John Prescott battling, and the Tories get thrashed in northern cities

John Prescott’s trials continue. There will be a run-off between Prescott and the Tory challenger, Matthew Grove. This has been quite a turn around, with Grove staging a late charge in the race for first preference votes when the rural East Riding area was called in his favour. He displaced the independent candidate, retired copper Paul Davison, who finished third by a mere 300 votes. The race has been very close so far; now it comes down to second preferences. Sky News’s Jon Craig reports that the Tories are confident of an upset.

There have already been a couple of shocks in the PCC results. In North Wales, Labour’s Tal Michael was beaten by the independent candidate, Winston Roddick, which has prompted questions in some quarters that Labour has not performed as well as it should have done in these elections.