV)
Vote share at 2014 local elections (when these seats last fought)
Con: 29% (PNS); 30% (NEV)
Lab: 31% (PNS); 31% (NEV)
LD: 13% (PNS); 11% (NEV)
Seats gained
As Curtice explained (see 10.31pm), comparing seats gained and lost in one year with the seats gained and lost in another can be grossly misleading, because different numbers of council seats are up for election every year. The only comparison that is remotely half-fair is with what happened in 2014 - when most of these seats were last up for election - although even that is problematic, because the exact number of seats being contested is not the same.
Council seats won/lost in 2014
Con: -236
Lab: +324
LD: -310
Another factor, obviously, if that Labour gained a lot of seats in these councils four years ago, it becomes much harder to gain more.
Councils gained/lost
The same point applies to comparing the number of councils gained/lost with the figures for 2014. But, for what they are worth, here are the figures for that year.
Con: Net loss of 13 councils
Lab: Net gain of 4
LD: Net loss of 2
No overall control: Net increase of 11
More from Swindon.
Blow for Labour in Swindon. The Tories have hung on to Lydiard and Freshbrook - a key target ward for Labour.
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) May 3, 2018
These are from my colleague Steven Morris in Swindon.
Swindon count. Labour activists not sounding confident that they will take control of the council from the Tories.
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) May 3, 2018
First Swindon result - Tory hold in the Chiseldon and Lawn ward. No surprise there. The tight ones are to come.
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) May 3, 2018
The excellent Britain Elects Twitter feed is posting ward by ward results. The first ones are in from Sunderland.
Labour HOLD Silksworth (Sunderland).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Silksworth (Sunderland) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Lab: 52.4% (-0.2)
Con: 32.6% (+16.3)
LDem: 7.5% (+7.5)
Grn: 7.5% (+7.5)
No UKIP (-31.1) as prev.
Labour HOLD Shiney Row (Sunderland).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Shiney Row (Sunderland) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Lab: 54.4% (+2.2)
Con: 23.7% (+8.7)
Ind: 13.2% (+13.2)
Grn: 4.7% (+4.7)
LDem: 4.1% (+0.8)
No UKIP (-29.4) as prev.
Liberal Democrat GAIN Pallion (Sunderland) from Labour.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Pallion (Sunderland) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
LDem: 60.1% (+57.0)
Lab: 29.4% (-18.4)
Con: 7.3% (-7.0)
Grn: 3.1% (-1.7)
LDem GAIN.
No UKIP (-30.1) as prev.
Labour HOLD Bede (Nuneaton & Bedworth).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Bede (Nuneaton & Bedworth) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018
Lab: 46.1% (-10.6)
Con: 44.2% (+25.2)
UKIP: 9.7% (+9.7)
No BNP (-12.5) as prev...
The Lib Dems have also been on the phone. Party sources say that in London they’re “very confident” of taking Kingston-upon-Thames from the Tories, although the result won’t be in until tomorrow at around 5pm. However, they’re less confident about neighbouring Richmond, despite it being Sir Vince Cable’s own back yard, claiming it remains “on a knife edge”. They are fairly upbeat about their chances in St Albans and Eastleigh, but think it’s unlikely that they’ve been successful in winning Hull back from Labour.
Labour sources say that they’re “hopeful” of making progress in the number of seats they pick up across the country but that the result will be “fairly tight” in several key places. They point out that the collapse of Ukip since 2014 creates an element of uncertainty, although in the general election two thirds of the ex-Ukip vote went to the Tories, and just one third to Labour.
In London, they are keen to stress that the party was starting from a high watermark, having done so well four years ago, which would limit potential gains.
Labour thinks they’ve got a “fighting chance” in Barnet, North London, citing public disquiet about outsourcing (but no mention of antisemitism) but are claiming they haven’t seen the swings they would need to take Tory “crown jewel” councils of Wandsworth or Westminster.
In Kensington & Chelsea, which always looked like a push (though nobody quite knows whether there will be a Grenfell effect) they suggested it was “out of reach”.
But they’re more optimistic about wiping out the last remaining speck of blue - Trafford - in a sea of red councils around Manchester. However, they predict the town hall would go to no overall control, rather than a Labour win, but that would still be a “massive coup”.
The final prediction from Labour sources for now: they’re “hopeful” of winning Plymouth from the Tories.
According to Sky’s Faisal Islam, Survation have a telephone exit poll from Croydon (a Labour-run council, although one the Tories won in 2010) showing a big Labour lead.
Croydon telephone exit poll from Survation of people who have voted:
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) May 3, 2018
labour 50%
Conservatives 37%
Libdens 4
Ukip 2
Green 4
in 2014 was 36 Labour, 33 Tory... pic.twitter.com/xLnARsjFMT
I’m at the count for the Trafford council elections at Lancashire County Cricket Club. The wealthiest of Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs is a key target for Labour and Jeremy Corbyn chose the Stretford sports village leisure centre, just across the road, to launch his party’s local election campaign in March.
The Tories took overall control of Trafford in 2004, eight years after Labour won the borough in 1996 – a year before Tony Blair’s landslide election victory. If Labour manages to gain control tonight it will be seen as a promising sign for their electoral chances on a national level.
Only a third of the council’s 63 seats are up for grabs and Labour would need to win six of the 13 non-Labour seats on offer, as well as retaining those it already has, to take the borough. The Conservatives currently hold Trafford by just two seats, so it would not be a surprise if the local authority slipped into no overall control.
Labour locally has become increasingly confident since the 2017 Greater Manchester mayoral election, when Andy Burnham won 16,000 more votes in the area than his Conservative opponent Sean Anstee, leader of Trafford council. Voters in Trafford also backed remain in the previous year’s EU referendum, something the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, Kate Green, says comes up on the doorstep.
Labour’s campaign has focused on the three key wards of Davyhulme West, Davyhulme East, and Flixton, which – if won – would strip the Tories of their overall control. The party also thinks it has a shot at wealthy Altrincham. Locally Labour has pledged to maintain low council tax rates (which are currently the lowest in Greater Manchester), build social housing, block development on green belt land and stop further council outsourcing.
First lot of ballot boxes are in in Trafford. The Tories only need to lose two seats to lose overall control of the council. Labour last held Trafford in 2003. #LocalElections pic.twitter.com/ePgI9kNs2c
— Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) May 3, 2018
Some assorted election chat.
From Sky’s Faisal Islam
Senior Tory in Wandsworth tells me it’s looking “tough” after late surge in turnout late in day... and that some of the new GE voters from last year appear to have turned out again....
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) May 3, 2018
Though they would say that
Senior Labour source says turnout does seem to be up for them in key battleground London councils, but then also try to manage expectations
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) May 3, 2018
From the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn
Local elections latest, as polls close: senior Tory source tells me it’s two v different elections, London and then England 1/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
In London; Labour swamping target areas with bodies. All about stemming losses for Tories, but now quite confident of keeping Hillingdon, plus probably Westminster & Wandsworth too 2/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
Outside of capital, Tories think they can make gains - especially in Midland swing seats; eg Dudley, Walsall, Derby. Source: “It’s all about who can turn out more of their own”. But turnout seems low everywhere 3/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
Local elections latest: Labour source says they’re hoping to make progress from 2014, “but we’re realistic about our chances, with us being behind in some of the national polls” (it’s all about expectation management at this stage of the night folks) 1/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
London latest: Labour hopeful they can still take Barnet. Less optimistic about overturning Wandsworth or Westminster now, and are already conceding Kensington & Chelsea is out of their reach 2/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
Outside London: Labour confident of taking Plymouth (Tories tell me they’ve lost there too), and hopeful of pushing Tory-held Trafford into NOC. The huge unknown is where the big UKIP vote in 2014 has gone today 3/3
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 3, 2018
Swindon is hugely significant to Labour. Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson, John McDonnell and Momentum activists have all visited the Wiltshire town during this campaign to lend a hand to grassroots members.
At general elections, Swindon is seen at a bellwether – whoever holds the two seats tends to win power. If Labour does well here tonight, it will also be seen as a sign that the party can make in-roads across the south of England.
Since Gordon Brown’s defeat in 2010 both North Swindon and South Swindon have been held by the Tories. Its council has been run by the Tories since 2004. Labour had high hopes of wresting back control in 2014 but its campaign was not helped when Ed Miliband embarrassingly failed to recognise the name of the Labour group leader – Jim Grant.
Grant still heads the group. His party’s Swindon manifesto was a solid, no-nonsense affair, promising more council houses, reopening children’s Sure Start centres, boosting regeneration of the town centre, promoting the living wage, tackling zero hour contracts.
It also vowed to keep the Lydiard country park and house under council ownership and management. The park hit the headlines in the Swindon Advertiser this week when a cabinet member revealed that visitors who wanted to enjoy a cream tea at the cafe have to order it two days in advance.
Here’s the maths for Swindon.
There are 57 councillors on Swindon borough council. Going into the count, 30 were Tory, 25 Labour and two Lib Dem.
Nineteen seats are up for grabs – 10 Tory, eight Labour, one Lib Dem. Labour had high hopes in five seats – four of them Tory and one Lib Dem – including Lydiard and Freshbrook, where park management and cream teas is an issue.
On election night you need Sir John Curtice. The great psephologist will be on the BBC’s election programme later but, in case you can’t wait, here is some YouTube video of a briefing on the local elections organised by the Political Studies Association on Monday. It is “rather anoraky”, as he says himself. (But we like that here.)
The briefing was intended for journalists and Curtice said that he wanted to explain various aspects of the election in the hope of ensuring certain trends do not get misreported on Friday. There was a danger that headlines could be “seriously misleading”, he explained.
Curtice said that it was important to remember that London was not representative of England or Britain as a whole.
Literally 42% of the all the seats that are up for grabs on Thursday are located in London. And one thing, therefore, you absolutely have to get into your head is that London does not constitute 42% of England. If, as I’m going to argue, the result in London might prove to be different from that in the rest of England, headline totals of seats won and lost may seriously misrepresent the actual position of the political parties ...
There is every reason to anticipate ... substantial divergence between remain and leave voting Britain, which therefore means that London is likely to move towards the Labour party but the rest of England could still swing towards the Conservatives. And therefore do not be surprised if, on Friday afternoon, you end up with the BBC coming up with a projected national share that actually has the Tories slightly ahead, even though they may have lost more seats and be losing ground in London. Crucial point, therefore; just remember, the tally of seat gains and losses is potentially seriously misleading because of the dominance of London.
But Curtice also said that, just because it would be hard for Labour to win councils in London, that would not necessarily mean it was not winning votes.
Equally, and conversely, the Labour party just picking up Barnet will not necessarily tell you the Labour party has not made progress in London. The Labour party’s misfortune, in terms of council control, is that there isn’t very much for the party to pick up.
The polls have now closed and officials are just starting the process of collecting, verifying and counting the votes that will elect more than 4,000 councillors in 150 councils in England. Most of these seats were last up for election in 2014, when the poll coincided with the European elections, which saw Ukip win a nationwide election for the first time. In 2015 the local elections took place on the same day as the general election, and in 2017 they were staged in the middle of a general election campaign. And in 2016 the local elections overlapped with elections to the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly, the Northern Ireland assembly and for the mayor of London. But this year we’ve just got local elections basic. It will be the least consequential local elections day for at least five years.
And I’m afraid it is not as if these are make-or-break contests for any of the major political leaders. At Westminster expectations are relatively muted and tonight’s results are not expected to lead to repercussions that could challenge the leadership of either Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn. We may be wrong (we often are), but journalists are not expecting any of the main parties to suffer an all-round disaster.
But don’t head for bed yet. This blog operates on the firm basis that there is no such thing as a dull election and tonight will be no exception. Politics matters. And this is the biggest test of political opinion in England since last year’s general election. It is also worth remembering that more than 4,000 people will be elected to office. Local government is not a glamorous calling, but it is important and worthwhile and good luck to those who win.
There will be a lot of focus on London tonight because all 32 boroughs in the capital are having “all-out” elections (which means all seats are up for election, not just one third of seats, as is the case with most of the other council elections today.) The 1,833 London seats that are up for grabs comprise 42% of all seats being contested this year. The others are in 34 metropolitan districts, 67 shire districts and 17 unitary councils. There is a guide here.
In addition there are four London mayoral elections - in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets - as well as mayoral elections in Watford and for the new Sheffield city region.
I’m Andrew Sparrow and I will covering the results as they come in through the night, as well as bringing you reaction and analysis. My colleague Jamie Grierson will be taking over after dawn, and then we will be carrying on until all the results are in on Friday evening.
Here is the blog we were running earlier covering events on polling day.
