UK General election: PM May ‘not taking victory for granted’

Your browser doesn’t recognise available video formats. The study by Sky’s election analyst falls short of the predicted landslide win for the Tories in opinion polls.

In Scotland, it lost Glasgow which it had controlled for 40 years. Most importantly because it clearly reveals the fundamental axis of the upcoming General Election.

As of Friday afternoon, May’s Conservatives gained more than 560 seats total and control of 11 new councils.

The Conservatives scored a victory in Tees Valley, a traditional Labour stronghold, where their candidate Ben Houchen was elected the area’s first metro mayor.

Former head of the retail chain John Lewis, Andy Street, became the regional leader of the West Midlands, narrowly seeing off former Labour MP Sion Simon.

“If there was any doubt, these results confirm that Corbyn’s leadership is steering Labour towards a bad defeat in the general election”.

UKIP’s Lisa Duffy refused to call the results a “disaster” but admitted that the night had been “very challenging” for her party.

And in Scotland the Rubbish Party – focused on anti-littering – won a seat.

The Labour vote held up in wards in both Nottinghamshire constituencies on Thursday but the difference was in what happened to the Ukip vote.

And if the party managed to confound the pollsters and win a much higher share of the vote than current polling suggests, they have historically found it hard to translate that support into Westminster seats.

The UK Independence Party, founded on a pledge to withdraw the country from the European Union, all but collapsed, as its voters moved en masse to the Conservatives.

Liberal Democrats had a mixed election, failing to break through against the Tories in the south-west England battleground but making advances in some General Election target seats like Eastleigh and Wells.

By calling an early national election for next month, May has made the local votes a gauge of her leadership, and many of her Conservative candidates have campaigned in recent days using her campaign mantra of “strong and stable leadership”. The Tories are clearly emerging as the Unionist opposition to the SNP and these local election results suggest they will make significant gains there in the general election.

Labour leader George Nobbs said: “I’m very, very pleased”.

He specifically warned of a Tory lurch to the Right if May was returned with a Tory majority up from 17 to a much bigger figure.

Labour emerged seriously diminished, losing five councils and with 133 fewer councillors.

Mr McDonnell said the party’s performance had been a surprise but he urged Labour to redouble its efforts over the coming weeks. This is enough time, he feels, for the Labour Party to “send a message” to their supporters and even those who are not yet on their side.

And university student Dan Wilshire (21), who fought the seat for The Green Party in 2015, returns to fight for the same party.

Mr Corbyn also urged campaigners to get people registered to vote, saying two million young people were still not registered. Commentators highlighted dozens of Labor seats where the Ukip vote is larger than the party’s majority.

Labour lost over 100 seats and three councils, but retained control in the key cities of Cardiff and Swansea.