LIVE: Latest updates from across Yorkshire and beyond as local election results roll in
Labour’s Chris Webb won the Blackpool South parliamentary seat with a swing of 26.33 per cent from the Tories and Sir Keir Starmer’s party also secured council wins in areas which will be key general election battlegrounds later this year.
Results are expected from across Yorkshire today, including in the tightly-contested Tees Valley mayor, where the imcumbent Ben Houchen will hope to hang on to his seat.
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Hide AdThe Tories avoided the humiliation of coming third in Blackpool South, but finished just 117 votes ahead of Reform UK.
Out of the 107 councils where votes were held on Thursday, just 35 counted overnight – but the results make grim reading for the Prime Minister.
The Tories lost control of three authorities and 96 councillors lost their seats. Labour gained three authorities and 58 councillors.
Elections expert Professor Sir John Curtice said the Tories could be on course to lose 500 councillors in “one of the worst, if not the worst” performances by the party in 40 years.
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Local elections 2024 live
Key Events
Khan hits out at 'non stop negativity'
When Sadiq Khan was able to give his victory speech, he hit out at the “non-stop negativity” of his opponent Susan Hall. While he was speaking, some of Hall’s activists heckled with “crime, crime”, while Hall stared at Khan from behind.
He said his campaign had "answered fear-mongering with facts", and accused Hall of “right-wing populism”. Khan referenced the death threats he had received, when paying tribute to his wife.
The mayor claimed voters had given him a mandate for pushing forward climate policies in London, and also mentioned his policy of free school meals.
Recount in the West Midlands
If you thought we’d had all the results, then think again - the West Midlands is going to a recount. This should take a couple of hours, so we’re hoping to get a result around half six.
The winner of this will really set the tone for the debate going forward. If Labour are victorious, then Keir Starmer’s party can rightly say they’ve had an excellent set of local election results. However, if Andy Street holds on, a bruised Rishi Sunak will be able to hold the plotters in his own party at bay for the time being.
Hall says Khan should stop 'patronising people'
Susan Hall returned fire on Sadiq Khan in her speech. She said he should stop “patronising” people who care about London. She said: “I’d like to congratulate all my fellow mayoral candidates and congratulate Sadiq on his victory. Spending a year campaigning for this election has been an honour and a privilege. I have loved speaking to Londoners about the things that matter to them.
“The thing that matters the most, and to me, is reforming the Met and making London safe again. I hope Sadiq makes this his top priority. He owes it to the families of those thousands of people who have lost lives to knife crime under his mayoralty. And I hope too that he stops patronising people, like me, who care. This isn’t an episode of The Wire, this is real life on his watch.”
Certainly no love lost between the pair.
Video: analysis of Sadiq Khan's win with LondonWorld
Outside City Hall, I spoke to LondonWorld editor Andre Langlois about Sadiq Khan’s victory over Susan Hall.
Analysis: social media rumours can't mask disastrous local elections for Tories
On Friday night, a ripple went around social media that Sadiq Khan might be in trouble in London. Labour had been pumping out messages to activists that the race between the current mayor and Tory challenger Susan Hall was “so close”.
Then, when the turnout figures came in, some commentators rushed to condemn the Labour mayor, while Tories briefed that Hall could oust Khan. Despite this, I still gave the Conservative candidate a 1% chance of overturning the huge deficit - and thankfully for my reputation this proved correct.
As soon as the results started coming in on Saturday, it was clear that Khan was going to retain the mayoralty. Boris Johnson’s ultra-low emission zone, which Khan had put into practice, had been touted by the Tories as an “anti-car” policy which would bring him down.
This, however, appears to have had little impact on the race, with outer London boroughs, which have been more affected by the ULEZ, still swinging towards Labour. And in a way, this is little more than the Tories deserve.
Senior Conservative politicians have spent years criticising the capital, deriding it as a city of latte-drinking liberals which is simultaneously afflicted by crime and immigrants. Hall embarked on a campaign in which the only tactic was to attack Khan.
She had previously liked tweets praising Donald Trump and referring to the capital as “Londonistan”, and was caught out by LBC’s Nick Ferrari embellishing losing her wallet to make a political point about theft on the Tube. As former Tory minister for London, Paul Scully, pointed out this was in contrast to victorious Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley, who continually professed his love for his area.
In his victory, Khan hit out at the “non-stop negativity” of his opponent, accusing her of “right-wing populism”. While the mayor was speaking, Hall’s outriders heckled him with “crime, crime”.
There should be an inquest in Conservative HQ as to why the party didn’t mount a more competitive campaign. After all, no London mayor has won a third term before, and Khan has been under pressure over knife crime.
But in the end, the social media whispers were a mirage of Conservative hope, on a bad few days for Rishi Sunak’s party across the country. The Tories have lost Thurrock Council in Essex, Rushmoor in Hampshire and Redditch in the Midlands to Labour - all key bellwethers for the general election.
The only blot on Labour’s copybook was the ongoing issues with Gaza votes, which saw the party lose control of Oldham Council and leak councillors to the Greens and independent parties. However, Keir Starmer will be pretty happy with his work, when he assesses the elections.
While Labour’s support has waivered in strongholds like the North East and North West, its votes are now more concentrated in swing seats - a good sign ahead of a general election. If Richard Parker defeats Andy Street in the West Midlands, which has gone to a recount at the time of writing, the pressure on Sunak will continue to ramp up.
Labour set to take huge win in West Midlands
Labour are confident that Richard Parker has won the West Midlands mayoralty. This would be a huge blow for Rishi Sunak, who pinned his hopes on Andy Street getting re-elected. We’re still waiting for the confirmation, but Labour figures at the count sound confident they’ve won.
Labour gain - West Midlands mayoralty
It’s been confirmed - in a lairy declaration Richard Parker has ousted Andy Street in the West Midlands in a monumental result. Rishi Sunak and senior Conservatives had pinned their hopes on Street and Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley getting re-elected. However after a recount, Parker has defeated Street by around 1,000 votes.
When I visited the Black Country last month, colleagues at the Express and Star thought Street would win. They said Parker had run a low profile campaign, and thought the Tory candidate’s name recognition would see him through. Only yesterday, Labour sources were briefing they had lost this race, by leaking votes to the pro-Gaza independent candidate. So it’s been quite a turnaround for Parker. This is really the icing on the cake for Labour in the local elections, and a huge blow for Sunak.
Richard Parker pays tribute to Andy Street
New Labour mayor Richard Parker has paid tribute to Andy Street. In a gracious acceptance speech, he said: “Thank you to Andy, you’ve led this region through a number of great challenges and you deserve credit for that. You deserve credit for building up the combined authority to the powerhouse it is today, through the economic shocks and leading this region when it came out of Covid.
“You’ve been out there representing our region, and I absolutely believe that while our politics are different we both have the best interests of the West Midlands at heart.”
More of this please politicians.
Final results
Our interactive map is finally updated with all the results, you can find it above you or click here. Thank you for joining me on NationalWorld’s elections coverage - I’m off for a pint!
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