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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Nicola Slawson (now) Andrew Sparrow and Helen Livingstone (earlier)

Local elections 2022: Tories lose hundreds of seats to Labour and Lib Dems – as it happened

Scotland England Wales Boris Johnson Partygate (Event) Westminster

Boris Johnson under renewed pressure after damaging local election losses

Boris Johnson’s leadership is facing fresh peril after senior Conservatives blamed him for losing swaths of the party’s southern heartlands to the Liberal Democrats and flagship London boroughs to Labour.

In a punishing set of local elections for the Tories, the party lost about 400 council seats, ceding control of Westminster and Wandsworth in London to Labour for the first time since the 1970s, and plunging to its worst position in Scotland for a decade.

Conservative MPs and council leaders questioned Johnson’s leadership, demanding action to tackle the cost of living crisis and rebuild trust in the wake of the Partygate scandal after a damaging series of losses across the “blue wall” in Somerset, Kent, Oxfordshire and Surrey.

However, the scale of the Tory backlash was tempered by a mixed picture for Labour, which showed progress, but not enough yet to suggest a landslide for Keir Starmer in a general election. A BBC projection for a general election based on Friday’s results put Labour on 291 seats, the Conservatives on 253, the Lib Dems on 31 and others on 75.

Labour had a very strong result in London and took some southern councils such as Worthing, Crawley and Southampton, gaining about 250 seats in total. It pushed the Tories out of control in their only council in Wales, Monmouthshire, and took over as the party with the second largest vote share in Scotland, where the SNP remained dominant.

But in the north of England and the Midlands, Labour struggled to make gains in “red wall” areas it had lost at or since the 2019 election, despite a convincing win on the new Cumberland council.

Conservative HQ was also buoyed by the news that Starmer is now being investigated over allegations of Covid rule-breaking at a Durham campaign event, muddying the waters over Johnson’s own fine for a lockdown gathering.

Starmer said the results were a “big turning point” for his party. “From the depths of 2019, that general election, winning in the north, Cumberland, Southampton. We’ve changed Labour and now we’re seeing the results of that.”

The Lib Dems also had a clearly successful election night in England, adding at least 189 seats. They took control of the new unitary authority in Somerset, previously a Tory stronghold, edged out the Conservatives in Portsmouth, and pushed them out of control in West Oxfordshire. The Greens also performed well, winning 81 seats – more than doubling their number of councillors – as voters also turned to independents and residents’ associations.

Read more from my colleagues Rowena Mason, Heather Stewart and Aubrey Allegretti here:

We’re closing this blog now. Thanks so much for joining us today.

You can follow our global liveblog here:

Updated

TUV leader Jim Allister has been elected as an MLA (member of the legislative assembly) for North Antrim.

After his election, Allister said he regretted that the party had not managed to secure any other seats.

Allister said:

I am disappointed across the country that we have tripled our vote but that is not reflected in the number of seats.

We had 7.6% of the vote, a massive increase, but that is not reflected in the number of seats.

It is very disappointing when you collect 4-5,000 votes or more in many other constituencies that it doesn’t translate into seats because of the vagaries of the system.

But the reality is that Jim Allister speaks for 65,000 unionists across this province.

Updated

The front pages of tomorrow’s papers are out. Curiously many of them have chosen not to cover the local elections with Keir Starmer’s beergate controversy and the Queen’s jubilee balcony plans (which don’t include Prince Andrew, Prince Harry or Meghan) taking up space instead.

One stands out for suggesting that Boris is back on track despite losing nearly 400 seats.

Here’s ours which focuses on Boris Johnson being blamed for the Tory’s poor results.

The Independent went for a similar top line.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph focused on the results in Northern Ireland.

Here’s a closer look at the Express.

The Daily Mail chose to focus on Starmer’s woes as he faces faces a police investigation over lockdown breach claims.

The Mirror, on the other hand, chose to lead with the plans for the Queen’s jubilee.

Lutfur Rahman, the disgraced politician found by an election tribunal to have engaged in corrupt and illegal practices, has secured a comeback by winning the vote to become mayor of Tower Hamlets in east London.

After the five-year ban placed on him for standing for public office lapsed, Rahman managed to unseat the incumbent mayor, Labour’s John Biggs, under the banner of his Aspire party.

Rahman was kicked out of office in 2015 after a specialist court concluded that he was guilty of vote-rigging, buying votes and religious intimidation. But the police and Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to launch a criminal prosecution.

Rahman won 40,804 votes on the second round, with Biggs on 33,487.

The result is a blow to Labour in what was otherwise a very successful set of results in London, where it took Wandsworth, Barnet and Westminster from the Tories.

Rahman announced in February that he was planning a political comeback with a challenge to Labour over “service cuts, tax hikes and road closures”. In an election leaflet, he wrote: “I have never, ever acted dishonestly, but to those who think I didn’t exercise enough oversight over campaigners in the last election, I apologise.”

Read the full story from my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Rowena Mason:

The Conservatives suffered disastrous losses across Wales in the local elections, with the party’s Welsh leadership blaming the crisis in No 10 for their woes, while there were encouraging gains for Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

One of the most striking results on Friday came from Denbighshire in the north-east, where the Tories dropped from first to fourth place. They also lost control of their only council, Monmouthshire, in the south-east.

Denbighshire is seen as crucial because the Tories routed Labour in the north-east during the 2019 general election. Boris Johnson visited the seaside town of Rhyl last week to try to shore up support but some party members on the ground believe his presence hindered rather than helped. The Tories had been part of an independent-led administration but Labour became the biggest party in the county and may now try to form a new coalition.

In Monmouthshire, Labour becomes the largest group for the first time since 1995.

Andrew RT Davies, the leader of the Tories at the Welsh parliament, said the party’s candidates had wanted to talk about how they were tackling the cost-of-living crisis locally, but had to answer questions about Johnson.

He told the BBC:

The national headlines were challenging. Boris Johnson has my support, but he has to use the summer months now to make sure that he can build the confidence of the party, the confidence of the people to take us forward into the next general election campaign.

Read the full story here:

Dylan Tippetts has said he hopes his election will “dial down hate and division” after becoming Plymouth’s first openly trans councillor.

The 21-year-old is Labour’s first councillor in the city’s Compton Ward.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Tippetts said he is “still in shock”, adding: “I didn’t think I was going to win the seat last night.

If I can help someone realise that trans people are just normal human beings like everyone else, with the same hopes and dreams, (and) just help dial down some of the real hate and division at the moment, that would be incredible.

It would be even more of an honour to show a young person who might be scared of coming out that everything’s going to be OK and everything that they want in life can come true.

He added that trans people should be respected “as the human beings that we are”.

Being treated as a normal person (is) refreshing in today’s toxic environment … trans people aren’t looking for special treatment.

Plymouth Sutton and Devonport Labour MP Luke Pollard said he is “so proud” of Tippetts.

Tippetts grew up in Bridgwater, Somerset, and came out in 2018.

He told PA he moved to Plymouth shortly afterwards for a “fresh start, as coming out wasn’t the best experience for me”.

He said he is “proud” to represent a party with a “positive vision” for the city, adding that residents have been “ignored and taken for granted for far too long”.

He said he hopes to address concerns about the cost-of-living crisis, as well as to give a “voice” to those who do not have one.

He said:

There are lots of people that don’t have a voice – whether it be nurses, young people, porters, kitchen cleaners, taxi drivers – and I want to stand up for those people and make sure that they’re actually listened to, because everyone has an equal and valuable contribution to make.

For me, it’s bigger than just promoting equality and diversity in terms of trans people. It’s promoting the amazing diversity that we’ve got across our city in all walks of life.

Updated

The Conservatives have lost control of the only council they had majority control of in Wales.

Monmouthshire, in south-east Wales, has been led by the party since 2017 but Labour now has the most seats, PA News reports.

Although no party has taken overall control of the local authority, Labour gained 14 seats to have a total of 22.

Labour had two fewer than were needed for a majority, and lost out on gaining full control of the council in a coin toss. The Tories lost six seats to have an overall total of 18, once counting had finished.

Several Senedd members and Conservative MP David Davies had visited the area in the days leading up to the election on 5 May, but it was not enough to instil confidence in the electorate.

The leader of the area’s Conservative group, Richard John, who has been vocal in his criticism of prime minister Boris Johnson over the partygate scandal, retained his seat.

However John told ITV Wales people had “sent a message that the party needs to consider”.

Updated

2022 NI Assembly election(left to right) Sinn Fein’s Daniel Baker, Pat Sheehan, President Mary Lou McDonald, Aisling Reilly and Orlaithi Flynn at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast, as counting continues for the Northern Ireland Assembly. PA Photo. Picture date: Friday May 06 2022. See PA story ULSTER Election. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire
Sinn Féin’s Daniel Baker, Pat Sheehan, President Mary Lou McDonald, Aisling Reilly and Orlaithi Flynn at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast, as counting continues for the Northern Ireland assembly. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

Updated

Labour notched up 16 gains in Cardiff to increase its overall majority on the city council to 31, PA News reports.

Labour now has 55 seats, the Conservatives 11, the Liberal Democrats 10, Plaid Cymru two and Propel one.

Updated

The winner of a council seat determined by the drawing of straws joked that his Labour rival lost after he chose the straw on the left.

Independent Andy Solloway was declared the winner in the Skipton West and West Craven division of the new North Yorkshire unitary authority on Friday after tying with Labour’s Peter Madeley on 503 votes, even after a recount at Skipton Town Hall.

Solloway told BBC Radio 5Live how he ended up drawing straws with Madeley’s representative, Brian McDaid, after first discussing with the returning officers the possibility of picking playing cards or tossing a coin.

He said the returning officer had even offered to go out and buy a pack of cards before it was decided that straw-pulling was the fairest method.

The councillor said:

We just felt between us it possibly wouldn’t be a good look to mix elections with potential gambling,

Asked how he felt seeing that he had drawn the long straw, Solloway replied:

Quite shocked really. I had the same number of votes but it was decided in that way and that’s seems strange.

And Brian, being a Labour guy, decided to pick the left one.

The poll in Skipton West and West Craven was part of the biggest overhaul of local government in North Yorkshire for nearly 50 years.

The new councillors will serve the final year of the existing council but will then become the first councillors to serve on the new unitary authority which will launch on April 1 2023.

After the votes were counted, the Tories secured a four-seat majority to govern the final 11 months of North Yorkshire County Council before it merges with seven district councils to create the new single overarching authority across the 3,100 square miles of England’s largest county.

Local government electionsFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon with SNP’s Zen Ghani, Roza Salih (second right) and Susan Aitken (right) at the Glasgow City Council count at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, in the local government elections. Picture date: Friday May 6, 2022. PA Photo. See PA story POLITICS Elections. Photo credit should read: Jane Barlow/PA Wire
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with SNP’s Zen Ghani, Roza Salih (second right) and Susan Aitken (right) at the Glasgow City Council count. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has hailed a “resounding victory” as her party celebrates its best ever Scottish council election result.

The first minister said:

The people of this country clearly trust the SNP nationally and locally.

This election has once again confirmed the SNP is – by any measure – Scotland’s dominant political force and our resounding victory is even more remarkable given my party has been in government at Holyrood for 15 years.

She said the party would now turn its efforts to the task of reaching agreement on forming administrations with other parties who “share our progressive principles”.

She said:

While this result is yet another resounding endorsement of the SNP – and for pro-independence parties - it has yet again confirmed that Scotland utterly rejects the corruption, sleaze and law-breaking of the Tories.

Meanwhile, Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross are reduced to slugging it out for second place like two bald men fighting over a comb.

In this election, I asked the people of Scotland to vote for the SNP to send an unequivocal message to Boris Johnson that he must do more to help families suffering from this crippling cost of living crisis his party created.

“The people of Scotland responded – and then some – as shown by the utter collapse of the Tory vote. They lost more than 100,000 votes in what must be a wake-up call for Westminster Tories.

Scottish Labour has become the closest challenger to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP after the Scottish Conservatives plunged to their worst electoral result in a decade.

Labour enjoyed an unexpected win in West Dunbartonshire, taking overall control of the council, and won a swathe of seats elsewhere as it took the second largest share of the vote overall.

In another surprise, it fell one seat short of beating the SNP in Glasgow, Sturgeon’s home city, raising the prospect that the SNP may form a formal coalition there with the Greens.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:

This is the first positive and cheerful day for the Scottish Labour party [after 10 years of defeats] and I’m very confident by the end of the day we’ll be in comfortable second place in Scotland. Our eyes are now firmly set on the SNP.

The results triggered sharp recriminations among Scottish Tories, who found themselves relegated to third as voters punished them over Partygate by abstaining or switching their support.

Embarrassed by defeats in wealthy areas such as Edinburgh and East Renfrewshire, the Tories enjoyed a rare glimmer of success in the Scottish leader Douglas Ross’s home area of Moray in north-east Scotland, gaining three seats.

Ross said:

It’s been a difficult night and in some areas it has been very disappointing. In too many parts of Scotland we’ve lost excellent candidates.

He said the Partygate scandal and the cost of living crisis had dominated conversations with voters.

There’s absolutely no doubt that people have sent a message to the prime minister and the government, particularly around Partygate. That’s absolutely clear.

Read the full story from my colleagues Severin Carrell in Stornoway and Libby Brooks in Glasgow:

Newly re-elected mayor Lutfur Rahman, who belongs to the Aspire party, hailed the size of his majority, which he claimed had increased from his previous terms in office.

He said:

A huge vote came out yesterday, a bigger mandate than I had in 2014 or in 2010. A large number of people came and trusted me and Aspire and our activists to deliver for them going forward.

Rahman suggested that one of his first acts would be to scrap low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which limit traffic in residential areas.

Rahman said:

Our roads have been closed, blocked up. It’s contributing to more CO2 in the borough when the idea was to reduce it.

We’re going to look at our roads, we’re going to consult and reopen our roads.

Former Conservative leader William Hague has told Times Radio that a windfall tax on oil companies was not “a crazy idea”, and that “if something is a true windfall, then there is a case for tax on it.”

He added that “when you get a situation like this, where you get a huge additional profit, just because the global price of oil has changed, well, then there is actually a stronger case for it”

Asked by Cathy Newman, about the fact that some Conservatives are wavering on windfall tax, he said:

I think there is and I think some justified wavering because you know that if something is a true windfall, then there is a case for tax on it.

Sometimes it’s an excuse just to tax a company that has been working hard and doing well, and its strategy is working, and it’s really earned the profit.

But of course, when you get a situation like this, where you get a huge additional profit, just because the global price of oil has changed, well, then there is actually a stronger case for it. So I think that argument has gained ground some ground within the Conservative Party in recent days.

Asked if he personally backed a windfall tax on oil companies he said:

I don’t think it’s a crazy idea. We’ve done similar things. Sometimes in the past, even under the Thatcher government that was sometimes done, where there was a true windfall. I think there’s something for the chancellor to really look at there, rather than for us just to say it’s a completely mad idea.

Lutfur Rahman urged people to “judge me on what we will do for you” after being elected as Tower Hamlets mayor.

The controversial politician hailed the “huge vote” that put him ahead of the incumbent, Labour’s John Biggs, by about 7,000 votes.

Local government electionsLutfur Rahman speaks at the Tower Hamlets election count in London, after was elected mayor of Tower Hamlets on the second round, defeating incumbent John Biggs of Labour, in the local government elections. Picture date: Friday May 6, 2022. PA Photo. See PA story POLITICS Elections. Photo credit should read: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
Lutfur Rahman speaks at the Tower Hamlets election count in London. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Rahman said:

I want to rebuild Tower Hamlets, I want to invest in our future, and give our people a better future than we had in the last seven years.

Judge me and my administration on our record, what we’ve delivered in the first term.

The only borough in the country to have free homecare. We delivered the London living wage – the first in London – we delivered the university bursary, educational maintenance allowance.

Our promises going forward are even more progressive. Judge me on what we will do for you.

Updated

Labour increased its majority on Wakefield council in West Yorkshire, winning 45 seats against 13 for the Tories, three for the Liberal Democrats and two independents.

A parliamentary byelection is pending in Wakefield after Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan resigned following his conviction for sexual assault.

Updated

The Tories lost Monmouthshire, their only majority-controlled council in Wales, to no overall control.

Labour is now the largest party with 22 seats, the Conservatives on 18, five independents and one Green, PA News reports.

Thursday’s local elections were seen as a test of voters’ mood after Partygate and as the cost of living crisis bites. Here are some of the things we learned.

Boris Johnson’s future remains in the balance

Conservative MPs have repeatedly found reasons to prevaricate rather than take action against their beleaguered leader for breaking Covid rules. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, some were taking comfort on Friday in the idea that Labour appeared to have made only limited advances into the “red wall” – and that the most catastrophic outcomes had been avoided (though suggestions of 800 or more lost seats always appeared outlandish).

But these results are unlikely to have discouraged anyone plotting a coup. Labour won the popular vote, with the BBC’s projected national vote share putting the party on 35% to the Conservatives’ 30% – Labour’s best performance on this measure for a decade.

The Liberal Democrats are breathing down Tory MPs’ necks across the south, from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s patch in Somerset to Dominic Raab’s in Surrey. And Labour looks likely to push the Conservatives into third place in Scotland, underlining fears that Johnson has become an electoral liability. Upcoming byelections in Tiverton and Honiton and in Wakefield may provide further evidence of that.

Keir Starmer’s path to No 10 may lie through a Lib Dem revival

The Conservative party co-chair Oliver Dowden compared Keir Starmer’s performance in Thursday’s local elections unfavourably with that of Tony Blair in 1995, two years before he swept into Downing Street, when Labour gained 1,800 council seats.

But there are other routes to power for Labour than a 1997-style landslide. The Lib Dems’ gains across the south, from Somerset to West Oxfordshire to Raab’s back yard of Elmbridge in Surrey, suggest the Conservatives could lose a swath of MPs outside Johnson’s stomping ground of the red wall to Ed Davey’s party.

Combined with Labour gains in the red wall and a recovery in Scotland, that could be enough to deprive Johnson of his majority – though it would open up complex questions of what deal he might be prepared to strike with the Scottish National party, the Lib Dems, or both.

Read more here:

The Conservatives increased their majority in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, which they won for the first time last year, PA News reports.

The party won 25 seats, up two, with Labour on 19, up one, with the Liberal Democrats losing two seats, while an independent candidate also lost their seat.

Updated

Rachel Wearmouth of the Daily Mirror points out that the Daily Mail said any loss for the Conservatives over 350 would be a “disaster”.

They are currently at a net loss of 384 seats across England, Scotland and Wales, Sophy Ridge of Sky News points out.

Votes Are Counted In The Welsh Local ElectionsCARDIFF, WALES - MAY 06: Ash Lister, Lynda Thorne and Abdul Sattar celebrate after being elected for the Grangetown ward for Welsh Labour during the election count at the House of Sport on May 6, 2022 in Cardiff, Wales. Every council seat in Scotland, Wales and London is being contested in the local elections and there are polls across much of the rest of England to fill around 6,900 council seats. 91 seats or around 1% of the seats are uncontested due to only one candidate being put forward. Labour is expected to strengthen its hold in Wales. (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
Ash Lister, Lynda Thorne and Abdul Sattar celebrate after being elected for the Grangetown ward for Welsh Labour. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Glasgow’s first trans councillor said she hopes her election will demonstrate that transgender people are “not a threat”.

Elaine Gallagher said she was “absolutely delighted” at having been elected as a councillor for the Scottish Greens in the Southside Central ward, but said she felt “a little bit apprehensive”.

She told PA News:

I have put my head above the parapet and I’m going to be a target.

She said that she had recently discussed the issue of abuse towards women in politics with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and voiced her fears of what that could be like as a trans woman.

Gallagher said:

It’s not oppression bingo. But I’m going to have to be very careful to not let it get to me.

The people who are objecting to me in office are very often conservative people who will get used to the fact, and also, the people who object to people in office who’s not (like) them will also just have to lump it.

The result for the SNP in the council elections was “astonishing”, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Speaking from the election count in Glasgow, Scotland’s first minister heralded her party’s achievements of increasing vote share and seats and winning majority control of Dundee city council. The party won a total of 453 seats in Scotland, an increase of 22 since 2017.

She said:

The results are absolutely incredible for the SNP.

The SNP has been in government for 15 years and today we won the election overwhelmingly – I think the eighth consecutive election victory since I became leader of the SNP – but, more than that, we’ve increased our share of the vote, we’ve increased the number of councillors that we have returned, we’re the largest party in more councils today than we were yesterday.

This is an astonishing result for the SNP and an absolutely brutal rejection of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.

Sturgeon later told Sky News there was “deep unhappiness” at the leadership of Douglas Ross among the Scottish Tories, adding that his future may be a decision that is taken “out of his hands”.

The first minister also attributed the improvements by Scottish Labour to the collapse in vote for the Scottish Tories as opposed to an improvement by Anas Sarwar’s party.

She said:

Our opponents are scrapping it out for second place and Labour will be pleased to have taken second place from the Tories, although I think that’s more to do with the disastrous performance of the Tories than it is to do with any genuine advance for Labour.

They’ll want to find scraps of comfort on this, but the SNP has won this election overwhelmingly and I’m not going to let anybody take away from the achievement of councillors, activists and supporters across the country – it’s a fantastic result for the SNP.

Updated

Lutfur Rahman wins Tower Hamlets mayor vote after five-year ban

Lutfur Rahman, the disgraced politician found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices, has secured a comeback by winning the vote to be mayor of Tower Hamlets in east London.

After the five-year ban placed on him for standing for public office lapsed, Rahman managed to unseat the incumbent mayor, Labour’s John Biggs, under the banner of his Aspire party.

Rahman was kicked out of office in 2015 after a specialist court concluded he was guilty of vote-rigging, buying votes and religious intimidation.

More details soon …

The electoral office in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland have said the count could go to the second day.

This election will elect 90 members to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It will be the seventh election since the Assembly was established in 1998.

Updated

Lutfur Rahman has been elected mayor of Tower Hamlets in London on the second round, defeating incumbent John Biggs of Labour.

Rahman, of Aspire, won 40,804 votes, with Biggs on 33,487, PA News reports.

This is quite the comeback for Rahman, having been removed from office over election fraud in 2015. He was banned from standing for office for five years but was never prosecuted.

Police were later accused of “major failings” in investigating claims of electoral fraud and malpractice.

Biggs said:

It’s a decisive result and while obviously I am disappointed I must accept it graciously. I am proud of our many achievements but clearly this reflects a desire for change. I worry about divisive community politics but the new mayor must seize the opportunity and deliver on the promises he made.

It’s been a great day for Labour across London and our local result should not diminish that.

Updated

The Conservatives have now lost control of Monmouthshire, the only council they held in Wales, the BBC’s Ione Wells reports

That is all from me for today.

My colleague Nicola Slawson is now taking over.

Conservatives facing huge losses in Wales

The Conservatives are facing huge losses in Wales as the results from the local council elections continue to roll in, PA Media reports. PA says:

In Monmouthshire, the only council the party controls, they are expected to lose seats.

And the party is facing pressure in Denbighshire, which has seen a big swing to Labour and Independent candidates, and Vale of Glamorgan, another Tory stronghold.

All four sitting Conservative councillors in Torfaen have also been ousted.

Meanwhile, Labour wrestled back control of Blaenau Gwent from the independents, also retaining Caerphilly and Newport, although Caerphilly council leader Labour’s Philippa Marsden lost her seat by a large margin.

Two other council leaders have lost their seats, both independents, Merthyr Tydfil leader Kevin O’Neill and Blaenau Gwent leader Nigel Daniels.

Labour are looking to maintain their majorities in Swansea, Cardiff and other key seats and appear positive about their chances right across the country.

Plaid Cymru, Wales’ nationalist party has held onto Gwynedd and Wrexham has remained under no overall control.

All 22 councils in Wales are up for election this year.

Boundary changes mean there are now 1,160 seats up for grabs.

Updated

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross says Partygate led to 'very disappointing' election results

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, says Partygate cost the party support in Scotland. He said:

It’s been a difficult night and the results coming in today are very disappointing. We have got some areas where it’s been very good here ... but in too many parts of Scotland we have lost excellent candidates and councillors haven’t been re-elected because it seems many of our supporters decided to sit this one out to protest and not cast their vote and we’ve lost out as a result of that.

There is absolutely no doubt that people have sent a message to the prime minister and the government, particularly around partygate. That’s what came out loud and clear.

These are from the elections expert Will Jennings, who is part of the Sky News team working on results analysis. They are fascinating, and they show:

  • The Conservatives are losing vote share in all regions of England - but most of all in the south of England. Labour is also losing vote share in all parts of England apart from London. And the Lib Dems are gaining vote share everywhere apart from in the north.
  • The Tories are doing worse in pro-remain areas - and the Lib Dems best in these places. But Brexit does not seem to be a factor in what is happening to the Labour vote.
  • The Conservative vote is up in the places with fewest graduates, but significantly down in the places with most graduates. Labour, on the other hands, is losing votes most in places with the fewest graduates.

Tories would lose 112 seats at general election on basis of local election results, BBC analysis suggests

The BBC has, like Sky News (see 3.40pm), produced its estimate of what would happen in a general election if people voted in line with how they voted today. Laura Kuenssberg has the figures.

The BBC, like Sky, is projecting a hung parliament.

But the BBC figures (which are based on their projected national share) suggest Labour would be the largest party. And they also imply the Tories would lose 112 seats.

Salmond says his pro-independence Alba party 'undaunted' - even though none of its 111 candidates elected

The Alba party remains “undaunted” despite failing to have any councillors elected in Scotland, Alex Salmond has said.

As PA Media reports, the party put up 111 candidates - a number of whom were elected as SNP councillors in 2017 before defecting to Salmond’s party when it launched last year. But none of the candidates managed to gain a seat in any of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, the same fate that befell the party at last year’s Holyrood election. Among those to lose their seat was Chris McEleny, the party’s general secretary.

Salmond, the former SNP first minister, said:

Our 111 candidates fought a fine campaign and our vote registered everywhere.

In a number of wards the Alba vote came in at over 5%, but the instruction from the SNP leadership not to use preferences to support other independence candidates now condemns most Scottish councils to control by unionists.

However the awareness of Alba is much, much greater than previously. We found people friendly and receptive to the Alba message but still to be convinced about the vote.

Alba is undaunted and will continue to press hard on the urgency of independence.

Alex Salmond campaigning earlier this week.
Alex Salmond campaigning earlier this week. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Vaughan Gething, minister for the economy in the Labour government in Wales, told the BBC that Labour was having a good result in the elections.

At this point, according to the latest figures, Labour has gained 30 seats, while the Conservatives have lost 28.

Gething said:

When it comes to the direct labour and Conservative fights, we appear to be doing particularly well. I’ve knocked doors in over half the local authorities in Wales as part of this campaign ... Three national themes have really come over to me. One is the pandemic ... They talked about the cost of living crisis. And they’ve also talked about the prime minister not being an honest man. And so those things are all combining in different ways.

Gething said he was particularly pleased with the results in Cardiff. These are from the Labour leader of Cardiff council, Huw Thomas.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, has been elected as an MLA for Lagan Valley following the first count. Speaking after the result was declared, he said:

I am delighted with our first preference result in Lagan Valley.

In terms of the overall picture it is much too early to say what the final outcome might be. I think it is going to be very tight at the end as to who will emerge as the largest party.

One of the key messages for me is that unionism simply can’t afford the divisions that exist.

Donaldson was referring to the way the unionist vote in Northern Ireland is now split three ways, between the DUP, the UUP and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV).

The DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson at the Jordanstown count, where he was elected to the Northern Ireland assembly.
The DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson at the Jordanstown count, where he was elected to the Northern Ireland assembly. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, told the BBC that Scottish voters have used the elections to reject Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. He said:

The important story from Scotland is the fact that the Tories are being rejected. Their vote is down and I think what really is important today is that the voters have sent a message to Boris Johnson.

I think there’s two things that count; one is of course the cost-of-living crisis - more needs to be done, and the other issue is partygate.

I think people in Scotland have made it very clear that they want no more of this from Boris Johnson and his Conservatives.

In Wales Labour think they could take Monmouthshire from the Conservatives, ITV Cymru’s Adrian Masters reports.

Tory MP Roger Gale says he no longer thinks Ukraine war reason not to remove Johnson

Sir Roger Gale, the Conservative backbencher, was one of the first Conservative MPs to publicly call for Boris Johnson’s resignation when the Partygate scandal erupted in January. After the Russian invastion of Ukraine, he was one of several anti-Johnson Tories who said that, because of the international crisis, it would be wrong to have a leadership contest now. But today Gale said that the situation had “moved on” and that Johnson should go.

Gale told PA Media:

I was, as you know, not in favour of a leadership challenge in the middle of a war, but two things have happened: one, it’s now clear, I think, that the hostilities in Ukraine are going to be prolonged; and second, in a sense what Roger Gale thinks is immaterial because this movement has got a life of its own now - it may become an unstoppable tide.

Asked if he would say it was now time for Johnson to go, Gale replied: “Yes. I think so. I would.”

Sinn Féin has won highest share of vote in Northern Ireland, BBC analysis says

The BBC is saying it is now confident that Sinn Féin will get the largest share of the vote in Northern Ireland. Prof Sir John Curtice, its lead elections analyst, said on the basis of the votes already counted, he could say Sinn Féin would get most votes. He said he also thought that Sinn Féin would win most seats, but that he could not be 100% sure at this point because of uncertainty about how votes are reallocated under the proportional STV voting system used in Northern Ireland. He said:

Anywhere where there was anything very much in the way of a DUP vote - pretty much anywhere apart from West Belfast - has witnessed a marked decline in the support for that party, including in Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s own constituency, while in particular the Traditional Unionist Voice, which is the party that is adamantly opposed to the Northern Ireland protocol ... is picking up significant shares of the vote.

Based on results from 11 out of the 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland, here are the figures for share of the vote.

Sinn Féin: 27%

DUP: 24%

Alliance: 16%

UUP: 11%

SDLP: 8%

TUV: 7%

This is from my colleague Rowena Mason.

This is what Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s chief election results analyst, said a few minutes ago about the results in Scotland.

We’re looking at a modest increase in SNP support, which will be enough for the party to get a record share of the vote in local government elections in Scotland. But as we’ve seen, particularly in Glasgow (see 1.24pm), their coalition partners, the Greens, are also advancing by at least as much as the SNP so far, and on occasion it seems pretty clear, particularly in Glasgow, that the Green advances come at the expense of the SNP ...

The big losers are the Conservatives. It looks as though because the Conservatives will come third, perhaps by no more than a couple of points or so ... The party support is particularly falling back in the areas where it scored particularly well five years ago.

Scottish Labour on course to replace Tories as main challengers to SNP

Scottish Labour is set to become the closest challenger to Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National party after Conservative support plunged to its worst electoral result in a decade, Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks report.

Labour enjoyed an unexpected win in SNP-controlled West Dunbartonshire, taking overall control of the council, as it won a swathe of seats across Scotland’s 32 councils and made unexpected gains, putting it on course to take the second largest share of the vote.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:

This is the first positive and cheerful day for the Scottish Labour party [after 10 years of defeats] and I’m pretty confident by the end of the day we’ll be in second place in Scotland. Our eyes are now firmly set on the SNP.

The results triggered sharp recriminations amongst the Scottish Tories, who found themselves relegated to third after voters punished them over the Partygate crisis by abstaining from the elections or switching support to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Embarrassed by defeats in wealthy areas such as Edinburgh and East Renfrewshire, the Tories enjoyed a rare glimmer of success in Scottish leader Douglas Ross’s home area of Moray in north-east Scotland, gaining three seats.

The SNP remained dominant across Scotland, narrowly winning control of Dundee by a single seat after five years in minority government, and by 4pm had won 362 of the 1,227 available seats, up 21, with a number of councils still to declare.

But Nicola Sturgeon, too, endured a few moments of anxiety as the Scottish Greens, the SNP’s partners at Holyrood, enjoyed a surge of support in both city and rural elections.

Labour’s win in West Dunbartonshire, winning 12 of its 22 seats, has added significance because the proportional representation voting system used in Scottish council elections rarely allows one party to win an overall majority.

In the 2017 election, no party had overall control in any of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. Scotland’s three island authorities, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, are also dominated by unaligned independent councillors, so has no single party in power.

Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour party, at the count in Glasgow.
Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, at the count in Glasgow. Photograph: Peter Summers/Getty Images

Updated

Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill has been returned on first preference votes in one of the first wave of results of the assembly elections.

Conor Murphy, who was finance minister in the last executive, told reporters at the count centre, he was feeling good about Sinn Féin’s prospects.

“The gut is positive for us,” he said.

He rejected arguments that party’s fortunes was linked to SDLP supporters or centrists switching sides to turbo-boost O’Neill’s chances of becoming first minister. (See 3.06pm.) He said:

This is not about a negative reaction to that [the DUP]. We fought a very positive campaign taking about what we wanted to do,” he said in reference to their campaign messages centring on the cost of living and health reforms.

People recognise that … whatever about the results today, people are facing into a very real crisis tomorrow.

Updated

Marcus Fysh, the Conservative backbencher, has been speaking to ITV about the significance of the election results. He says he wants Boris Johnson to change the team responsible for economic policy – which sounds like a call for a new chancellor. This is from ITV’s Anushka Asthana.

Updated

Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland, has been elected.

The Liberal Democrats have gained control of the new Westmorland and Furness unitary authority, PA Media reports. With 62 of the 65 results declared, the Lib Dems have won 36, Labour 14, the Conservatives 10 and independents two.

Updated

Tories would lose almost 90 seats at general election on basis of local election results, says Sky News analysis

Sky News has presented its overall assessment of the results. Like the BBC, it tries to assess what would have happened if there had been elections in all of Britain, instead of just in certain areas. But it focuses on trying to assess what that would mean if people had voted in a general election in the same way, and it says the Conservatives would be the largest party – but almost 50 seats short of a majority.

Here are the projections:
Conservatives 278 seats (down 87 on 2019)
Labour 271 (up 68)
SNP 50 (up two)
Lib Dems 23 (up 12)

Just because the Conservatives would get more parliamentary seats on this result, that does not mean they would be ahead on share of the vote. The chart posted at 11.08am explains why.

A general election outcome like this would almost certain lead to Keir Starmer becoming prime minister. The SNP and the Lib Dems would definitely vote down a Johnson government, but might consider supporting a minority Labour government in some form or another (or at least not voting it out immediately.)

Results projection
A results projection on Sky News. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Rokhsana Fiaz has been re-elected as the Labour mayor of Newham. This is from Ben Lynch from the Romford Recorder.

Labour has lost control of Hastings council, which is now under no overall control. The BBC’s Charlotte Wright says the Greens have gained three seats there from Labour.

It’s looking like another bruising results day for Alex Salmond’s Alba party. Its general secretary, Chris McEleny, who defected to the former first minister’s party from the SNP last year, has lost his Inverclyde council seat, polling only 126 votes. Another Alba candidate in Inverclyde, who won for the SNP in the last election, also lost his seat. Elsewhere in Scotland, Alba candidates are similarly polling a smattering of votes.

Updated

The SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood, fears an anti-DUP sentiment among nationalist voters has seen a swing away from his party to Sinn Féin. Speaking at the Magherafelt count centre, he said.

Nationalists have reacted to Jeffrey Donaldson saying he wouldn’t nominate a deputy first minister, they are being told there won’t be an executive. So there has been a move in big numbers to Sinn Féin. People want to send a message to the DUP that this is not on. But that is making it difficult for us and putting a squeeze on us.

The SDLP thinks it could also be vulnerable in Upper Bann and in South Down to the Alliance party because of the reaction against the DUP.

“The SDLP may also have seen nationalist support leak to Sinn Féin in the hope of delivering the big prize of first minister to their ‘side’”, one unionist source said, backing up the SDLP assessment.

North Belfast is also a hotly contested constituency where the SDLP’s deputy leader Nichola Mallon could be in a tough battle to return to Stormont.

Eastwood predicts the DUP will refuse to form a fully functioning executive whatever the final result. He said:

I think the DUP have made a decision a long time ago on this. But as anybody who knows anything about politics in London is that nobody cares about Northern Ireland and Boris Johnson is not going to do what Jeffrey Donaldson says.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood chatting with Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill at the Meadowbank Sports Arena, in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland.
The SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood, chatting with the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, at the Meadowbank Sports Arena, in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Updated

What we've learned from projected national share figures

Here are some of the points to note about the BBC PNS figures. (See 2.27pm.)

  • Labour has achieved its best win over the Conservatives on this measure for a decade. It has a five-point lead over the Tories. It has not beaten the Conservatives in the local elections on PNS since 2016, when it had a one-point lead, and this is the best result for Labour since 2012, when it had a seven-point lead over the Conservatives (38% v 31%).
  • Labour has improved particulary within the last year. In 2021, Labour were on 29% PNS, and the Tories 36%. That amounts to a swing of 6.5%. But the swing since 2019 – when both Labour and the Tories were on 28% on PNS – is a more modest 2.5%.
  • But Labour’s result - 35% - is the same as it was in 2018, when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, and when the Tories were also on 35% PNS. In 2012 Labour was on 38%. (Part of the decline may be explained by the way the PNS is calculated has changed since 2016, to take into account the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland. John Curtice and Stephen Fisher explain this in more detail here.)
  • The size of the Labour lead is broadly in line with its lead in national opinion polls. In April, Labour averaged 40% in opinion polls, and the Conservatives 34% – a six-point lead.
  • The Lib Dem performance is its joint best since it went into coalition wth the Conservatives in 2010. Since then the party has reached 19% only once before – in 2019. Last year it was on 17%.

Updated

Labour has 35% national share of vote, Tories 30%, and Lib Dems 19%, BBC says

The BBC has released its “projected national share” (PNS) – its assessment of what share of the vote each party would have got if local elections had been held in every ward in Britain. You cannot get this figure just by adding up the votes cast, because elections are not held in some places, and that skews the results. Instead, psephologists have to produce an estimate taking into account the demographic features of places that did not vote.

The results are:
Labour 35%
Conservatives 30%
Lib Dems 19%
Others 16%

There is more about how the PNS is calculated here. Confusingly, other academics use a slightly different method of calculating the national share – they call it the equivalent national share – and sometimes that produces a different result.

I will post more on these figures shortly.

Updated

Labour takes control of Worthing council

Labour has taken control of Worthing, the Labour MP Peter Kyle says.

This is from Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall.

Updated

Tories 'haemorrhaging support', says Tobias Ellwood, as he renews call for no confidence vote in PM

Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons defence committee, has renewed his call for a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson, saying the party is “haemorrhaging support in parts of the country”. He told Radio 4’s the World at One:

It’s for other colleagues to take a stock check, not just for these elections, but also in the next couple of weeks. We know there’s more evidence to come out, the Sue Gray report as well.

Ellwood accepted that getting rid of a leader who had been such a good campaigner in the past would be unusual. But he claimed it was necessary.

It’s the fact that you’ve had such an energetic, dynamic, charismatic campaigner, the likes of which the party has not seen for some time, who got us to where we are today and to then say ‘no, you’re not appropriate to deal with the challenges of the future’, that’s a huge ask of any individual MP.

But it’s now a requirement because the trust has been breached with the British people and it is the duty of every single Conservative MP to make that assessment and then act accordingly.

Asked about fellow Tories downplaying the party’s losses, he said:

We are haemorrhaging support in parts of the country, there’s some serious issues going on.

Updated

The Lib Dems are particularly pleased that one candidate they have beaten in Blackmoor Vale, Somerset, is Hayward Burt - who runs the unit at CCHQ in charge of attacking the Liberal Democrats. “In fairness, even the greatest political strategist couldn’t stop the backlash against Boris Johnson across the blue wall,” a Lib Dem source claimed.

There are early indications that voter turnout in the Stormont assembly election may be slightly down on the last polling day in 2017, PA Media reports. PA says:

Official turnout figures announced on Friday morning as counting started included 61.74% in North Belfast, 58.42% in Strangford, 60.11% in East Antrim, 64.36% in South Belfast, 60.13% in North Down and 64.66% in West Belfast.

The overall average turnout at the last Northern Ireland-wide assembly election in 2017 was 64.8%.

In Upper Bann, turnout was recorded as 62.48%, while in Newry and Armagh turnout was recorded as 68.49%.

Turnout in Foyle was 61.64% and 66.90% in West Tyrone. In Fermanagh and South Tyrone turnout was 69.09%.

The first of the 90 MLAs are expected to be returned by this afternoon but counting is set to continue into the early hours of Saturday.

Updated

From my colleague Severin Carrell

Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, has told Sky News that Durham police are investigating Keir Starmer over “beergate” (see 1.57pm) because of pressure from Tory MPs and newspapers, Kate McCann from Talk TV reports.

Updated

Starmer faces police investigation over ‘beergate’

Keir Starmer will face a police investigation into allegations he broke lockdown rules at a gathering where he had a takeaway meal with colleagues and drank a bottle of beer, my colleague Vikram Dodd reports.

Responding to the development, a Labour party spokesperson said:

We’re obviously happy to answer any questions there are and we remain clear that no rules were broken.

Ann Dickson supporting her husband, the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) candidate Billy Dickson (not pictured), at the count at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast today.
Ann Dickson supporting her husband, the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) candidate Billy Dickson (not pictured), at the count at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast today. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

PA Media has more on the SNP leader of Glasgow city council being overtaken by the Scottish Greens on first preference votes in the city’s Langside ward. (See 12.51pm.) PA says:

New candidate Holly Bruce topped the ballot with 3,173 first preference votes, while the SNP’s Susan Aitken received 2,899.

Bruce said she is proud of her party’s “positive campaign”, adding she is “thrilled that the people of Langside have put their trust in me to represent them for the next five years”.

Aitken said she is delighted to have been voted in as a councillor once again, but spoke of her disappointment that her colleague David Turner had lost his seat in the Shettleston ward. “These things happen in elections,” she said.

Shettleston’s results saw two Labour councillors voted in at the expense of the SNP, while Scottish Conservative Thomas Kerr retained his position.

Aitken suggested the co-operation agreement between the SNP and the Greens at Holyrood may have led to the result in her ward.

Susan Aitken (centre) celebrating with colleagues at the Glasgow city council count at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow.
Susan Aitken (centre) celebrating with colleagues at the Glasgow city council count at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland, has arrived for the count, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports.

The Scottish Conservative MSP Miles Briggs has said he expects the results in Scotland to be disappointing for his party. He told PA Media:

We knew it was going to be challenging, we’ve known that for a couple of weeks now. I’m personally disappointed with the results which have come in so far ...

From the work I did yesterday with my activists here in Edinburgh, it’s quite clear that people weren’t going to go to vote. They were protesting voting by not going to any other party, or when they’ve gotten their postal votes they hadn’t returned them and put them in the bin.

And Labour’s Philip Glanville has been re-elected as mayor of Hackney in London.

Peter Taylor has been re-elected as the Lib Dem mayor of Watford.

There has been an interesting early result from Glasgow city council where the SNP’s Susan Aiken, the council leader, was re-elected – but beaten to first place by the Greens on first preference votes. Aitken has faced criticism about cuts to council services, particularly during last November’s Cop26 climate conference in the city when transport and rubbish collection problems came to global notice.

Are we seeing a Green surge, spurred by their power-sharing deal with the SNP following last May’s Holyrood elections? They also gained their first seat in the Scottish Borders, East Lothian council, South Lanarkshire council, North Lanarkshire and Shetland and are recording strong results elsewhere.

Updated

The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey says it is time for Conservative MPs “to plunge [Boris Johnson] into the abyss”. (See 11.36am.) But there is little evidence that they are minded to do so.

There were reports in recent days suggesting that Jeremy Hunt was preparing for some sort of leadership bid. But the i’s Paul Waugh has been told that Hunt does not see this as a priority at the moment.

One Conservative MP who has been critical of Boris Johnson in public todayt is David Simmonds, who represents Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner in west London (which is next to Johnson’s own constituency). Simmonds says Johnson has “difficult questions to answer”. (See 9.41am.)

But, in an interview with PA Media, Simmonds said that although he thought the party had to change, he did not believe that had to involve replacing the leader. He said:

[Johnson] needs to find a way to restore confidence in the government and I think there’s a number of ways he might do that. A change of leader would be one of them. Alternatively he needs to demonstrate what the alternative plan would be.

Voters in the Western Isles have elected a woman councillor, the first in a decade, after the local council held the unwelcome status as Scotland’s only all-male local authority.

Susan Thomson, a Scottish National party candidate, was elected in South Uist, Eriskay and Benbecula after a series of disappointing results for other female candidates in the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar elections.

Thomson, 50, a projects officer with Scottish Rural Network, said she was delighted to be chosen. “I stood because I believe in independence and I believe in what the SNP stands for, but equally I believe that the council needs representation from a broad spectrum of people.”

Voters in the Western Isles failed to elect any women in 2017; eight women came forward at this election but most lost after standing against male incumbent councillors. One, Dorothy Morrison, was 38 votes short of a seat on first preference votes.

All Scottish council seats are elected using the single transferrable vote system of proportional representation. Many in the Western Isles believe that job security, low pay (councillors in Scotland receive an allowance of £18,604) and the dominance of male incumbents, many of whom are prominent figures in local churches or golf clubs, are significant barriers to women being elected.

Thomson said one option, in addition to better remuneration, was to consider job-sharing as councillors. That is someone done in the US, she said.

Updated

Q: If a majority of people in Northern Ireland back parties that support the Northern Ireland protocol, will you work with the EU to make it work?

Johnson says the key thing is to support the Good Friday agreement. He says that means any arrangments for the Northern Ireland protocol need cross-community support.

The most important thing is that we continue to support the balance of the Good Friday agreement across all communities in Northern Ireland. That’s what we’re going to do. And whatever arrangements we have, they have got to have cross-community support, that’s what the Good Friday agreement is all about, that’s what the government is going to do.

That answer does nothing to contradict reports that the govenrment is planning legislation that would allow it to rewrite parts of the protocol, on the grounds that this was necessary to protect the Good Friday agrement.

And that’s it. The interview is over.

Updated

Johnson claims his government is doing 'big, difficult things'

Asked why he is not backing a windfall tax on energy companies, Johnson says he has spoken to the bosses of Shell and BP about this. He says he needs them to invest massively in green energy, to guarantee secure supply.

It is better for them to take that cash and invest it in green energy options, to make sure “this country is protected in the future”. He goes on:

One thing about this government, it does big, difficult things.

He cites getting Brexit done, and doing the vaccine rollout, as examples of this.

“Clobbering” energy companies would not guarantee a stable energy supply, he says.

UPDATE: Johnson said:

I had the head of Shell in yesterday, and the head of BP. And I’ve talked to them both. Our message to them, and what is very, very clear, it’s ‘Guys, you know, this is a moment when we need you, as a country, to invest massively in clean, green renewables, in the stuff that is going to make a difference to people’s energy prices’.

What we don’t want to do is make the same mistakes as previous governments ... as I’ve just been saying - fail to invest in our energy supply. So that’s the message that we’re giving to the big energy companies.

And it’s frankly better for them to take that cash, put it into wind farms, put it into hydrogen, put it into stuff that will make a big difference to our ability to cope with the global energy price spike, and above all make sure that this country is protected in the future so that we have more long-term energy security.

Updated

Johnson says results have been 'mixed' for Tories, but that in some places they've had 'remarkable gains'

Boris Johnson has recorded a clip for broadcasters about the results. He started by paying tribute to Conservative councillors, and said the result were “mixed”.

In some parts of the country it had been “tough”, he said.

But in other areas there were “quite remarkable gains in places that have not voted Conservative for a long time, if ever”.

He said that the message he drew from the results was that people want him to get on with “the big issues that matter to them”.

UPDATE: Johnson said:

It is mid-term. It’s certainly a mixed set of results.

We had a tough night in some parts of the country but on the other hand in other parts of the country you are still seeing Conservatives going forward and making quite remarkable gains in places that haven’t voted Conservative for a long time, if ever ...

The big lesson from this is that this is a message from voters that what they want us to do above all - one, two and three - is focus on the big issues that matter to them, taking the country forward, making sure we fix the post-Covid aftershock, get us all through the economic aftershocks in the way we got through Covid, fix the energy supply issues, that’s where the inflationary spike is coming, and keep going with our agenda of high wage, high skill jobs. That is what we are focused on.

Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Momentum says results outside London 'disintinctly underwhelming' for Labour

When Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, centrists in the party often seemed quite pleased when the party did badly in elections because those results vindicated their criticisms of him. Now Keir Starmer is in charge the dynamic applies in reverse, and Momentum, the Labour group set up to defend the Corbyn agenda, claims the results show that Starmer’s approach is failing. The official Labour line is that the results are a “turning point” (see 8.26am), but Momentum says the elections were a lost opportunity.

It has issued this statement from Mish Rahman, a member of the Momentum executive who also sits on Labour’s national executive committee.

From Partygate to the Tory cost-of-living crisis, these local elections were a golden opportunity for Labour. We’re delighted by gains in London, where Momentum members played a key role on the ground and as candidates. But these first results from the rest of England are distinctly underwhelming.

While millions looked for an alternative to Tory ruin, they largely opted for the Lib Dems and Greens. Labour actually went backwards from Corbyn’s 2018 performance, a result which should bury Keir Starmer’s deeply flawed idea that punching left is a vote-winner. Instead, we should look to places like Preston, where a Labour administration is delivering a radical economic alternative – and getting rewarded at the ballot box.

Updated

No official results yet in Northern Ireland’s assembly election but a few straws in the wind suggest it will be a grim day for the Democratic Unionist party and a breakthrough for Sinn Féin.

Early tallies suggest a strong showing for the Traditional Unionist Voice, a rightwing rival that has excoriated the DUP over the post-Brexit trade border in the Irish Sea.

Would a good day for the TUV definitionally mean a bad day for Jeffrey Donaldson’s DUP, I asked Nicholas Whyte, a psephologist and authority on Northern Ireland elections. “Yes,” he said.

In which case, Sinn Féin could afford to lose a seat or two and still emerge bigger than the DUP and any other party, and thus claim the right to nominate the region’s first nationalist first minister in the Stormont power-sharing executive.

Big caveat: it’s extremely early in the count and vote transfers are unpredictable.

Asked about the prospect of an emboldened Sinn Féin pushing for a referendum on Irish unity, Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party chairman, told Sky News:

I’m confident that we will be able to make the case for Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom should that that arise, but I don’t think we’re at that stage.

Ballot papers being counted in Belfast this morning.
Ballot papers being counted in Belfast this morning. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

Updated

Boris Johnson has been spending the morning on a visit to a primary school in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, where he has painted a picture of the Queen. We have not had words from him yet, but the first pictures are available.

Boris Johnson poses with the portrait he painted of the Queen during a drawing session with children as part of a visit at the Field End Infant school, in South Ruislip this morning.
Boris Johnson poses with the portrait he painted of the Queen during a drawing session with children as part of a visit at the Field End Infant school in South Ruislip this morning. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

One of the more niche if most bitterly contested subplots of the local elections was the fate of candidates who explicitly opposed the schemes known as low-traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNs – and if early results are anything to go by, they do not seem to have fared especially well.

LTNs, which seek to encourage cycling and walking by using filters or bollards to block through-motor traffic on some smaller residential streets, while allowing pedestrians and cyclists to pass, have proved a controversial innovation in a series of areas including London, Oxford and Birmingham.

A series of dedicated anti-LTN independent candidates stood, while in some places, notably in a series of London boroughs, Conservative and even Lib Dem candidates promised to remove them.

While the results are, of course, shaped by a series of other national and local factors, it does seem that anti-LTN sentiment was less strong than might appear from coverage of the issue in some newspapers.

So far, no anti-LTN independents have won – although one, standing in Oxford, finished a reasonably close second to Labour – and campaigners’ hopes to unseat pro-LTN Labour candidates in London boroughs like Southwark came to nothing.

One potential exception is Enfield, another hotbed of the debate, where the Tories gained eight seats from Labour.

Updated

Davey claims election results amount to 'almighty shockwave' that will bring Tory government 'tumbling down'

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, claims these election results amount to “an almighty shockwave that will bring this Conservative government tumbling down”. Speaking to reporters in Wimbledon, he said:

What began as a tremor in Chesham and Amersham, became an earthquake in North Shropshire, and is now an almighty shockwave that will bring this Conservative government tumbling down.

It is the movement of millions of people who are saying loud and clear: “We have had enough.”

Enough of seeing our energy bills go up, our tax bills go up, and our standard of living go down. Enough of filthy sewage pouring into our local rivers. Enough of waiting hours for an ambulance or weeks to see a GP. Enough of being ignored and taken for granted by this Conservative government.

And enough of a prime minister who breaks the law and lies about it.

The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting beneath Boris Johnson’s feet. And now it’s time for Conservative MPs to plunge him into the abyss.

In Wimbledon, the Lib Dems gained 12 seats on Merton council. They have also gained Hull city council from Labour, won another nine seats on Richmond council and also made gains in Cheadle (Stockport), Witney (West Oxfordshire) and Eastleigh.

The Richmond result is particularly striking. The Conservatives ran the council until 2018. But now there are 48 Lib Dems on the council, five Greens and just one Tory.

Ed Davey
Ed Davey. Photograph: BBC News

Updated

One Tory source has been piloting a novel spin on the election results with Lucy Fisher from Times Radio.

This is not a line that we have heard (yet?) from any senior Conservative politicians speaking on the record, and perhaps we never will. When Boris Johnson won the 2019 general election, he said he wanted to unite the country, and so for his party to effectively go to war with London (the city he used to represent as mayor) would be reckless. But it is interesting that some in the party are saying things like this privately.

Fisher says the remark has provoked a backlash.

Although today’s results do not suggest Labour is on course to win the next election with a majority, as John Rentoul argues in a column for the Independent, Keir Starmer does not necessarily need a majority to become prime minister. Rentoul explains:

Two immediate reactions to these results can both be true. One, these are good results for Keir Starmer. Two, they are not the kind of results that presage a Labour majority at the next general election. However, Labour does not have to win a majority for Starmer to be prime minister, and these local elections are consistent with the Conservatives losing their majority in parliament.

What matters in a two-party system is the difference in share of the vote between the two largest parties. The English local election results suggest that Labour is doing a little less well than the national opinion polls suggest, but would still be ahead of the Conservatives if people had been voting everywhere.

In fact, Labour would not even have to be ahead of the Conservatives in terms of share of the vote at the next general election to deprive Boris Johnson of his majority. This is well illustrated by this chart from The British general election of 2019, the indispensable guide to that contest by Robert Ford, Tim Bale, Will Jennings and Paula Surridge published last year. It shows that, because of the way the system is currently skewed against Labour (essentially Labour stacks up too many of its votes in the same seats), Labour would need a massive lead over the Conservatives to secure a slender overall majority. But it also shows how the Tory majority vanishes once their national lead falls below around five points.

How Tory/Labour vote shares would affect Commons majority figures under voting system
How Tory/Labour vote shares would affect Commons majority figures under the voting system. Photograph: British General Election of 2019

Updated

The first results are coming in from Scotland, the BBC’s Lewis Goodall reports.

Ballot boxes arriving for sorting at the Glasgow city council count at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow.
Ballot boxes arriving for sorting at the Glasgow city council count at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

The Liberal Democrats are up by more than 40 seats. Ed Davey, the party leader, told the Today programme that that could lead to the party gaining more MPs at the next general election. He said:

We’re making big gains from the Conservatives, gains that I think we can turn into seats in the next election …

I said that people could use their vote to send a message to Boris Johnson that he’s not providing the leadership on the cost-of-living emergency, which is really the issue on the doorsteps that I found, and I think the real situation here is the economy is in a real mess, the Conservatives have failed to provide that leadership and people are turning to the Liberal Democrats for an alternative part.

Updated

Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party co-chairman, had a plausible answer when he was asked on LBC if he knew the price of a can of baked beans. “I wouldn’t know the price of a tin of baked beans,” he replied. “I’ll tell you why, I have never liked baked beans. I’ve never purchased a tin of baked beans in my entire life.”

The BBC has also put out figures saying that, on the basis of the results so far, the Conservative vote is down one percentage point in “red wall” seats – constituencies that had been Labour for years but voted Tory in 2019 – compared with the local elections in those places in 2018 (when these council seats were last contested). And Labour is up one point on 2018 in these seats, it says.

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Why Bristol voted to stop having directly elected mayor

Why has Bristol voted to stop having a directly elected mayor? (see 9.24am.) While the Bristol mayor, Marvin Rees, is seen nationally – and internationally – as an impressive figure, he also has many detractors in Bristol with some annoyed at his style of management and specific issues such as resident parking zones and the Metrobus transport scheme (both issues he inherited when he took office). Critics argue the role invests too much power in one person.

At last year’s council elections, the Greens became the joint biggest party in Bristol (with Labour) and the party hoped Rees would share power. But, to their anger and frustration, the Greens were given no seats in Rees’s cabinet.

The referendum was held after Liberal Democrat councillors proposed a motion at the council to have a vote, which was seconded by the Greens.

Mary Page, who ran the “Scrap the mayor” campaign, said: “The campaign was about saying the city belongs to us, all of us, not just one person.”

Rees denied the vote was a judgment of his time in office – after all he was re-elected in May last year and had already said he would not run for a third time. He said the referendum was a “distraction” from more important issues, such as the cost of living crisis.

Marvin Rees.
Marvin Rees. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

Updated

If the Conservatives do badly in the Scottish local elections, Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, needs to take the blame, not Boris Johnson, according to Adam Tomkins, a former Tory member of the Scottish parliament (MSP).

The BBC has produced its latest figures for how the parties’ share of the vote has changed in London and in the north of England. The Labour share is up in London, but down in the north. The Tory share is down in both regions, by even more.

Here are the figures. They show the change from 2018, which is when these seats were last fought.

London
Labour +2
Con -4
Lib Dems +2
Greens +2

North of England
Labour -2
Con -3
Lib Dems -0.2
Greens +3

Updated

Counting is under way for the Northern Ireland assembly for 90 seats in 18 constituencies.

Full results may not be known until later tonight or tomorrow. If it is close, counting could even run into Monday as the 90 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) are elected via a proportional representation system known as the single transferable vote.

The Electoral Office said the indicative turnout was 54% an hour before polling closes, compared with 74% in 2017.

All eyes will be on a tight fight between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party but election buffs will also be watching for a potential surge for constitutionally non-aligned parties, the Alliance, Greens and others.

The first declarations of those who pass the constituency quota are expected in the afternoon when a sense of the overall share of first preferences each of the main parties will also emerge.

Candidates passing the quota are declared elected and the number of their votes above the quota are distributed to second preferences and so on.

Low-scoring candidates are progressively eliminated, with their votes distributed to others in accordance with lower preferences.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, observing ballot boxes being opened at the Ulster University Jordanstown count centre in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, observing ballot boxes being opened at the Ulster University Jordanstown count centre in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Reuters

Updated

Labour has blamed its loss of control of Hull after more than a decade in power on a collapse of the Tory vote that moved to the Lib Dems.

Daren Hale, the outgoing Labour council leader, said his party lost its slender majority in the city due to a total collapse of the last vestiges of Conservative support in key wards of the city.

As PA Media reports, the Lib Dems had a net gain of three seats in Hull, leaving them with 29 seats on the 57-seat council, compared with 27 for Labour and one independent. The Conservatives lost their last remaining seat on the council to Labour.

Hale told BBR Radio Humberside:

In the seats we held, our majority went up.It was the collapse of the Tory vote which, in a sense the Labour party isn’t responsible for, that led to those seats changing hands.

Mike Ross, the Lib Dem leader on the council, claimed his party won because “people feel failed by a Labour council after over a decade”.

Updated

News reports, and blogs like this one, focus on what happens. But often in politics what matters most is what hasn’t happened.

For several weeks now we have been told that some Conservative MPs were going to wait until after the local elections before deciding whether or not to write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee calling for a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson. In No 10, today was seen as a potential moment of peril for Johnson, when his critics might mobilise against him.

It is almost 12 hours since the polls closed, and results for the Tories have been disappointing, and in some places very bad indeed. But we haven’t had a single Conservative MP call for Johnson’s resignation, or for a no confidence ballot.

The closest we’ve come to that seems to be David Simmonds, MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, saying Johnson has “difficult questions to answer”. This is what he told the Today programme.

It was a pretty clear message on the doorstep. Clearly the prime minister has got some difficult questions to answer.

Overwhelmingly the message that I heard on the doorsteps was people were broadly positive about the government’s policies but they are not happy about what they have been hearing about Partygate.

He said: ‘I will take full responsibility for these election results’, and I think he needs to confront that question now.

The day is still young, and the Conservatives are expected to do particularly badly in Scotland (see 9.07am), but it does look as thought the long-anticipated leadership challenge to Johnson may – yet again – be postponed.

Updated

Bristol votes to stop having directly elected mayor

Voters in Bristol have decided to abolish the position of directly elected mayor in favour of the old committee system.

The current mayor, Marvin Rees – the first directly elected black mayor in Europe – had argued that the position gave the city a visible, accountable leader. He said issues ranging from the response to the pandemic to the toppling of the Colston statue benefited from that type of leadership.

But in a referendum, the people of Bristol voted to scrap the system with 59% opting for change. The turnout was 29%.

Heather Mack, leader of the Green group on the council, said it marked “a new chapter in the way our city is run”, adding:

For many years now, important decisions affecting the whole of our city have been made behind closed doors by just one person whom the public and elected councillors cannot easily challenge.

And Mark Weston, leader of the Conservative group on the council, said:

The mayoral model has proven a disaster for Bristol – too much power at the whim of one individual.

Rees will serve out his term in office until 2024.The mayoral post was first created in 2012.

Updated

In an interview on BBC Breakfast, Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party co-chair, restated his claim that Labour is not doing well enough to be on course to win a general election. (See 7.47am.) He said:

If you take the whole picture of this, it really doesn’t demonstrate that Labour has the momentum to form the next government …

This isn’t like what Tony Blair got in say ‘95 two years before his election victory, they were making 1,800 gains. If you look at Ed Miliband, [he] managed to make 800 gains in 2011 and still not win the election.

Updated

Ballot papers for the Northern Ireland assembly elections being counted at the Meadowbank Sports Arena in Magherafelt. Counting in Northern Ireland only started this morning.
Ballot papers for the Northern Ireland assembly elections being counted at the Meadowbank Sports Arena in Magherafelt. Counting in Northern Ireland only started this morning. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Scottish Tories braced for worst local elections result for decade

The Scottish Conservatives are braced for their worst election result in a decade after acknowledging large numbers of Tory voters had stayed at home due to their anger over the Partygate scandal.

Tory officials expect their party to come in third overall in Scotland behind Labour, with counts under way in all 32 local councils. The first results are expected at around midday or lunchtime, with Tory attention particularly focused on Perth & Kinross, a key battleground with the Scottish National party, and in the north-east of Scotland, where the Tories hope their pro-oil message will insulate them against the Partygate backlash.

Senior Tory sources reject Labour assertions that some Conservative voters had switched to Labour, arguing that their vote had collapsed because of abstentions. In the 2017 council elections, the Tories unexpectedly gained 164 seats, taking 276 in total.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has come under fire from opponents and some internal critics after flip-flopping on Boris Johnson’s suitability to be prime minister. Ross was the first Tory MP to call for Johnson to quit over Partygate but has since claimed he must remain in post because of the Ukraine war.

One Tory source told the Daily Mail Ross would not quit: “Douglas is going nowhere. He is not resigning. Voters have sent a message to Boris, not Douglas.”

Updated

From Ian Jones, a data journalist at PA Media

This is from Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and a former adviser to both Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.

These are from Ben Walker, a data journalist at the New Statesman.

The Conservative MP David Simmonds, who represents Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner in north London, says Boris Johnson has “difficult questions” to answer about the election results, Steven Swinford from the Times reports.

Updated

Liberal Democrats celebrating after taking control of Hull city council.
Liberal Democrats celebrating after taking control of Hull city council. Photograph: Chris Attridge/PA

Radio’s 4’s Today programme played Keir Starmer’s clip from Barnet (see 8.26am) in the middle of an interview with Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist who leads the team analysing election results for the BBC. Curtice made it clear that did not quite agree with Starmer’s assessment of the outcome. He said Labour’s share of the vote was about one point up in London on the result in 2018, which was already very good for the party. So they can claim to have reached “a new zenith” in the capital, he said. But he went on:

The trouble is, outside of London, Labour share of the vote was actually down slightly.

In terms of seats won and lost, while it’s made net gains in London, it’s actually made a slight net loss outside of London. So outside of London it’s a rather different story. And of course Labour can’t win Westminster parliament by simply winning Westminster council.

When the presenter, Nick Robinson, put it to him that an accurate summary of the outcome would be “bad for the Tories, not good enough for Labour”, Curtice replied: “I think that’s absolutely right.”

Prof Sir John Curtice
Prof Sir John Curtice. Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Starmer claims election results are 'big turning point' for Labour, showing party has changed

Keir Starmer has described the elections as a “big turning point”. Speaking in Barnet, where Labour has taken the council from the Conservatives, he said this was “a big turning point”. Addressing a crowd of Labour supporters, who were cheering as he spoke, he said:

Believe you me, this is a big turning point for us. From the depths of 2019, that general election, winning in the north, Cumberland, Southampton. We’ve changed Labour and now we’re seeing the results of that.

And when it comes to London, you can hardly believe it as those names come off our lips – Wandsworth, they’ve been saying for years you’ll never take Wandsworth, and we’ve just done it. Westminster – an astonishing result. Barnet.

Keir Starmer in Barnet this morning
Keir Starmer in Barnet this morning. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Labour candidates celebrating after gaining Westminster city council this morning.
Labour candidates celebrating after gaining Westminster city council this morning. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, told the Today programme that she did not accept the claim that the party should be making much better progress in these elections. (See 7.02am and 7.47am.)

She pointed out that results from Scotland and Wales were yet to come in. (The Scottish and Welsh council elections were last held in 2017, which was a particularly bad year for Labour. Almost all the English council seats were last up for election in 2018, when Labour did much better overall nationally.)

She went on:

It’s important to remember that these seats [the English ones] are being fought on the 2018 local election cycle. In that election cycle we already held over 50% of the seats that are being contested in England. So, with respect, when you’re already at over 50% of that are held by you, the headway for very significant gains is obviously necessarily limited because you hold so much of the territory that has been contested. However, we have still taken local authorities off the Conservatives …

When you look at what’s happening in the popular vote share, there are Conservative MPs that should be worried because on the popular vote share, from these local elections, those seats will be returning Labour members of parliament at the next general election. That is why it is a turning point for the Labour party.

Labour identified 16 of those seats in a briefing note sent out earlier. (See 6.42am.)

Updated

Confirmed: Labour gain Barnet council

It has been confirmed that Labour has gained Barnet council in London with the Tories conceding defeat. (See 5.25am.) Labour gained 18 seats, and the Conservatives lost 14. The new balance on the council is: Labour 41, Conservatives 22.

Updated

Results show Labour 'certainly not on path to power', says Tory co-chair Oliver Dowden

Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party co-chair, told Sky News this morning that although the election results were “challenging” for his party, they showed that Labour was not on the path to power. He said:

I think looking at the picture of the results so far, they demonstrate that whilst there have been difficult results, they are consistent with what you’d expect with us from mid-term.

Labour are certainly not on the path to power and I believe that Boris Johnson does have the leadership skills, in particular the energy and the dynamism that we need during this difficult period of time.

In terms of what he was saying about Labour’s performance, Dowden’s assessment was not far off what Prof Sir John Curtice was saying on the BBC earlier. See 7.02am.

Oliver Dowden
Oliver Dowden on Sky News this morning. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Gavin Barwell, who was chief of staff for Theresa May when she was PM and who has frequently criticised Boris Johnson, says the results in London (Barwell used to be a Croydon MP) should be a wake-up call for the Tories.

The Green party has gained more than 20 seats so far in the elections. In a briefing, the party said:

Results in South Tyneside showed the Greens doubling their seats to become the second largest party on the council and the main opposition party to Labour. In Worcester, the Green campaign pushed the Conservative-dominated council into no overall control, leaving the Greens with greater ability to influence council decision making to benefit residents.

Greens also broke through with victories on new councils, including gaining their first ever councillor in Plymouth and on the newly created Cumberland council.

Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, said:

The phenomenal results for the Green party so far demonstrate that people up and down the country are looking for a credible alternative to the establishment parties, and finding it in us.

Green party candidates at a count in Oxford.
Green party candidates at a count in Oxford. Photograph: Greg Blatchford/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

This is what John Mallinson, the Conservative leader of Carlisle city council, said overnight about why he would like to see Boris Johnson replaced. He said:

I think it is not just Partygate, there is the integrity issue. Basically I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.

And this is what Mallinson told the Today programme this morning.

I don’t think any one person is responsible for everything, but he does seem to be attracting a lot of unrest and ill feeling at the moment.

Mallinson said Boris Johnson would be a “poor option” to lead the Conservatives into the next general election. He went on:

People seemed preoccupied with national issues, the cost-of-living crisis is weighing very heavily on people’s minds, and I have to say that issues like Partygate made it increasingly difficult to focus people’s minds on local issues.

Updated

In his First Edition briefing, my colleague Archie Bland has an analysis of what we’ve learned from the election results so far. Here is an extract.

Maybe the most uncomfortable part of the night for the prime minister is the number of disappointed local Conservative figures who blame him squarely for their losses. In Sunderland, Conservative group leader Antony Mullen seemed pretty angry as he spoke. “We’ve come close in a number of seats, and were it not for the national picture – Partygate – I think we would have won them,” he told me. “I can only put it down to that. I think a lot of Conservative voters were staying at home.” He repeated a call for Johnson to resign.

Among a number of other examples, in the new council area of Cumberland, where Labour took the council despite all three MPs in the area being Conservative, local Tory leader John Mallinson called for Johnson to be replaced and said he could understand why voters “no longer have the confidence that their prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth”. Mallinson’s interview felt like one which will be replayed on news bulletins all day.

You can read the whole briefing here.

Updated

This is from Politico’s Esther Webber on the Tory losses in London.

Updated

In Westminster, Labour gained 12 council seats, and the Conservatives lost 18. The new balance of the council is: Labour 31, Conservatives 23.

Updated

Prof John Curtice on what results so far mean for Tories and Labour

Prof Sir John Curtice, the leading elections expert, gave his assessement on BBC News earlier as to what the results meant for the main parties.

This was his assessement of how the Conservatives were doing:

The Conservatives have suffered more or less the kind of loss of support that we might have anticipated given their current standing in the opinion polls.

They are on average around four points down compared with 2018, which was when most of the seats that we’ve been declaring overnight were last contested. And they’re actually down by rather more, by about six points compared with their performance in last year’s elections.

And this is probably going to end up looking like one of the weaker Conservative performances since the party’s been in power since 2010, although not necessarily the worst of all …

It is probably going to be the case that their tally of net losses is going to be somewhere between 200 and 300, which was the kind of figure that many commentators suggested would be the ballpark figure they would suffer if indeed their current position in the polls was reflected in the actual ballot box.

And this is what he said about how Labour is doing:

I would say that Labour are probably somewhat disappointed. I think they would have wanted to have clearly registered that their vote was up on what it was four years ago. Actually, [it is] probably marginally. If you just look at those wards where Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats fought – the real litmust test – in those wards Labour are very slightly down.

[They are] doing a bit better in London – probably up a point or so there on 2018. But, conversely therefore, [they are] actually doing a little bit worse outside of London.

Yes, Labour has certainly made progress as compared with last year but last year was a very poor performance – four points up on last year was not exactly surprising.

Therefore this is certainly not a local election performance that in any sense indicates a party that is on course for winning a general election with an overall majority. Indeed, I’m not sure whether you could even say that at this point it’s guaranteed, or necessarily on course, even to be the largest part of the next party in the next parliament. There is still an awful lot of work for Labour to do, not least perhaps in more leave-voting England.

This does not tally with what Labour itself is saying about its own performance (see 6.42am), although Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary who was on BBC News just after Curtice delivered his assessment, did not sound especially upbeat as she delivered the line about the results being a “turning point” for the party.

Updated

Here are some images from the night:

British Labour party supporters celebrate a win announcement at the Westminster city council local elections
British Labour party supporters celebrate a win announcement at the Westminster city council local elections. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Members of the counting staff rest during the counting process at the Westminster city council local elections, at Lindley Hall
Members of the counting staff rest during the counting process at the Westminster city council local elections, at Lindley Hall. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, British Labour party MP, at Wandsworth town hall
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, British Labour party MP, at Wandsworth town hall. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

Updated

Labour claims the results so far amount to a “turning point”. Shabana Mahmood, the party’s national campaign coordinator, said in a statement.

This is a turning point for the Labour party. After the disastrous results of 2019, these early results are showing the progress we have made thanks to Keir’s leadership. Labour is making headway in England, Scotland and Wales, taking over key Conservative councils and winning in vital parliamentary battlegrounds across the country.

The party is particularly flagging up its gains in London. But it also says that, on the basis of aggregate vote share, these results imply it would gain 16 leave-voting seats in a general election: Carlisle, Copeland, Great Grimsby, Hartlepool, Ipswich, Leigh, Lincoln, Peterborough, Stevenage, Thurrock, West Bromwich East, West Bromwich West, Wolverhampton North East, Wolverhampton South West, Worcester and Workington.

Updated

This is from Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) thinktank, on the results so far.

With around half of councils now declared, the most dramatic results so far have been in London with Labour taking control of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster councils. This has huge symbolic value and losing all three of these councils in a single election will be a big blow to Conservative morale.

At the same time, it’s part of a longer term trend in which Labour has tightened its grip on inner London. Over the last decade, we have seen an increasing polarisation with the Labour vote concentrated in large cities and university towns and Conservative support spread across the rest of the country. In that respect, Conservative losses in Southampton or West Oxfordshire might be more telling indicators.

Labour takes Westminster from Tories for first time in more than 50 years

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Helen Livingstone.

Labour has taken control of Westminster city council in London, PA Media reports. That is an even bigger gain for the party than Wandsworth, where Labour now also holds the council (having gained nine seats, with the Tories losing 11). Westminster has been Tory-held since it was created in 1964.

Updated

The Liberal Democrats are celebrating the gain of five councillors in West Oxfordshire, home to former prime minister David Cameron’s old constituency of Witney.

Conservatives have lost their majority, losing five seats to leave them with 20, while the Lib Dems gained four to increase their total to 15. No party has an overall majority.

“Toppling the Conservatives in David Cameron’s backyard is a truly historic result. The blue wall seats are crumbling beneath the weight of Boris Johnson’s failure of leadership across England,” the party tweeted.

Updated

Prominent Conservative MP and former minister Stephen Hammond has said his local Wimbledon area saw a high turnout of “angry Tories” voting against the Conservatives, adding that it ought to be a “clarion bell ringing in Downing Street to make sure we are concentrating on the cost of living”.

Speaking to the BBC, he said “Partygate” had been a big influence on voting.

He also said he wanted Boris Johnson to bring “talents back into the government”.

“Any government that doesn’t have people like Greg Clark and Jeremy Hunt clearly isn’t using all the talents available to it.”

Asked about Boris Johnson’s future, he said: “I think he has to prove his integrity to the country.”

Updated

A bit more analysis from professor of politics and polling expert John Curtice, who has told the BBC that turnout looks slightly down on other recent local elections.

On average the turnout is down by 1 percentage point on 2018 in the BBC’s key wards, and by 2.5 points on last year.

However, there is no sign that where turnout fell the most, the Conservatives particularly suffered as a result.

The latest snapshot of results across England from the BBC shows the Conservatives approaching triple digit council-seat losses, while Labour are up 28, the Lib Dems are up 44 and the Greens are up 20:

Conservative leader in Barnet concedes defeat

The Conservative leader of Barnet council Daniel Thomas says his party has lost control of the council, the BBC reports.

Thomas blamed his defeat on “a perfect storm of the cost of living crisis, 12 years of a Conservative government and redrawn boundaries”.

“This is a warning shot from Conservative supporters - a fair number just stayed at home,” he continued.

The issue of “Partygate” only came up “very occasionally”, he said, adding that he didn’t believe there has been “a huge conversion” to Labour.

The council has been under Conservative control since its creation in the 1960s, apart from an eight-year period from 1994 until 2002, when the Tories regained control.

Barnet has three Conservative MPs, who may now be worried about their seats.

Updated

While reports continue to suggest that Westminster could be another Conservative casualty tonight, Richmond is also apparently shaping up to be a bloodbath for the Tories with the BBC’s Lewis Goodall reporting the party is on track to lose ten councillors, leaving it with just one. The Lib Dems won control of the council from the Tories in 2018.

Labour have reportedly won Barnet, another London council that was being closely watched.

The Greens have been one of the big winners from Thursday’s elections, up 20 seats overall in England so far, bringing their total to 30.

Gains were made in Plymouth and Coventry, where they have celebrated their first ever seats, while they have also picked up a seat in the newly created council in Cumberland and in South Tyneside they were up three seats.

In Wirral, the Greens also added three seats, leaving them with eight.

The Conservatives have lost control of West Oxfordshire, David Cameron’s old patch, with no party winning an overall majority, according to the BBC’s election results stream.

Updated

A tweet from the Guardian’s deputy political editor Rowena Mason:

Ravi Govindia, the outgoing Tory leader of Wandsworth council, has told the BBC that local services were viewed positively by voters but that “other events have clouded the judgement of people in Wandsworth ... Consistently on the doorstep the issue of Boris Johnson was raised.”

He suggested the cost of living crisis was also an issue and that Conservative supporters may have stayed home.

Labour wins Wandsworth from Conservatives

Wandsworth has been called for Labour, with Sky News reporting the party have so far won 32 seats, the Tories 22 and one seat won by an independent. It’s the first time Labour has won the council since 1974.

Updated

The Conservatives have lost control of Southampton council to Labour, local MP Royston Smith said.

Smith, MP for Southampton Itchen, told the BBC that Partygate and the prime minister’s integrity had “not really” come up with voters: “A lot of them were saying we’re just not interested in this nonsense”.

He said that the subject people were most interested in was “this worry about the cost of living.”

Mark Wallace, chief executive of the website Conservative Home, says he’s being told that the Conservatives are saying they will lose control of Westminster, which they have held since its creation in the 1960s.

Labour are calling Wandsworth as a gain, according to the Guardian’s deputy political editor Rowena Mason.

A Labour HQ source says:

Boris Johnson losing Wandsworth is monumental. This was the Tories’ jewel in the crown. Voters in Wandsworth have put their trust in the change Keir Starmer’s Labour represents.

The latest update from the BBC on council results in England shows Labour up 15 seats overall, while the Conservatives are down 73. The Lib Dems have gained 32 while the Greens are up 18.

Following those earlier grumblings from Worcester Tories, it has been confirmed that the party has lost control of the council to no overall control.

The Conservatives lost three seats – one each to Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems - meaning no party has a majority.

Greens leader Louis Stephen, whose party now has six seats, pledged to work with the two major parties.

Our Midlands reporter Jessica Murray has this final dispatch from the count in the key council of Dudley where Labour failed to oust the Tories.

Although the Tories retained overall control of the council, Labour made some progress in Dudley tonight, taking three seats from the Conservatives.

The Tories managed to take one seat from Labour, scraping the win by seven votes, and took another two seats from independent candidates.

The West Midlands bellwether council had been a key target for Labour, after the Conservatives gained overall control last year, but they failed to make a significant dent in the Tory majority.

Nevertheless, Dudley Labour leader, Qadar Zada, said he was “really pleased” with the results.

“It’s absolutely going in the right direction. We set out 12 months ago on a listening campaign to talk to as many residents as possible, and that’s what has got us here tonight, we have gained three seats,” he said. “I think people are annoyed about central government, and they feel neglected locally. Of course people are annoyed about the Downing Street parties as well.”

Another disappointed Conservative has blamed Partygate and the failings of Boris Johnson’s leadership for the party’s poor showing in local elections.

Following similar remarks from Tory leaders in Cumberland and Worcester, the leader of Portsmouth Conservatives Simon Bosher said the leadership in Westminster needed to “take a good, long hard look in the mirror” to find out why he had lost four seats tonight.

“Personally I think those in power in Westminster really do need to take a good, hard look in the mirror because it is the rank and file grassroots members they rely on that are actually losing their seats tonight and it is pretty disappointing across the board,” he told the BBC.

Asked if he meant the prime minister when he referred to those in power, Bosher added: “I think Boris does need to take a good, strong look in the mirror as well because I think he needs to look at those people that we have lost tonight... because those are people that are actually bearing the brunt on the doorstep of behaviour of what’s been going on in Westminster.”

Updated

Taking control of Hull council from Labour has been the stand-out prize on a very good night for the Lib Dems, who have also won seats from the Conservatives in the south.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Kramer said she was “obviously delighted” her party had taken control of Hull council, where the party had haboured “high hopes” of victory and the Tories lost their only remianing seat.

“It is a community that in a sense has been taken for granted frankly by both Labour and Conservatives,” she told Sky News.

She said that “big significant local issues” like the number of GPs locally came up on the doorstep, as well as the cost of living and Partygate.

“It is not just partygate, it is everything it stands for, this sort of whole sense of a Government in moral collapse,” Lady Kramer said.

After results from 31 councils, the Tories had a net loss of 3 seats, Labour had a net gain of 13 seats, the Lib Dems had put on 21 seats and gained one authority while the Greens had gained seven seats.

More analysis on the results so far from Will Jennings, a professor of politics at the University of Southampton.

He points out that comparing results from the around 150 wards where there is data from the 2016 Brexit vote, Conservatives are doing better in Leave voting areas and Labour better in Remain voting areas.

He also points out that the Conservatives appear to be performing poorly in areas where there are more university graduates.

Updated

Local Tory leader blames Cumberland collapse on Boris Johnson

After the Conservatives saw an unexpected collapse in support in the new council of Cumberland, losing 14 seats while Labour gained 12 and took overall control, local Tory leader John Mallinson has laid the blame squarely at the feet of the prime minister – questioning his honesty and suggesting he should be replaced.

Voters’ motivations were “mostly national,” he told the BBC.

It was difficult to drag the debate back to local issues… partygate was a big thing. And the cost of living crisis. It wasn’t helping getting comments from [environment secretary] George Eustice talking about people using value brands to ease their shopping bills.”

He said Eustice’s remarks were viewed as “very patronising”. Mallinson said he had encountered:

A lot of animosity towards the prime minister … it’s partygate, but it’s not just partygate: there’s the integrity issue, I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that their prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.”

He added: “I can see their point of view.”

Asked if Conservative MPs should remove Boris Johnson, he said: “That would be my preference, yes.”

Latest election results from the BBC, showing Labour has lost two councillors overall while the Conservatives have lost 46. The Lib Dems are up 25 while the Greens are up 16.

Labour are on track to take control of Southampton from the Conservatives, according to polling expert John Curtice, who has calculated a seven percentage point swing to Labour after a third of wards reported results.

He told the BBC:

This is one of the few councils that the Tories appear to be at serious risk of losing.

Updated

Here are some photographs from some of the counts across the country:

London mayor Sadiq Khan and Labou MP Rosena Allin-Khan react to Labour wins in Wandsworth on Friday morning.
London mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan react to wins in Wandsworth on Friday morning. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
It has been a good night for the Liberal Democrats across England.
It has been a good night for the Liberal Democrats across England. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
Ballot boxes arrive for the count in Peterbourgh.
Ballot boxes arrive for the count in Peterbourgh. Photograph: Paul Marriott/PA
Conservative party supporters face a disappointing night in Wandsworth.
Conservative party supporters face a disappointing night in Wandsworth. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
Ballot papers being counted in Sunderland, which was held by Labour.
Ballot papers being counted in Sunderland, which was held by Labour. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Another update from Barnet, where Labour are hoping to gain control from the Tories, who have run the council since 2002. Prior to that the council had either been held by the Conservatives or under no overall control since its creation in the 1960s.

Sounding negative about his party’s chances of retaining control, the Conservative leader of the council Daniel Thomas has told the BBC he’s “disappointed but proud of our track record over the last 20 years”.

If Labour are making gains ... this is multiple factors and a perfect storm of 12 years of Conservative national government and 20 years of a Conservative council, and cost of living.

He also blamed the rise in National Insurance last month.

Labour has won a convincing majority on the newly created council of Cumberland “surpassing all expectations” for the party and giving the Conservatives a “devastating night”, BBC correspondent Robert Cooper reports.

As ITV’s Tom Sheldrick points out, all three local MPs are Conservatives.

Updated

The Conservatives have failed to take control of the council in parliamentary bellwether Peterborough, a seat Labour will be looking to target at the next general election, reports the Guardian’s Midlands correspondent Jessica Murray.

The Tories needed to gain just two seats to secure a majority on the council, which will remain under no overall control with the Conservatives still the largest party.

In the North ward a 30.7-point swing towards Labour saw them take 72% of the vote and gain the seat from the Tories, but the Conservatives also took a ward from Labour.

Conservative council leader Wayne Fitzgerald said it was a “great result” for the party.

“We remain on 28 seats as Labour and the Liberal Democrats fail to make gains despite the challenging national picture,” he said.

London mayor Saddiq Khan has arrived at the count in Wandsworth, where Labour have so far won some key wards and there have been some big smiles in the Labour camp – and long faces on the Conservative side.

A quick reminder: if Labour take control it will be first time since 1974. The Tory majority shrank to six in 2018, its smallest since 1982.

London mayor Sadiq Khan with Labour party supporters at Wandsworth town hall.
London mayor Sadiq Khan with Labour party supporters at Wandsworth town hall. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

And some more analysis from polling expert John Curtice, who has told the BBC that while the Lib Dems may be stealing headlines and Labour’s progress has been “limited”, it is “the Conservatives have lost considerable ground since 12 months ago”.

With well over 150 key wards now declared, the Conservatives are down by 3 percentage points on their performance the last time these areas were contested in 2018, Labour is down 1 point, and the Liberal Democrats are up 4 points.

If we compare the results with last year, then Labour is up 4 points, the Tories are down 6 points, and the Liberal Democrats are up 3 points.

So while the Liberal Democrats have so far stolen some of the headlines and Labour’s advance has been limited, it’s still the case that the Conservatives have lost considerable ground since 12 months ago.

Update on London from the Guardian’s deputy political editor Rowena Mason:

The London councils are yet to declare but a Labour source says Wandsworth and Barnet are “looking good”.

Wandsworth would be a particularly totemic win for Labour because it is a flagship low council tax local authority for the Tories and it has been in the party’s hands since 1978.

This would extend Labour’s dominance in almost everywhere in the capital but the outer suburbs. There is a chance Labour could even take Westminster as well – although that’s looking less certain.

A bit more analysis from Manchester University politics professor Rob Ford, who says that as yet it’s hard to interpret what the results so far mean for Labour and the Conservatives.

“So far it looks like a messy ‘choose your own adventure’ set of results for Con vs Lab,” he tweets.

On the other hand, he points out, it’s been a great night so far for the Lib Dems and the Greens.

James Johnson, a Downing Street pollster under Theresa May, has been challenging political commentary tonight that suggests Labour has failed to win back the “red wall”.

In a Twitter thread he wrote:

Change in these elections is on 2018. In 2018, Labour *had* the Red Wall nationally. Labour standing still or even going back slightly in Red Wall areas in these elections *is* progress for Labour.

Where Labour is struggling and going back further - just as they were in 2018 - is in areas like Amber Valley and Nuneaton. We are not seeing by any stretch of the imagination a seismic recovery for Labour. But much of ‘Red Wall’ commentary is wrong tonight.

Updated

Latest overall results in England from the BBC show both Labour and the Conservatives have lost councillors while the Lib Dems and Greens have gained:

Labour leader of Oldham council loses seat to Conservative

The Labour leader of Oldham council has lost her seat to the Conservatives by 96 votes, the second year in a row the party has lost its council leader at an election.

Arooj Shah was the town’s first female Muslim leader and has suffered a campaign of harassment and abuse during her time in office, including her car being firebombed.

Speaking to the Guardian earlier this week she said: “The tone of political discourse has become truly toxic and this year’s election campaign is no different. I’ve faced racist and misogynist abuse, harassment, death threats and physical intimidation.”

Her Chadderton South ward went to Conservative Robert Barnes. The result will be a major blow for Labour, but they look set to remain in control of the council.

Updated

Another key battleground tonight is Barnet, where Labour is hoping to wrest control of the council from the Conservatives for the first time. The party underperformed in 2018 amid concerns about antisemitism, and gaining the council would show Keir Starmer has assuaged some fears on that front.

Though results are not expected until around 7am there is reportedly some Labour excitement already and Tories are briefing that they have lost the London council:

Lib Dems claim victory in Hull

The Lib Dems are claiming victory in Hull – a former Labour stronghold – in what is turning out to be a very good night for the party so far.

Hull was one of the few areas where the Lib Dems thought they were in with a chance of taking over. The party’s national campaigns director Dave McCobb is a councillor in the city.

Updated

David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, is acknowledging on the BBC that it’s a “mixed picture” in former Brexit voting areas outside of cities.

Hartlepool remains in no overall control, with gains for the Tories, and it looks like Labour’s council leader in Oldham has also lost her seat to the Conservatives.

In Thurrock in Essex, the Tories also made gains in a council where Labour was the largest party as recently as 2014.

Updated

This just in from the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Rowena Mason:

A Lib Dem source gets in touch to say: “We are 99% sure that Conservatives will lose control of West Oxfordshire, which includes David Cameron’s former constituency of Witney.”

Results so far show 1% swing to Conservatives from Labour, polling expert John Curtice says

Politics professor and polling expert John Curtice has told told the BBC that initial results, mostly from Sunderland and London, have shown a swing of 1% from Labour to the Conservatives.

This may mean that “Labour are not going to make much progress in Leave-voting provincial England, even though they are up on their performance last year,” he said.

“There is some cheer for Liberal Democrats, whose vote is up by three percentage points since 2018, and signs the party may be doing particularly well in some ‘blue wall’ Conservative areas.”

So far there was no sign that turnout had fallen compared to previous elections, he said.

Updated

A few more results are trickling in, with no party so far having lost overall control of a council. The BBC is reporting that Labour have held Lincoln and Newcastle upon Tyne.

An update from the Guardian’s Midlands correspondent, Jessica Murray, who’s stationed in Dudley tonight:

Labour were hoping to make some significant gains in Nuneaton and Bedworth in Warwickshire, after the Conservatives took overall control of the council in 2021 - they took eleven seats from Labour incumbents last year.

But initial results aren’t looking good, with Labour losing the Bede ward with a 4.4% swing towards the Conservatives, and the Tories holding on to three seats.

In Bede, a new Green candidate – who took 7.4% of the vote – would likely have cost Labour some votes, but the overall picture suggests Conservative support is still strong.

Sunderland Conservative leader blames 'Partygate' for failure to win control of council

Some harsh comments on the national party from the Conservative leader in Sunderland, where the result leaves Labour with 41 of 75 council seats, the Tories with 18, and the Lib Dems with 14 – up from 12 after taking a seat from each of the other two parties. There is one independent councillor and one vacant seat.

After hopes of depriving Labour of overall control were dashed, Conservative group leader Antony Mullen said:

We’ve come close in a number of seats, and were it not for the national picture – Partygate – I think we would have won them. I can only put it down to that. I think a lot of Conservative voters were staying at home.

Mullen, who has previously called for Johnson to resign, said that national attention – including a visit to the seat from Johnson – had not helped.

The more talk there was about the potential of Labour losing control, the more galvanised people were to vote Labour rather than Green or Lib Dem.

Updated

Meanwhile in Colchester, the BBC is reporting that the Lib Dems have won Conservative leader Paul Dundas’s seat.

Updated

The BBC is reporting some unhappiness among Conservatives in Worcester, where no party currently has an overall majority. Tory council leader Marc Bayliss has apparently gone home already saying his party expects to lose several seats and that MPs should think about who should lead them into the next election.

Counting has not yet started there.

Updated

A bit of analysis on the vote in Sunderland here from the Guardian’s deputy political editor Rowena Mason:

Sunderland was one of the few areas in the whole country where the local Conservatives had believed they could potentially gain on Labour. But Keir Starmer’s party managed to hold on, causing sighs of relief in the party’s HQ.

Labour sources were quick to point out that both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak had visited the council area in the last week, seemingly making little difference.

However, it wasn’t pure good news for Labour, as its vote share there was down around 3%, and the Lib Dems were the only party to gain wards – one from the Tories and one from Labour.

More initial results of the night are beginning to trickle it: the Conservatives have held Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, according to Sky and the BBC, while Labour have held Halton in Liverpool.

The BBC is also reporting that Labour has held Wigan and South Tyneside, while the Conservatives have held Redditch in Worcestershire and Harlow in Essex.

Some Labour excitement over Sunderland:

Labour holds Sunderland

In Sunderland, there were real fears for Labour that they could lose overall control of the local council for the first time since its foundation in 1974 - a result that would have been a hammer blow for Keir Starmer.

But in the end, the party retained control comfortably, with the only seats changing hands going to the Lib Dems - one from the Conservatives, one from Labour.

Labour’s Phil Tye, who increased his majority in Silksworth, put his victory down to people’s fears over the cost of living.

Some of the areas we’ve been in which haven’t been so good for Labour in the past, people are absolutely fuming about it.

They’re pig sick of it. I would say there are some people angry about Partygate, but it’s not huge – it’s strange, but people just accept that he’s a buffoon. People seem much more focused on the cost of living.

Updated

The Conservative leader of Rutland county council in the East Midlands has resigned, accusing the government of having “ignored” and “side-lined” the council over council tax concerns.

In a statement, Oliver Hemsley said he would leave the Conservative group effective immediately, but intended to complete his four-term term as an independent and would remain as leader.

The position we find ourselves in over Council Tax has been years in the making we had inequalities that have been compounded year on year and even though Government has been asked to look at this we have been ignored, side-lined and given no further improvements in our spending power,” he said in a statement.

He issued the statement after the close of polls, although the next elections in Rutland are not expected to be held until next year.

An update from the Guardian’s Jessica Murray: I’m stationed at the election count in Dudley tonight, where Labour are hoping to fight back after they suffered major losses in the West Midlands town in 2021.

They lost 12 seats in the elections last May, giving the Conservatives a majority on the council following a six-year period of no overall control.

The result in Dudley is seen as a bellwether for the mood across the country, with the council having swung between Labour and Conservative control multiples times over the last few decades.

Labour activists say they are feeling confident, and think anger over Downing Street lockdown parties has helped swing votes in their favour.

But Conservative council leader Patrick Harley previously said he thinks the scandal will only have a “small” impact, and he still expects his party to gain seats.

The first results are expected around 4am.

Almost three quarters of those who voted in Thursday’s elections think the government hasn’t done enough to help with the rising cost of living, according to a new poll published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) tonight.

Among Conservative voters 53 per cent thought the government had not done enough. The snap poll surveyed 2,500 voters and also showed that the cost of living crisis was top of voters’ concerns followed by the NHS and public services.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said the public had sent a “clear distress signal”:

Everyone should have enough to pay their bills. But years of standstill wages, and cuts to social security, have left millions at the mercy of soaring bills and prices.

On local elections day today, the public have sent out a clear distress call. They want the government to do more to help families get through this cost of living emergency.

Chris Curtis, head of political polling at Opinium, said:

We are still waiting to see the results come in, but one thing from this election is already clear. The issue at the top of voters’ minds as they cast their ballots was the cost of living crisis, and hardly anyone thinks the government is doing enough to tackle it.

In Scotland, the Scottish Sun’s political editor Rachel Watson says the Conservatives are braced for “heavy losses”, citing senior sources who say they “fully expect to come third” – behind the SNP and Labour – for the first time in six elections.

She also quotes a source as saying: “It’s pretty apparent what’s happening, it’s all down to Partygate and Boris.”

One of the trickiest contests for Labour is in Sunderland, where it risks losing control of the council for the first time since it was founded in 1974, says the Guardian’s North Of England correspondent Josh Halliday.

Labour has a majority of only six councillors on the 75-seat authority, meaning it could easily fall into no overall control when ballots are counted.

Such a result would be a huge blow to Keir Starmer, whose path to Downing Street relies in part on winning back voters in “red wall” areas where Labour has been losing support for years.

One Labour councillor I spoke to earlier said he would be surprised if his party lost control of Sunderland city council – but he sounded markedly more downcast than when I asked him the same question a fortnight ago.

“It’s clearly going to be a very competitive election,” he said. “I’d be surprised if we didn’t survive but that’s not to say it can’t happen.”

He added:

There are enough clues on the doorstep and judging by the scale of the postal vote, that’s gone extremely well and we’re getting a big turnout. That said, neither party can be overly confident about which way many seats will go.

A Labour organiser predicted the council would fall into no overall control. He said the Conservatives had flooded the city with canvassers from across the region in recent days to try secure a major scalp on what could be a difficult night for Boris Johnson across the country.

He said:

Partygate doesn’t come up as much as you’d think and for those who have brought it up they’ve said things like ‘You’re all as bad as each other’ or ‘that’s politics’.

Another Labour councillor said the council leader, Graeme Miller, was nervous about losing his own seat. She said the canvassing had been “manic” in recent days as Labour tries to cling on.

Results from Sunderland are expected to be among the first to come in tonight.

And an update from our correspondent Severin Carroll in Scotland, where voters will be electing more than 1,220 councillors across all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities once counting starts at 7am on Friday morning.

This election is unlikely to produce any shocks or seismic changes: recent polls show the Scottish National party, which has been in power in the devolved Scottish parliament for 15 years, still has a commanding lead at around 45% of the vote.

At national level, the main story will be whether the polls correctly forecast Labour will come second, replacing the Conservatives as the putative challengers to the SNP’s dominance.

Scotland’s first minister and Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts as she is surprised by her husband and current SNP chief executive officer Peter Murrell, after casting their vote in local elections in Glasgow.
Scotland’s first minister and Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon and her husband and current SNP chief executive officer Peter Murrell, after casting their vote in Glasgow. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

Tory support has been hit hard by voter anger over the Partygate scandal at Downing Street, while some middle ground pro-UK voters feel comforted by Keir Starmer’s centrist leadership of UK Labour.

Scotland also uses the single transferrable vote system of proportional representation, which makes it much harder for a single party to win an outright majority. Most councils, including the largest cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, will either be run by coalitions or minority administrations. Others are dominated by independents.

In 2017, the SNP won 431 seats, the Tories took 276 after unexpectedly gaining 164 councillors, while Labour lost 133 seats to take only 262 places. Labour hopes to regain that lost ground and see its support reach around 25%, up from 20% in 2017.

While we wait for election results, here’s a brief recap of the situation in Northern Ireland, where the day’s most significant elections – for the devolved government in Stormont – are taking place although results will not begin to come in until later on Friday.

Sinn Féin are predicted to become the largest party in Stormont – meaning a republican party would claim the post of first minister for the first time since the power-sharing deal set out in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

A victory would not change the balance of power – the office of first minister and deputy are equal – and Sinn Féin is unlikely to gain a majority but it would be an important symbolical win for a party that was once regarded as the political arm of the IRA.

One of the most recent polls put Sinn Féin on 26%, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) on 20% and the centrist Alliance on 14% with smaller nationalist and unionist parties accounting for most of the rest.

Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland, leaves a polling station after casting her vote in Clonoe, Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill leaves a polling station after casting her vote in Clonoe. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has refused to say whether he will nominate a deputy first minister in the event of Sinn Féin claiming the top office.

He has also said his party will not enter a new Stormont executive unless the government in Westminster takes action on the Brexit protocol that saw checks introduced on goods crossing the Irish Sea, effectively introducing a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

DUP first minister Paul Givan resigned over the issue in February, plunging the devolved government into renewed turmoil – the power-sharing arrangement with Sinn Féin had been restored just two years earlier.

Most voters in Northern Ireland favour remaining in the UK and Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill has been careful not to push the matter of Irish reunification during the election campaign, instead focusing on issues such as the rising cost of living and health care.

An immediate referendum on reunification is therefore unlikely – but the party will certainly hope that a victory will give it momentum towards that eventual goal.

Due to the voting system Northern Ireland uses – the single transferable vote (STV) proportional representation electoral system – and the fact that counting does not begin until Friday morning results are not immediately expected.

For more in depth insight into the election in Northern Ireland, check out this dispatch written by the Guardian’s correspondent Rory Carroll earlier this week:

Updated

The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope is predicting a Labour victory in Wandsworth tonight, citing a “local Labour source”. If that’s the case it would be the first time it has run the council since 1974. Results are not expected until around 5 or 6am.

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg is also reporting that the Tories seem “pretty sure” they have lost the council.

Updated

Labour were downplaying expectations of huge gains when polls closed but made the case that the party would show “steady progress”.

Anneliese Dodds, chair of the Labour party, said:

We are proud of the positive campaign we have run, based on a practical plan to tackle the cost of living crisis and the crime blighting our communities. Because we believe Britain deserves better.

It’s going to be a long night and there will be ups and downs - we hold the majority of the seats up for election in England, so never expected big gains.

These results will show the progress we have made thanks to Keir’s leadership since the disastrous 2019 election result. Labour is a renewed and confident party, making headway in England, Scotland and Wales.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey meanwhile said he was “optimistic” that the party would gain ground in areas across the blue wall, “where voters are fed up of being taken for granted by the Conservatives”.

After knocking on hundreds of doors this election one thing is clear: people are sick of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. They have had enough of seeing their taxes hiked, sewage dumped in their rivers and local health services run into the ground.

People deserve a strong local champion who will stand up for their community, and a government that helps them with the cost of living emergency.

As votes are being counted, here’s some insight from the Guardian’s chief political correspondent, Jessica Elgot, who says Westminster, controlled by the Conservatives since its creation in the 1960s, is looking “a bit dicey for the Tories”.

Another London council that is being closely watched is Wandsworth, where the Tory majority shrank to six in the last elections in 2018, the smallest it’s been since 1982.

“Neither side prepared to call Wandsworth but key ward was teeming with activists from both sides trying to get out the vote. Both were hoping for late turn out surge,” Jessica says.

Labour winning Wandsworth would be “very symbolic” but doesn’t mean a lot in terms of the next general election.

It’s Barnet and Westminster where they don’t hold the parliamentary seats where the data is more interesting - as well as wards in eg Chingford

Meanwhile Labour are “feeling good” about Barnet but Croydon is on a “knife-edge for the mayoralty”, with Tories expecting gains and things are “not great” for Labour in Tower Hamlets, where activists think that the party of former mayor Luftur Rahman may lose them seats.

The Conservatives are meanwhile saying they their vote is holding up in places like Bolton although they may not take Sunderland, while Labour is hoping to take some Tory seats in Bury but also expecting to lose some to independents.

In conclusion, says Jessica:

The main theme I’ve heard from almost everyone I’ve talked to during the day is that turnout has been a big issue - but we’ll see what the figures really tell us.

First results aren’t expected until about 2am but some of the key seats are likely to be among the first to report.

From 2am we should start seeing some interesting results trickle through, including in Bolton, which should give a good early indicator as to whether Labour is making any comeback in the north of England.

Wandsworth, in London, is expected to report between 5am and 7am.

For a closer look at which councils to watch out for, read this explainer from my colleagues Jessica Elgot and Antonio Voce:

As mentioned earlier, Worthing is one of the seats experts will keep a close eye on to see how well the local elections are going for Labour or whether the Conservatives really do need to worry.

My colleague Heather Stewart went to West Sussex to speak to voters and campaigners on the ground and found an optimistic Labour party amid signs Partygate has taken a toll on Tory support in the ‘blue sea wall’.

Here’s an excerpt from her report:

Margaret Howard, standing for re-election in the Broadwater ward in the east of the town, said. “This morning I had a Tory say he had voted Conservative for 40 years, but it’s time for a change. We have had lots of switchers,” she says.

“Some are because of the local picture, because they know about the community work that’s being done locally, and some it’s because they don’t like what’s happening nationally – but we don’t mind either way.”

Cooper, who leads the Labour group on the council, explains that they have put together a local manifesto, based on conversations with voters over five years. It includes everything from bringing the lido back into use to consulting on providing more dog-poo bins.

“It’s about people wanting green spaces for them and their families, and a town to be proud of. It’s not really rocket science, but it’s things that everybody can get onboard with,” says Cooper.

Going into these local elections, Labour was level pegging with the Conservatives, on 17 seats apiece.

The Tories have been running a minority administration in Worthing since Labour deprived them of their majority in a byelection last December – triggered by the resignation of a Conservative councillor, Tim Wills, who was accused by the anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate of privately supporting the far-right group Patriotic Alternative.

With 14 seats up for grabs on Thursday, Labour has high hopes of taking control.

Updated

Peter Kellner, the former president of YouGov, wrote a piece for the Guardian earlier this week looking at the key councils to watch in this year’s local elections.

He explained how strategists will focus on a handful of councils - including Wakefield, Wandsworth and Worthing - to gauge the depth of Boris Johnson’s woes, and the actual probability of a Keir Starmer victory.

You can read his full piece on which local elections to look out for here:

And for a cheat sheet on what seat is up where and who won it last time round, Britain Elects have this handy tool:

Updated

Polls close in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The polls have just closed in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Counting now begins to elect over 4,300 councillors in more than 140 local authorities. In Scotland all 32 councils and in Wales all 22 councils also held elections.

It could be a long night for local Conservatives amid criticism of the government’s handling of the cost of living crisis and renewed scrutiny over Partygate.

Some candidates styled themselves “local Conservatives”, and in some cases they urged voters not to punish them for “mistakes made in Westminster”.

Leaflets delivered in Hartlepool said: “This Thursday, please don’t punish local Conservatives for the mistakes made in Westminster. We are local, and proud of where we live.”

In many parts of the country, including Birmingham, St Albans, and in the Esher and Walton constituency of the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, Tories were listed as “local Conservative”, even on the ballot paper.

Labour on the other hand is hoping to take a number of council seats from the Tories - with Conservative jewels Wandsworth and Westminster in London looking on a knife edge. And in Scotland, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is confident of gains in the May elections, amid earlier predictions the party could come second to SNP.

We’ll bring you all the results as they come in, with latest reactions and analysis.

Updated

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