Labour and Starmer win big on dire night for Sunak - the big moments

Sir Keir Starmer has struck a conciliatory tone with voters who have turned away from Labour over its stance on Gaza.

The Labour leader said he was determined to win back the trust of those who had snubbed his party in the local elections as a result of his approach to the ongoing conflict.

While the overall picture for Labour in the local polls was a positive one, it lost a smattering of council seats to independents and to George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain.

Speaking in Birmingham after the result, the Labour leader said: “I say directly to those who may have voted Labour in the past, but felt on this occasion they couldn’t, that across the West Midlands we are a proud and diverse community.

“I have heard you. I have listened. And I am determined to meet your concerns and to gain your respect and trust again in the future.”

The Liberal Democrats are increasingly confident that they will claim more than one Tory “big beast” at the coming general election, pointing to local election results putting them ahead in a series of true blue constituencies.

Ed Davey’s party has been criticised for failing to improve its polling performance in recent months, while its 17% projected vote share from last week’s local elections was down slightly on last year.

However, party officials believe the results have proved that their strategy of ruthlessly targeting Tory wards in the seats they want to win is working. They believe the results put them on course to challenge the chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the housing and communities secretary Michael Gove in Surrey, and the justice secretary Alex Chalk in Cheltenham, as well as George Osborne’s highly rated former chief of staff Rupert Harrison, running in Bicester.

Read the full report on the wider significance of these elections from the Guardian here

Defeated Conservative candidate for the West Midlands mayoralty Andy Street has warned the party not to drift to the right and that “winning from the centre ground is what happens”.

After his defeat was announced, Street told Sky News “it was my campaign, I ran it my way” and said he is “proud of how we’ve build this brand of conservatism here”.

He said: “The thing everyone should take from Birmingham and the West Midlands tonight is this brand of moderative, inclusive, tolerant conservatism, that gets on and delivered, has come within an ace of beating the Labour Party in what they considered to be their backyard – that’s the message from here tonight.”

Asked if he is worried the party is drifting to the right and over-emphasising the threat from Reform UK while “ignoring other voters”, he said: “I would definitely not advise that drift.

“The psychology here is really very straight forward isn’t it: this is the youngest, most diverse, one of the most urban places in Britain and we’ve done, many would say, extremely well over a consistent period.

“The message is clear: winning from that centre ground is what happens.”

The results of the local and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England were supposed to follow a clear narrative – that Labour were on course for a massive Parliamentary majority in a general election and Rishi Sunak’s premiership would be on the rocks with rebel factions waiting to displace him.

The fact that this has not happened begs the question, “why not”? One of the major factors is the analysis of the results themselves.

Prof Michael Thrasher’s conclusion that, based on these results, Labour would be the biggest party in Parliament but well short of a Parliamentary majority creates a very different political environment.

Taking on a Labour Party with a nine-point lead and which has polled 10 per cent short of its own opinion poll ratings makes many Conservatives believe that the election is still all to play for.

Read former Tory minister Liam Fox's full analysis of the election results in the Independent here

Former West Midlands mayor Andy Street said it has been his “honour to serve and to lead this place for the last seven years”.

He said: “I hope I’ve done it with dignity and integrity.

“And I hope I’ve bequeathed to Richard a combined authority and indeed a role to which young aspiring leaders will want to aspire one day.

“In a sense, I can have done no more than that.

“It has been a great privilege. But tonight, I just wanted to say thank you, and good night.”

Here's a fairly damning visual picture of how bad it has been for Rishi Sunak over the past 48 hours.

Labour won 10 of the 11 mayoral races.

And while there is more blue on a map of the police and crime commissioner election results, they still represent a 10 point fall for the Conservatives.

Labour's new West Midlands mayor Richard Parker has said people “up and down the country” are calling for a general election.

He said: “People are looking for a fresh start; I hope the prime minister is watching as well, because if you haven’t heard Rishi Sunak, our people are calling for a general election.

“I will get this region’s future back, and a Labour mayor working with a Labour government will help get Britain’s future back.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Labour’s victory in the West Midlands mayoral election was a “phenomenal result” which was “beyond our expectations”.

It's worth pointing out that the Conservative Party had been keen to point to the mayoral races as an indication of the party's progress.

And while the party retained the mayoral seat in Tees Valley, it was the only one secured by the Tories and the West Midlands defeat in particular will have hurt Downing Street.

In a written statement following the victory, Starmer said: “This phenomenal result was beyond our expectations. People across the country have had enough of Conservative chaos and decline and voted for change with Labour.

“Our fantastic new mayor Richard Parker stands ready to deliver a fresh start for the West Midlands.

“My changed Labour Party is back in the service of working people, and stands ready to govern. Labour will turn the page after 14 years of Tory decline and usher in a decade of national renewal. That change starts today.”

Here's a breakdown of the significant West Midlands result.

Labour’s Richard Parker defeated Conservative Andy Street by just 1,508 votes – 0.25%.

He secured 225,590 votes with Street on 224,082 and Akhmed Yakoob (Independent) on 69,621 (11.66%).

Elaine Williams (Reform) secured 34,471 votes (5.77%), while Siobhan Harper-Nunes (Green) was on 31,036 (5.20%) and Sunny Virk (Lib Dem) was last on 12,176 (2.04%) – with the turnout 29.57%.

Newly elected Mayor of the West Midlands Richard Parker thanked Conservative candidate Andy Street after his shock win.

Speaking after his election was announced, Labour’s Mr Parker said: “Thank you first and foremost, thank you.”

He thanked polling staff and added: “Thank you also to Andy (Street), you’ve led this region through a number of great challenges and you deserve a great credit for that.

“You deserve credit for building up the combined authority into the powerhouse that it is today, through the economic shocks, and leading this region when it came out of Covid.

“You’ve been out there representing our region, I absolutely believe that whilst our politics are different, Andy, we both have our best interests of the West Midlands at heart.”

Sadiq Khan has been re-elected for an historic third term, bagging the second-largest majority in the history of the London mayoralty in the process.

The Labour incumbent won 1,088,225 votes – a majority of 275,828 over his main rival, Tory candidate Susan Hall.

Only Mr Khan, in first becoming mayor in 2016, has won by a bigger total – and that was under a two-vote system, rather than the traditional first-past-the-post system used in the 2024 elections.

Mr Khan’s aides described it as a “landslide win” and said he had claimed 44 per cent of the vote – up on 40 per cent in 2021.

Read a full rundown of Sadiq Khan's historic election victory by the Evening Standard here

It's official. After a long wait caused by Tory requests for a recount, Labour candidate Richard Parker has been confirmed as the new mayor of West Midlands.

It's not been a good day for Rishi Sunak.

Hundreds of different contests were held across England and Wales on May 2, ranging from the election of local councillors to choosing high-profile mayors.

Now that almost all the counting is over, here are some of the key trends to emerge from the results – and the statistics behind them.

Read the full breakdown here

Polling expert Chris Curtis from Opinium Research has pointed at Sunak's "ridiculous decision to cut HS2 and throw the West Midlands under the bus has put his leadership in jeopardy".

Labour’s deputy national campaign co-ordinator and Lewisham MP Ellie Reeves has posted on X: “Congratulations @RichParkerLab.

“An incredible result and significant victory.Right across the country people have voted for change and the message is clear…

“It’s time for a general election and a Labour govt to get our country’s future back.”

A reminder that the result has yet to be officially confirmed.

Both the BBC and Sky News are reporting Labour sources saying they have secured victory in the West Midlands.

We have yet to get any official confirmation yet.

The Liberal Democrats have won more council seats than the Conservatives for the first time since 1996.

With 106 of 107 councils declared by Saturday night, the Lib Dems had 521 councillors in England, a gain of 104, compared to 513 for the Tories, a loss of 473 councillors.

The Lib Dems winning more councillors than the Tories has only happened once before, in 1996.

Read the full story on The Telegraph, including why it hasn't been an entirely successful campaign for the Lib Dems

Let me cut to the chase so no one wastes time overanalysing this: we must not change our leader. Changing leader now won’t work: the time to do so came and went. The hole to dig us out is the PM’s, and it’s time for him to start shovelling.

I’ve lost count of the number of election counts I’ve attended over the decades. But I can’t recall one quite so dramatic as the one in Fareham this week. We shed tears of sadness because long-standing councillors were convinced we had lost, followed by tears of relief upon realising we had scraped through.

In my small part of the world Conservatives held on because of strong local leadership, low council tax and well-managed local finances combined with first-class local services. It pains me to say it, but I must be honest: it was with no thanks to the national Conservative “brand”. Fareham Tories bucked the trend despite the national government.

Read Suella Braverman's full piece in the Telegraph in which she says it's time for Sunak to dig the Conservatives out of a hole with bold offers for voters.

Labour MP Liam Byrne has posted this photo of him alongside Labour's West Midlands mayoral candidate Richard Parker...

MAke of it what you will

Sadiq Khan isn't the only one calling for a general election.

The Observer newspaper says: "Rishi Sunak’s government began last week by triumphantly announcing that a man whose asylum claim had been rejected had volunteered to take up to £3,000 cash in exchange for agreeing to take a commercial flight to Rwanda – plus the provision of housing, food and healthcare there for five years at a cost of £150,000 to the taxpayer. Sunak bookended it with some of the worst-ever English local election results for the Conservatives."

Read the Observer's full reasons for demanding a election here