Category Archives: Local elections

Minister urges Tory MPs not to act against Boris Johnson after election results

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Nadhim Zahawi calls for party unity as colleagues speak out, and insists the prime minister is ‘a man of integrity’

A cabinet minister has urged Tory MPs not to act against Boris Johnson after the party’s bruising local election results, as a critic of the prime minister said questions over his leadership “had to be brought to a head”.

After the Conservatives lost almost 500 seats and the control of 11 councils, the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, called on Saturday for party unity, arguing that Johnson remained a vote-winner.

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Sinn Féin celebrates victory but DUP warns over Northern Ireland protocol

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DUP will refuse to join new administration until UK government addresses post-Brexit trade border deal

Sinn Féin was celebrating a historic victory in the Stormont assembly election on Saturday despite warnings from the Democratic Unionist party that it would block the formation of a new power-sharing executive until the Northern Ireland protocol was changed.

As counting resumed ahead of the allocation of final seats, it was clear that Sinn Féin, with 29% first preference votes, had overtaken the DUP, which won 21.3%. It meant the all-Ireland republican party would be entitled to nominate its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, as the Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister.

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Michelle O’Neill: centre stage for Sinn Féin’s prospective first minister

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After leading party to victory in Stormont, former Dungannon mayor is set to make history

In May 1993, as the IRA edged towards the end of its armed campaign, Michelle O’Neill was beginning her own struggle. She was a 16-year-old working-class schoolgirl from Clonoe, a small village in County Tyrone, with a newborn baby.

The road ahead looked rocky. She had not finished school and perhaps never would, because that was the fate of many unmarried teenage mothers in Northern Ireland. Some teachers at her Catholic grammar school were not supportive.

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Labour takes second place in Scottish elections as Tory vote plummets

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Party becomes closest challenger to SNP after gains including West Dunbartonshire and near-upset in Glasgow

Scottish Labour has become the closest challenger to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP after the Scottish Conservatives plunged to their worst electoral result in a decade.

Labour enjoyed an unexpected win in West Dunbartonshire, taking overall control of the council, and won a swathe of seats elsewhere as it took the second largest share of the vote overall.

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Local elections 2022: Tories lose hundreds of seats to Labour and Lib Dems; Sinn Féin set to become largest party in NI elections – live

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PM insists ‘mixed’ results also included some ‘remarkable gains’ for Conservatives; Labour, Lib Dems and Greens celebrate key wins

One of the trickiest contests for Labour is in Sunderland, where it risks losing control of the council for the first time since it was founded in 1974, says the Guardian’s North Of England correspondent Josh Halliday.

Labour has a majority of only six councillors on the 75-seat authority, meaning it could easily fall into no overall control when ballots are counted.

There are enough clues on the doorstep and judging by the scale of the postal vote, that’s gone extremely well and we’re getting a big turnout. That said, neither party can be overly confident about which way many seats will go.

Partygate doesn’t come up as much as you’d think and for those who have brought it up they’ve said things like ‘You’re all as bad as each other’ or ‘that’s politics’.

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Elections 2022: live council results for England, Scotland and Wales

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As the final votes are counted, heavy Conservative losses are tempered by a mixed picture for Labour while Lib Dems and the Greens perform well. The SNP continues to dominate in Scotland and Plaid Cymru gain seats in their heartlands and beyond

Local elections: live coverage
Northern Ireland election: live results

On 5 May all councils in Scotland and Wales held elections for all of their councillors. In England, the picture is more complex. Many parts of England held no election at all. Others held elections for a third of seats as part of a four-yearly cycle in which a third of lower-tier seats are elected each year, with the upper-tier being chosen in the fourth year. In other areas there is a “unitary” council, being elected in its entirety.

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Conservatives brace for losses as votes counted in local elections

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Labour and Lib Dem sources say turnout appears to be low in possible sign of Tory voters staying away

The Conservatives are braced for a nerve-shredding 24 hours after voting closed in local elections across the UK, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats expecting to make gains.

Taking place against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, the first nationwide polls since Partygate will be widely read as a test of whether Boris Johnson has become an electoral liability.

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Tories face test on cost of living and Partygate as people vote across the UK – as it happened

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Latest updates: elections take place in many areas across the UK with polling stations open from 7am to 10pm BST

Boris Johnson and the Japanese prime minister watched an RAF flypast together in Horse Guards Parade before their bilateral discussions in No 10, PA Media reports. PA says:

The pair stood on a dais as they witnessed a Voyager and two Typhoon fighter jets soar over St James’s Park and the parade ground.

Fumio Kishida was then invited in Japanese by the captain of the Nijmegen Company, Grenadier Guards, to inspect a guard of honour.

My forecast ... predicts that the Conservatives will lose more than 200 council seats across Great Britain on polling day (Thursday 5 May). They will suffer net losses of 63 in London, 38 across the rest of England, 83 in Scotland and 22 in Wales.

Labour, meanwhile, will make a net gain of 35 council seats in London but a net loss of 16 across the rest of England. That net loss, however, will be more than compensated for by net gains of 87 and 41 in Scotland and Wales respectively.

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Election leaflets distance ‘Local Conservatives’ from Boris Johnson

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Tory candidates ask voters not to punish them for ‘mistakes’ in Westminster in wake of Partygate

Hundreds of Tories are distancing themselves from Boris Johnson by standing as “Local Conservatives” in Thursday’s council elections, with rebel MPs saying they will gauge support over the weekend for a move against the prime minister.

Election leaflets seen by the Guardian show local candidates across England playing down their Tory affiliations, eschewing pictures of Johnson and styling themselves as “Local Conservative” on voting ballot papers.

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Local election leaflets show Tory candidates are ‘ashamed’ to be associated with Boris Johnson, Labour says – as it happened

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Angela Rayner says Tory candidates at the local elections ‘are trying to hide from their own government’s record’. This live blog is closed – please follow this one for updates on the war in Ukraine

Savanta ComRes has published some new polling on voting intention in Scottish parliaement elections. Here are the figures for the constituency section.

And here are the figures for the list section.

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Boris Johnson’s ‘out of touch’ comments on cost of living crisis anger Tory MPs

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PM’s interview on Good Morning Britain causes concern about party’s performance in upcoming local elections

Boris Johnson’s fumbled defence of the government’s record on the cost of living has exasperated Conservative MPs and sharpened fears about the party’s performance in Thursday’s local elections.

Asked about a pensioner forced to travel around on buses to stay warm and keep heating bills down, the prime minister’s first response was to boast that he introduced free travel for older people. During the interview on Tuesday, he admitted that the government had failed to do enough to alleviate the pain of soaring costs.

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‘Teesside, Tyneside, all the same to him’: Johnson appears lost on campaign trail

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Prime minister ridiculed over apparent location confusion in since-deleted tweet

Boris Johnson is facing ridicule after he appeared confused about the location of his campaign activity in north-east England.

In a since-deleted tweet, the prime minister called for his followers to vote Conservative in Thursday’s local elections and stated that he was in Teesside where the Conservatives are “delivering a massive programme of investment as part of our plan to level up the whole of the UK”.

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Keir Starmer hosts Israeli Labor party in charm offensive ahead of local elections

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Senior shadow cabinet ministers invite Israeli politicians to observe Labour’s door-knocking drive in Barnet, north London

Keir Starmer and senior shadow cabinet ministers have launched a charm offensive while hosting officials from Israel’s Labor party, including taking them door-knocking for the local elections in Barnet, north London.

In move designed to underline the contrast with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Starmer and Rayner have hosted nine officials including the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Chen Arieli, the party’s chief executive, Nir Rosen, and senior staffers from the Israeli leader’s office.

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Local elections: ‘It’s Partygate versus low council taxes’

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The Tories have held Wandsworth for more than four decades, but Boris Johnson’s lockdown woes and the cost of living crisis threaten to tip the balance towards Labour

In many ways, the London borough of Wandsworth is a paradigm of the modern capital. On one hand, it is a place where a teenager recently fainted from hunger in a food bank queue. And on the other, it is home to the “sky pool”, a spectacular transparent swimming pool suspended 10 storeys above ground in Nine Elms, and reserved exclusively for the development’s richest residents.

The borough is also known for its comparatively low council tax – which, its Conservative-run council boasts, is the lowest average council tax in the country. Wandsworth also claims to be the only local authority in London that is cutting its share of council tax bills.

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Tories face heavy local election losses over Partygate, PM told

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Prominent backbencher Steve Baker says party will ‘reap the whirlwind on polling day’

Boris Johnson has been told public fury at lockdown-breaking Downing Street parties will result in the Conservatives suffering substantial losses at next month’s local elections, with the possibility that the prime minister may receive further police fines ahead of polling day.

Steve Baker, a prominent backbench Tory MP, said voters were repeatedly mentioning the Partygate scandal on the campaign trail and the Conservatives should prepare to “reap the whirlwind” of standing by Johnson.

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Tory plotters eye local elections as next chance to oust Boris Johnson

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Unhappy MPs feel poor results would help their cause, but No 10 believes he has ‘crossed Rubicon’ and will cling on

Tory MPs are eyeing the aftermath of dire local election results as their next chance to oust Boris Johnson, with the prime minister preparing to apologise for his Partygate penalty.

However, Downing Street is feeling bullish that Johnson has “crossed the Rubicon” after receiving his first fixed-penalty notice earlier this month, and will cling on in the face of further charges.

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‘Voters are angry’: Labour activists say Partygate could turn tide in Dudley

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The Tories made huge gains in last year’s local elections but could be punished for scandals and the cost of living crisis

Over the past two months, the Labour candidate, Adrian Hughes, has knocked on more than 1,000 doors in Upper Gornal and Woodsetton in north Dudley before May’s local elections.

The most marginal ward in a historically marginal council, it was won by the Conservatives last year by 82 votes when there were five candidates on the ballot paper. This year there are only two options: red or blue.

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Boris Johnson is an asset in the local elections – but on rival parties’ leaflets

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The prime minister fails to feature on a number of Tory flyers for the 5 May polls, but his opponents are putting him front and centre

After his ratings plunged in the wake of “partygate” and as his government faces demands to act over the cost of living, it may be a surprise to discover that Boris Johnson’s face can be found on leaflets for the forthcoming local elections. Unfortunately for the prime minister, it is not his own party’s literature that features his image.

The Observer has seen Conservative leaflets circulated in London, the Midlands and the north of England in recent weeks. None of them shows Johnson, once regarded as the Tory politician able to reach voters that no one else in his party could.

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Is it the end for Boris Johnson?

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Last week’s ridicule is not the worst sign of the PM’s plummeting standing. The anger of families who have suffered in the pandemic will not go away. It’s now just a question of how long he survives

After another dreadful week for Boris Johnson that was dominated by news of yet more rule-breaking parties at No 10, the comedian Andy Zaltzman opened BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz at 6.30pm on Friday by announcing his two teams. One he named “team apologise” and the other “team pack of lies”.

Zaltzman added: “This show is best listened to when not at work. If you are unsure whether you are at work or not at work, please check whether anyone you normally work with has turned up with a bottle of wine and is getting hammered.”

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Labour reshuffle: Angela Rayner takes major role after Keir Starmer standoff

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Row between leader and deputy holds up reshuffle while Rachel Reeves’ promotion looks set to inflame tensions with party’s left

Keir Starmer handed his deputy, Angela Rayner, a major promotion on Sunday night after a day of fraught negotiations and power battles. He also sacked his shadow chancellor and promoted his close ally, Rachel Reeves, to the role in a move likely to further inflame tensions with the party’s left.

The reshuffle of Starmer’s shadow cabinet was derailed by a prolonged standoff with Rayner, who was locked in talks with the party leader’s team for hours on Sunday. It came after leaked plans to sack her as party chair and national campaigns coordinator triggered an outcry.

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