What’s happening?
There’s an awful lot of counting still to be done, so settle in for a blizzardy Friday. We’ll have all the results as they come in on the live blog.
One clear result comes from the West of England mayoral election, where Conservative Tim Bowles has beaten Labour’s Lesley Mansell in the second round of voting. Neither scored 50% in the stiflingly close first round, but the divvying-up of supplementary votes pushed Bowles over the line. An early bruise for Jeremy Corbyn, then, but he’ll hope for – and, barring banana skins, will get – better in Greater Manchester and Liverpool later, where Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram are tipped for the top. And there was red sky in the morning (is that the good one?) in Doncaster, where Labour’s Ros Jones held on as mayor with a boosted majority.
It’s Theresa May who’ll be having the jolliest breakfast, though, with the Conservatives so far making chunky gains in councils across England and Wales.
(Important interruption: Scotland doesn’t begin its count until a civilised 9am. We’ll catch up with those results later.)
Of 10 councils declared in England, the Tories have nabbed nine of them; the other – Cumbria – is under no overall control. In Wales, it’s helped itself to Monmouthshire. Labour has held on to Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Newport. But the loss of Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil to independents will sting.
With plenty of authorities still to tot up the totals, it’s the country-wide plusses and minuses that are the ones to watch. At time of writing, the Tories are +107 councillors in England and +36 in Wales. Labour is -45 and -74, respectively. The Liberal Democrats are down by smaller digits, but currently lord it over Labour in second place overall in England.
Disappearing act of the night, though, belongs to Ukip. Down 39 seats in England and two in Wales, it currently has a tally of zero and has so far saved not one of the seats it held. Ukip’s Lisa Duffy said she “won’t use the word ‘disaster’”. Everyone else will use the word “disaster”.
At a glance:
- Labour blames ‘unique circumstances’ as local election votes counted.
- Tories criticised for election day newspaper adverts.
- Martin Kettle: The best Lib Dems can hope for? To stop being patronised.
- EU’s Donald Tusk says May needs to show moderation and respect.
Poll position
There’s quite a large poll going on right now. What bearing will it have on 8 June? Let the insta-experts (and some of the actual ones, too) weigh in…
In the meantime, we have YouGov. Its latest Westminster polling has the Conservatives recovering by four points to 48%; Labour dipping two to 29%; the Lib Dems sliding one to 10%; and Ukip doing the same to 5%.
Latest Westminster voting intention (2-3 May)
— YouGov (@YouGov) May 4, 2017
CON - 48%
LAB - 29%
LD - 10%
UKIP - 5%
OTH - 8%https://t.co/ho8ApoDX6E pic.twitter.com/QM2Om5ITVI
Diary
Here’s how we can expect Friday to pan out:
- From 9am, counting starts in Scotland. Expect results from 11.30am onwards.
- Council results from England and Wales will continue to roll in; by early afternoon we should have a reasonable idea of the overall picture. (Current ideas are not unreasonable, just incomplete.)
- Around 3pm could see a declaration in Liverpool, where Labour’s Steve Rotheram is likely to be the new region mayor.
- The North Tyneside, Tees Valley and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough mayoralties could declare around this time too.
- West Midlands and Greater Manchester mayors could be announced by 6pm.
Read these
Helen Lewis, in the New Statesman, has been on the campaign trail with Labour’s Jess Phillips in Birmingham Yardley:
Birmingham Yardley is a Labour-Liberal marginal and Phillips has a majority of only 6,595. But residents here voted for Brexit by 60%, which gives Phillips a fighting chance. It helps that her opponent is the former local Lib Dem MP John Hemming, whose biggest claim to fame is that his wife kidnapped his mistress’s cat…
She believes she will beat Hemming because ‘he doesn’t know where the Remain vote is in this constituency’, while Brexit-leaners switch from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives. ‘In 2022, this seat will be a fight between me and the Tories,’ she says. ‘Well, if I’m still here.’
Tom McTague, in Politico, has been gauging the PM’s “war room”:
Such is the scale of the ambition at Tory HQ that the biggest threat, senior campaign insiders say, is complacency, both internally and across the country at large. Any hint that staff are taking the election for granted is stamped on immediately. One campaign official said, only half in jest, that being caught looking at newspaper polls in the open-plan office is a sackable offence…
The deep professional links between those running the Tory campaign have given it a head start on Labour for the June 8 election campaign, insiders say. They didn’t have time to think about it – they simply reassembled the team from 2015 and got back to work.
Revelation of the day
Local can still mean local. Labour has lost Blaenau Gwent to the independents, but those rushing to lob blame-analyses at the Labour leader or Brexit should probably pause, says BBC Wales’ Rhodri Lewis:
People around here are not necessarily anti-Corbyn. They voted Labour out because of the bin collections. I was told that the council is still getting 100 complaints a week about the new bin collections.
The day in a tweet
Sick of hearing "strong and stable"? It won't be going anywhere - only 15% of Brits have heard the slogan so far https://t.co/ho8ApoVyve pic.twitter.com/nF0lVLO3cV
— YouGov (@YouGov) May 4, 2017
And another thing
Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox every weekday? Sign up here!
Comments are open on our live blog.
