Counting is under way in local elections across England and Wales, with one top pollster warning the Conservatives are on track for potentially their worst defeat in 40 years.
Millions of voters cast their ballots on Thursday to choose their preferred choice of councils and mayors, with the first results starting to trickle through in the small hours of Friday.
Follow our local elections blog for live updates
Out of the 107 councils where votes were held on Thursday, 35 were counted overnight and result so far will make grim reading for Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, suggesting potentially an even worse performance than national polls had indicated.
While most council seats were last contested in 2021, at the peak of Boris Johnson’s Covid “vaccine bounce”, elections guru Professor Sir John Curtice warned 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.
Conceding that overall it had been a “disappointing night”, Tory Party chair Richard Holden insisted to BBC Breakfast that it was “what you'd expect from parties in midterm of government”.
Here are the results so far in full:
London and the South East
Broxbourne: Conservative - Hold
Colchester: No overall majority – No change
Eastleigh: Lib Dem – Hold
Fareham: Conservative – Hold
Gosport: Lib Dem – Hold
Harlow: Conservative – Hold
Hart: No overall majority – No change
Ipswich: Labour – Hold
Peterborough: No overall majority – No change
Portsmouth: No overall majority – No change
Reading: Labour – Hold
Rochford:No overall majority – No change
Rushmoor: Labour – Gain
Southampton: Labour – Hold
Southend-on-Sea: No overall majority – No change
Thurrock: Labour – Gain
Winchester: Lib Dem – Hold
South West
Exeter: Labour – Hold
Plymouth: Labour – Hold
East Midlands
Lincoln: Labour – Hold
West Midlands
Redditch: Labour – Gain
Yorkshire and the Humber
Hull: Lib Dem – Hold
North East Lincolnshire: No overall majority – Conservative loss
North East
Gateshead: Labour – Hold
Hartlepool: Labour – Gain
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Labour – Hold
South Tyneside: Labour – Hold
Sunderland: Labour – Hold
North West
Bolton: No overall majority – No change
Chorley: Labour – Hold
Oldham: No overall majority – Labour loss
Sefton: Labour – Hold
Stockport: No overall majority – No change
Tameside: Labour – Hold
Wigan: Labour – Hold
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