UK: Conservatives crushed by ‘worst local election result’ in years

Spread of Tory losses leads former minister to say there’s ‘no such thing as a safe seat any more’. The Conservatives are facing one of their worst local election results in 40 years, with striking Labour gains across England and Wales in key battlegrounds they need to secure victory at the general election.

The spread of the Conservative losses led one former minister to claim there was “no such thing really as a safe Tory seat any more”, but the prime minister appeared committed to clinging on until polling day, with rebels in his own party lacking the support to oust him.

The polling expert Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University said the results added up to “one of the worst, if not the worst” performances by the Conservatives in four decades.

The party is expected to lose up to 500 seats when all votes are counted, with Labour advancing in areas of both the “red wall” north won by the Tories under Boris Johnson and the traditional southern Conservative heartlands.

Keir Starmer hailed “seismic” results, including winning a landslide byelection in Blackpool South, with the third largest swing since the second world war, as well as mayoralties in the East Midlands, North East and North Yorkshire, which covers Sunak’s own constituency.

Labour also ousted a number of Tory police and crime commissioners, and took control of at least seven new councils, including in Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hampshire and Sussex in the south of England.