Dire day for Tories in elections

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s hopes of reviving Conservative fortunes suffered a double blow at the weekend as his party lost the West Midlands mayoral election and Sadiq Khan secured a third term in London.

On a dire day for the Tories, Andy Street lost the West Midlands mayoralty – which he had been expected to retain – to Labour’s Richard Parker by 1508 votes.

Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for London, lost with just 32.7% of the vote to Mr Khan’s 43.9%.

The West Midlands result – which came after a recount was ordered – was a major blow to Sunak, who had been hoping to cling on to the mayoralty there after a series of crushing local election defeats left the Tories with fewer seats than the Liberal Democrats for the first time since 1996.

It will bolster Sir Keir Starmer, whose Labour Party toppled the Tories in the Blackpool South by-election, picked up swathes of council seats and won the majority of mayoral elections.

Sunak said it was “disappointing” to lose the West Midlands, but pledged to “take the fight to Labour”, while Sir Keir hailed the result as “phenomenal”.

On Saturday night (local time), the West Midlands result was delayed for several hours amid demands for a recount. Initially, “bundle checks” – seen as a “soft” recount that involves flicking through the votes to check for any anomalies – took place. After this, a full recount was ordered in Coventry, delaying the results even further.

Across the country, Labour support plummeted in areas with a high Muslim population, analysis found.

But Reform UK’s votes proved more critical in swinging the result for Labour, with the party’s vote share more than the difference between the two candidates.

James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, admitted the local election results had been “tough” but claimed voters who had “drifted away” would “come back to us” in time for the general election.

This week, Sunak will attempt to get back on the front foot with a series of announcements on getting people back to work, clamping down on anti-Semitic hate speech and pressing ahead with deporting migrants to Rwanda. – Telegraph Group