Houchen re-elected as Tees Valley mayor in rare bright spot for Tories amid heavy local election losses – live (2024)

Richard Holden, the Conservative party chair, has said that although these results have not been great for the Tories, there is no chance of Rishi Sunak being replaced.

Asked if Sunak could survive the election losses, Holden told Times Radio:

The prime minister is going to go on and lead the Conservative party into the general election, there’s no doubt about that.

Asked for his response to the results so far, Holden said:

Not a great set of results but coming off I think it would be fair to say a very high watermark in 2021.

The Conservative party has not got much to be positive about this morning, but it is reminding journalists this morning that Labour failed to take control of Harlow council in Essex, even though it was a Labour target. (See 5.32am.) Keir Starmer told Sky News Labour needed to win “in places like Harlow”, the Tories say. “Whilst this is tough night for the Conservative party, it’s clear there is absolutely no love for Keir Starmer,” a Tory source said.

The Tories went into the local elections with 21 of the seats on the council, and Labour holding the other 12. All seats were up for election. The Tories now have 17 seats, and Labour 16.

Starmer and Angela Rayner visited the town on Wednesday.

The Liberal Democrats have retained control of Winchester, after winning eight of the first 10 seats to be declared, PA reports.

Arooj Shah, the Labour leader of Oldham council, has rejected suggestions that Keir Starmer’s response to the Israel-Gaza war was to blame for the party losing control of the council. (See 6.44am.) When this was put to in an interview on the Today programme, she replied:

I don’t think that’s a fair statement to make, given that the issue of Gaza has been over the last year but what we’ve seen in Oldham is a lot longer than that … what we have had is 13 years of austerity and that’s been really, really difficult.

Shah said that there had been “divisive, toxic politics” in Oldham for the last five years and that problems in the town were ultimately linked to Tory austerity.

The Liberal Democrats are restating their call for an early general election. Commenting on the results so far, Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, said:

Rishi Sunak must listen to the country and immediately call a general election. Britain’s crumbling health services cannot wait any longer. Each day of dithering and delay by this Conservative government plunges our NHS further into crisis.

The Liberal Democrats are on the up with gaining councillors across the country, from Hampshire to Stockport.

The Liberal Democrats’ winning streak continues and we are ready to beat Conservative MPs and finally get this chaotic government out of office.

Here is the state of play for anyone just catching up with the overnight results.

• Labour has won the Blackpool South byelection with a swing of 26 points from the Conservative. It is the third largest Tory to Labour swing ever. Almost as ominously for the Conservatives, they only managed to beat Reform UK by 117 votes. Keir Starmer described this as a “seismic win” and a “truly historic result”.

• The Conservatives are already suffering heavy losses in the council elections. According to the BBC’s tally, they have already lost more than 100 seats. Within the last hour Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s election specialist, told the Today programme that the Conservatives were “basically losing half the seats they’re trying to defend”. He said if that continued, they could end up losing around 500 seats. He said the party seemed to be on course for “one of the worst, if not the worst Conservative performance in local government elections for the last 40 years”.

• Labour has gained control of four councils: Rushmoor and Redditch, both from the Conservatives; and Hartlepool and Thurrock, both from no overall control. The Conservatives have lost control of three councils. The full results are available here.

• The Liberal Democrats and the Greens have been celebrating gaining seats.

But most councils are yet to declare. Only 34 of the 107 councils were elections are taking place have declared. And none of the metro mayoral election results are in yet.

Here is a guide to when further results will be coming.

Stockport town hall will have no Conservative councillors for the second year running, which cannot bode well for the party’s reelection hopes in the general election.

Two out of three Stockport parliamentary constituencies are currently Tory (if we count Hazel Grove, which is officially independent after William Wragg got himself tangled up in that sextortion scandal).

The Liberal Democrats will feel very hopeful of winning back both Hazel Grove and Cheadle when the big day comes, though they will have been gutted to fail to take full council control, remaining one seat short of a majority. They’ll likely carry on running a minority administration with help from various independents and hyper local parties. Not a great night for Labour in one of Greater Manchester’s most affluent boroughs.

Labour has lost control of Oldham after losing seats to independents, PA reports. With two seats still to declare, the party was unable to reach the threshold of 31 for a majority on the council.

Labour did have a small majority on Oldham councils (31 seats out of 60). But it has been losing seats on the council in recent elections and this is an area with a large Muslim population, where Labour may have lost support because of its stance on Gaza.

These are from Rob Ford, a politics professor and elections expert, on the significance of Labour’s byelection win in Blackpool South.

26 point Con to Lab swing in Blackpool South - third biggest swing ever. Reform UK’s 16.9% is the best they’ve achieved in a by-election *but* it is less than UKIP managed in the general election in 2015 in the same seat - and miles below what UKIP was getting regularly in by-elex in 2013-15

Tony Blair achieved four 20 point plus swings from Cons when he was opposition leader - Starmer has now achieved five - including four of the top 5 largest ever, all achieved in the last year

20 point plus Con to Lab swings:

Starmer 5

Blair 4

Kinnock 1

Labour retained control of Lincoln after gaining three seats, leaving the party with 23 of the 33 seats on the council, PA Media reports. The Conservatives lost four seats, with the Liberal Democrats gaining one, and both parties now have five councillors.