PM will want to brazen it out and carry on at No 10

Boris Johnson has some serious thinking to do this weekend. Who knows which way he will go after a set of local election results which has rocked the prime minister’s party to the core.

We suspected it was coming, but not to the extent that has left the Conservatives without flagship London boroughs Wandsworth and Westminster. A truly staggering couple of results.

The Tories had lost 183 seats with two-thirds of the results for England declared by 3pm, while Labour was up 47.

In Portsmouth the Liberal Democrats were celebrating a successful night in which they overtook the Tories but failed to take overall control. But at Gosport the Lib Dems are back in charge for the first time in a decade.

It was the night the country tried to make Mr Johnson pay for partygate. Let there be no mistake they have given him a bloody nose but will it be enough to knock him to the canvas and fail to beat the count? We suspect not.

Those such as Gerald VernonJackson, the Lib Dem leader of Portsmouth City Council, will perhaps hope the prime minister decides to brazenly tough it out and blunder on in his inimitable style becoming even more of an electoral liability.

Ultimately the decision about whether he stays rests with Conservative party grandees, the men in grey suits.They will take soundings this weekend about the PM’s future.

If Portsmouth North Conservative chairman, Robert New, is anything to go by, the PM’s days are numbered. As we report, his withering post-result comments included: ‘There are so many good candidates who are getting stung by the appalling behaviour from those in Downing Street. Hopefully, the MPs can find their balls and finally get rid of the prime minister.’

We live in extraordinary times and absolutely anything is possible.