Local elections results – live: Labour win in West Midlands and London as Sunak facing fresh rebellion

The Conservatives no longer deserve to be in power, Sir Keir Starmer said, as he celebrated a Labour mayoral victory in the East Midlands.

Speaking in Mansfield alongside the new Labour mayor of the East Midlands Claire Ward, Labour leader Sir Keir said: “I think the message here is very, very clear, and I think across the East Midlands there has been a sending of that message to the Government, which is we are fed up with your division, with your chaos, with your failure.

“Fourteen years, and I am sorry, I don’t care which political party you support, if you leave your country in a worse state then when you found it 14 years later you do not deserve to be in Government for a moment longer.”

Rishi Sunak is nervously awaiting the result of the West Midlands mayoral contest after suffering a series of humiliating setbacks in the local elections.

With the worst local election results for the Tories in 40 years, the prime minister’s fate could be tied to whether Tory mayor Andy Street holds on when the votes are counted on Saturday.

Tory rebels have reportedly called off the dogs for now as Teesside mayor Ben Houchen kept his seat despite a huge narrowing of the polls.

Here is the voter turnout at each London constituency in the 2024 Mayoral Election:

Despite being on course to inflict losses of 500 seats on the Conservatives, Labour’s stance over Israel’s war in Gaza appears to be costing Sir Keir Starmer’s party in the local elections, according to his election chief.

Voter turnout at the 2024 London Mayoral Election was higher in Conservative voting areas than Labour constituencies.

The overall voter turnout this year was 40.5% – down 1.5% from the turnout in 2021. In areas where the Tories have previously won, the turnout is up 6,500 votes.

In areas where the Labour party has won, the turnout is down some 42,000 votes.

A small swing is required for Sadiq Khan to lose.

The Conservatives have done about as badly in the local elections as you would expect, given that they are 20 points behind Labour in the national opinion polls.

Ben Houchen’s win as mayor of Tees Valley is notable not because the Tories are doing better than expected, but because his personal popularity is sufficient to withstand the national anti-Tory tide.

So let us give Keir Starmer the credit that is due for what are, overall, very good results for Labour. The Labour leader has been a lucky general, but we ought to recognise his skill in maximising his good fortune.

Read the full article from John Rentoul here:

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

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

“That in a sense is the big takeaway.

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

It was a defining moment of Rishi Sunak’s reign when he sat, being filmed, interviewing Elon Musk.

Eyebrows were raised. This was the prime minister, elected leader of the country, displaying fawning admiration for a US businessman. Of course, Musk was the world’s richest man at the time, in November 2023, and the tech multibillionaire was in the vanguard of global innovation. But even so, would others in Sunak’s position have behaved in the same way?

The interview appeared to confirm what was suspected, that Sunak is engaged in a long-standing love affair with Big Tech.

Read the full article here:

For months, Rishi Sunak’s right-wing critics told us that the results of Thursday’s local elections would be so bad, they would trigger a coup against him. Although the results were at the upper end of the Conservatives’ private predictions, there is no coup yet.

It would take something dramatic to kickstart a serious revolt now – probably the resignation of a cabinet minister – and give the rebels the alternative leader they lack. There’s no sign of that.

It seems the hardline critics have repeated their Grand Old Duke of York act. They talk a good game, but then the great rebellion never materialises. This time it matters, because it was their last chance of ousting Sunak before the general election.

Read the full article from Andrew Grice here:

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

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

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

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

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