Keir Starmer is celebrating significant gains in the local elections as the Tories attempt to put a gloss on a night of tricky losses. The prediction – that the Tories will lose about half of the council seats they’re defending – looks on track so far. Labour comfortably won the Blackpool South by-election with a 26 per cent swing and it has also taken several key councils, including Rushmoor which has been Tory-run for the last 24 years. A Gaza backlash has seen Labour lose Oldham while the Conservatives have suffered a string of council losses, coming within 120 votes being beaten by Reform in Blackpool.
This may be a good as it gets for the Tories when it comes to the first tranche of the results
In his results speech, the new Blackpool MP Chris Webb called on Rishi Sunak to do ‘the decent thing’ and admit he had ‘failed and call a general election’. While the Labour victory will sting (the 26 point swing from Tory to Labour is the third biggest in history), there is some relief in the Tory party over the fact they scraped second place. To have come third after Reform would have been a humiliation. Nonetheless, Blackpool has given Reform its best-ever result in a by-election adding to Tory fears over its ability to divide the right.
Beating Reform in Blackpool may be a good as it gets for the Tories when it comes to the first tranche of the results. They held Harlow (which had been visited twice by Starmer) after a campaign focusing on council tax freezes but there isn't much other good news. In the few places Reform has stood candidates they are averaging 14 per cent – and in those wards it is the Conservatives who are taking the hit. It means that the results will do little to calm Tory concerns about the threat the party poses – particularly if, as is rumoured, Nigel Farage announces a return to frontline politics in the coming weeks.
The line from Tory politicians on the airwaves is that it is too early to say how the party has fared. As the cabinet minister Mark Harper argued on the BBC overnight, there are a lot more results to come including key mayoralties (due tomorrow). The bigger focus is on where they are losing and where Labour is making gains.
So far, Keir Starmer's party has won back Hartlepool council and taken control of Thurrock council, which was won by the Tories in 2023. While it is yet to be confirmed, Labour is calling Redditch council as a Labour gain – a key bellwether given whichever party has held the seat has gone on to form the government. These are the type of wins that confirm Labour is on the path to a majority in the general election.
Notably the polling guru John Curtice says that Labour's showing so far while good does not match the 'dramatic' gains the party made under Tony Blair ahead of 1997. There are also signs that Starmer is paying a price for his position on Gaza with Labour losing support in several areas with a high Muslim population such as Newcastle.
However, given the Tories' poor showing, this won't provide much comfort to Sunak and his party, which could end up losing 500 seats. This matches some of the predictions but there is already a sense the Tories are performing at the worse end of expectations. It means that what could tip the balance in terms of how MPs respond is the mayoralties – with Ben Houchen in Tees Valley and Andy Street in West Midlands. The view in Conservative Campaign Headquarters is that these votes are on 'a knife edge'. The first will be Houchen today, the result for which is due early afternoon. After a night of bad news, Sunak will be hoping he has something to point to – and fast.
Hear Katy's analysis of the results so far on this morning's Coffee House Shots:
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