Darlington result from the Tees Valley mayoral race being interpreted as meaning Labour is likely to lose Darlington to the Conservatives.

Darlington is 34th of the Conservative target list, with a Labour majority of about 7.7% and over 5,000 Ukip voters available. If they managed to win everything up to and including Darlington, that alone would be enough to bump their majority up to about 80 (though before taking into account any possible losses.)

In other news, seat count so far:

Con +502
Lab -332
LD -30
SNP -21
PC +35
Ukip -139
Green +3

The Tories have now easily surpassed Stephen Fisher's prediction (see previous thread,) and Labour are also doing even worse than predicted. Not sure how many results left to come, but it's a pretty dramatic result.

AndyJS said:

SeanT said:

Scott_P said:

@Mike_Blackley: John Curtice says it looks like a 'disappointing' result for SNP compared to expectations. Unlikely to pass 40%.

That pretty much kills off indyref2. The SNP needed momentum, and the sense of an angry nation demanding a vote.

If this is repeated at the GE in june, TMay will say NO MANDATE, and deny a vote, and force the Nats to win another vote at Holyrood in 2021.

Which might be hard for Sturgeon, given her gentle decline at the moment.

She might have to resign as leader if the Tories do as well in Scotland as these local results indicate.

The Greens have done well in these elections, almost certainly taking votes off the SNP. These votes will likely switch back to the SNP in the FPTP Westminster election.

IanB2 said:

Alistair said:

SeanT said:

Scott_P said:

@Mike_Blackley: John Curtice says it looks like a 'disappointing' result for SNP compared to expectations. Unlikely to pass 40%.

That pretty much kills off indyref2. The SNP needed momentum, and the sense of an angry nation demanding a vote.

If this is repeated at the GE in june, TMay will say NO MANDATE, and deny a vote, and force the Nats to win another vote at Holyrood in 2021.

Which might be hard for Sturgeon, given her gentle decline at the moment.

The correct thing to do if confident would be so say, yes lets have a vote but legally lock in no more IndyRefs for 30 years.

It depends entirely upon the 2019 Brexit backlash.

*Puffs on pipe**
Ah! the Great 2019 Brexit Backlash! I remember it well.
I'd just planted my runner beans, and ..........

CarlottaVance said:

Alistair said:

SeanT said:

Scott_P said:

@Mike_Blackley: John Curtice says it looks like a 'disappointing' result for SNP compared to expectations. Unlikely to pass 40%.

That pretty much kills off indyref2. The SNP needed momentum, and the sense of an angry nation demanding a vote.

If this is repeated at the GE in june, TMay will say NO MANDATE, and deny a vote, and force the Nats to win another vote at Holyrood in 2021.

Which might be hard for Sturgeon, given her gentle decline at the moment.

The correct thing to do if confident would be so say, yes lets have a vote but legally lock in no more IndyRefs for 30 years.

No government can bind its successor - even if the SNP did 'agree' to that, what's to stop them fighting another election on a SindyRef manifesto?

But the Westminster government can bind Holyrood.

IanB2 said:

AndyJS said:

I think the Tories will do it in the West Midlands, based on that high turnout in Solihull.

Eh? The Soilihull votes are already in the first round totals.

I agree with your forecast. But not because of Solihull.

I was talking about the WM election as a whole, not the second round. Labour needed a higher turnout in their areas in both rounds. They only got a lead of 20,000 votes in Birmingham on the first round which is terrible for them.

Alistair said:

Anyone got an idea of Percentage of first preference votes in Scotland yet?

Genuine question - how do you allow in this for a differing number of candidates in the wards? Say the SNP have an average of 1.4 candidates per ward and SCON have 1.2, won't that distort the simple total % result?

They need a better mic at that declaration!

MarqueeMark said:

6,808 votes rejected for Manchester mayor???

Spoilt ballots protesting the existence of metro mayors?

Bob__Sykes said:

Tory GM mayor candidate humiliated by Burnham in his own Trafford patch which could be one of the big shocks of these elections.

Burnham far far overperforming Labour GE voteshare across GM from what i can see. Looks like much of UKIP vote went to him.

NEW THREAD

Shares of the vote in Scotland would be great if anyone has them.
Absolutely delighted that the SNP are currently down 18 councillors with all their gains against Labour wiped out by losses to the Tories and just a little bit more.

With 28 out of 32 councils in the Tories have 233 councillors which on a pro rata basis including the large number of independents is equivalent to 24% of the vote. I suspect that they have done slightly better than that since many of the independents have very, very small wards (in terms of population) in the far north.

On the same basis the SNP are sitting just a tenth over 33%.

So the Tories pick up only half the UKIP 2nd preferences in Sandwell. Read into that what you will.

DavidL said:

justin124 said:

I suspect that Labour will be content with its results in Scotland given previous expectations. Whilst they are well down on 2012 , they have not collapsed - and I rather fancy their chances of taking East Lotian from the SNP next month.

I tend to agree. Really bad but could have been so much worse. Professor Fisher may have got some things right but his forecast of 6% for SLAB is just miles off.

I'm starting to get a better handle of both differential turnout and what has happened since 2007 in terms of where voters have come and gone to.

54 seats declared in Northamptonshire Conservatives gain 7 lose 0, Labour gain 2, lose 2, UKIP lose 3 Libs gain 1, lose 4. Ind lose 1