But, overlooking these devastating losses, Harper seemed to focus on just one piece of analysis in his interview – Sky News’ forecast that the next general election will result in a hung parliament.
He told the broadcaster: “That means Keir Starmer is not on course to win a majority, and that is before an election campaign where Labour’s lack of policy will come under scrutiny.
“So what that shows me is very clear: the polls are not correct, there is everything to fight for, and the Conservative Party under the prime minister’s leadership is absolutely up for that fight.”
That same projection from Sky still shows the Tories losing 130 seats.
Sky News host Phillips said: “This is grabbing at straws a bit – you actually took a whacking.”
“I was very clear – these are disappointing results,” Harper replied. “The point is, what they demonstrate from that scenario is that Labour’s not on course for that majority, Keir Starmer hasn’t sealed the deal with the public.
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“So that means there is a fight to be had, the prime minister is up for that fight, I’m up for that fight and I know the Conservatives are up for it.”
“I’m wondering if you’ve really got to grips with the scale of this,” Phillips said. “On Thursday, you won fewer council seats than Labour. And more importantly, you won fewer council seats than the Liberal Democrats.”
Labour now have 1,140 councillors in England, the Liberal Democrats 521 and the Conservatives 513.
The presenter said: “I know these are local elections so you can’t translate completely, but is it morally right that what is now the third most popular party is now squatting in Downing Street?”
“I don’t accept that analysis at all,” the cabinet minister replied.
“The Liberal Democrats beat you,” Phillips reminded him.
“No they didn’t,” Harper insisted. “If you look at the national equivalent vote share, that’s not correct.”
He said local elections are “always difficult” for the party in government, and that the results of the next general election “are not pre-determined”.
Labour’s Wes Streeting has insisted they are “not entertaining” the prospect of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
The shadow health secretary said he did not think it is the “scenario” the country will be in at the next general election.
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However, he did not rule out a coalition with the Lib Dems when repeatedly pressed on the possibility in an interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge.
In separate interview Lib Dem leader Ed Davey explicitly ruled out working with the Tories but did not rule out a coalition with Labour.
Last week’s council results point to a hung parliament at the next general election. They suggest Labour would be the largest party, but short of a majority.
Former prime minister David Cameron and former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg outside 10 Downing Street in London, on May 12, 2010.
AFP via Getty Images
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It could be similar to the situation the Tories found themselves in in 2010 when they formed a coalition government with the Lib Dems.
Asked whether Labour would be prepared to go into coalition with the Lib Dems, Streeting said: “We’re not even entertaining that prospect…
“I just don’t think that is the scenario that we are going to be in after the next general election.”
Asked a third time about local election results pointing towards a hung parliament, he said: “This is a process, not an event. We’re not at the final destination yet in terms of the general election.”
Put to him that he was not ruling it out, he gave examples of why “we shouldn’t read the local elections right across”.
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He said: “Take Hull, where I saw through gritted teeth the Liberal Democrats did rather well.
“I heard the Lib Dem leader of Hull council the other night saying ‘well, look, locally, people have voted Lib Dem but at the general election people in this city vote Labour’.”
He added: “We’re not complacent about this and there’s so much more still to come.”
When leader Lib Dem leader Davey was asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show about a coalition with Labour, he said: “That is a hypothetical question because we don’t know what’s going to happen after the next election.”
Put to him that he was ruling out working with the Tories but not Labour, said: “The focus is on getting rid of Conservative MPs. I make no apology for that.”
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His deputy leader Daisy Cooper similarly did not rule out a coalition with Labour when challenged.
She told Sky they had “ruled out” working with the Conservatives because of the “damage they are doing to the country”.
But pressed on a coalition with Labour, she replied: “Everything we do between now and the general election will be about focusing on getting Liberal Democrat MPs elected.”
Thursday’s results were disastrous for the Tories who lost some 1,050 seats and control of nearly 50 councils.
It means Labour is now the largest party of local government – overtaking the Conservatives for the first time since 2002.
Tory chairman Greg Hands has said his party is on course to lose more than 1,000 seats in next month’s local elections.
The surprising admission came as the Conservatives continue to trail well behind Labour in the opinion polls.
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More than 8,000 seats and 230 councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are up for grabs on May 4.
The Tories currently hold 3,290 of them, with Labour on 2,062 and the Lib Dems on 1,205. Independents and others make up the remaining 1,600 seats.
Appearing on Sky News this morning, Hands said the Tories are heading for a bad night.
He said: “There’s a huge number of Conservative councillors up for re-election in a few weeks time. The Conservatives remain the largest party of local government.
“The independent expectations are that the Conservatives will lose more than a thousand seats and that Labour need to make big gains.
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“That is what the expectation is out there, but I’ve been up and down the country and the Conservatives are fighting really hard.”
That is a reference to a forecast by the elections experts Rallings and Thrasher, who said a 6% swing to Labour would see the Tories lose more than 1,000 seats and the opposition gain more than 700.
However, presenter Trevor Phillips accused Hands of trying to “massage expectations” so that if the Conservatives do better than expected, they can claim it as a triumph.
A Lib Dem source said: “This admission of defeat shows the Conservatives have already thrown in the towel before a single vote has been cast.
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“This Conservative government has crashed the economy, plunged the NHS into the crisis and allowed filthy sewage to be pumped into our rivers.
“Rishi Sunak is facing a Blue Wall bloodbath as people who voted Conservative all their life say never again, and turn to the Liberal Democrats instead.”
HuffPost UK revealed last month that Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s elections co-ordinator, had warned the shadow cabinet that the opinion polls had “tightened” in recent weeks.
One Labour source said: “People probably have their expectations in the wrong places. They expect this to be a complete bloodbath for the Tories, with Labour hoovering up hundreds of seats.
“But the key thing to look out for is where Labour is winning and what our vote share is compared to the 2019 general election.”
Most of the results are now in and the parties are now conducting their post-mortems of the “super Thursday” local elections.
The Tories were the big winners in England, gaining control of 13 councils and adding 240 councillors, at the time of writing when 140 of 143 councils had declared.
Labour meanwhile had a terrible election, losing control of eight councils as the party shed 318 councillors, prompting Keir Starmer to embark on a shadow cabinet reshuffle.
But with elections of metro mayors across England, and for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments also taking place, the full picture is more complex.
With the help of YouGov’s Patrick English and Tory polling expert Lord Hayward, here are the five key things you need to know:
1. Labour turmoil in the ‘red wall’
Owen Humphreys – PA Images via Getty ImagesBoris Johnson in front of a giant inflatable of himself as he meets and newly elected Tory MP Jill Mortimer at Jacksons Wharf in Hartlepool
There were bitter recriminations in Labour after it lost a slew of council seats and the crunch by-election in the so-called “red wall” seat of Hartlepool, which the party had held since the constituency’s inception in the 1970s.
Labour also lost control Durham, the county of the miners’ gala and a previous bastion of support for the party, and endured “staggeringly bad” losses in the likes of Rotherham, according to Hayward.
English says these losses to the Tories in working class Leave-voting areas are a continuation of the realignment of British politics that followed the Brexit vote in 2016.
And they are a stinging indictment of Starmer’s strategy to win back ex-Labour Brexit supporters who deserted the party for the Tories en masse in the 2019 general election and handed Boris Johnson a huge parliamentary majority.
The Labour leader is now facing an internal battle for Labour’s future, as he prepares to embark on a shadow cabinet reshuffle to refresh his top team amid a backlash over the sacking of his deputy Angela Rayner from her party chair job.
Plenty are now also asking whether Labour can ever recover, or whether the party is finished as an electoral force.
2. Glimmers of hope?
Hollie Adams via Getty ImagesStarmer leaves home on Saturday morning
There were small glimmers of hope for Labour, with the party performing well in Wales where it secured an effective majority and “stemmed the tide of Leave voters flooding away to the Conservatives”, according to English.
The party also did well in so-called “blue wall” traditionally Tory seats, but which voted Remain in 2016 and are now beginning to turn to Labour.
Starmer is likely to be pleased with Labour taking the West of England and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralties.
And there were signs of a “Brighton effect” stretching out across the south coast as Labour took a swathe of seats on Worthing council, according to Hayward.
Starmer’s party even won a county council seat from the Tories in Chipping Norton, in the affluent Cotswold area where former prime minister David Cameron lives.
Labour can at least begin making up ground on the Tories thanks to these types of university-educated, Remain voters, as voters continue to turn British politics on its head.
But “in terms of the mathematics there are not enough blue wall areas to gain a majority in a general election, absolutely not”, English says.
“If Keir Starmer is looking for silver linings, he got beaten 5-2,” the pollster adds.
“Okay, you got hammered, but you scored two goals.”
3. Green surge
💚 We’re seeing huge swings to the Greens all over the country.
🌍 It’s time for new and bold ideas. It’s time for change.
Labour supporters may want to look away now, because they have another problem with the Greens enjoying a good day across England.
The party has 14 seats on Bristol council, with the city still counting remaining areas, helped push Sheffield into no overall control following the long-running tree-felling row, and has done well in the suburban home counties.
Hayward says this is “a problem” for Labour as the Greens are “showing signs of being able to do well in towns and cities as the alternative [to Labour]”.
English meanwhile talks of a “pincer movement” with Labour losing seats to both the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.
But the Greens are also appealing to different kinds of voters, and have taken more seats from the Tories than Labour, according to English.
“They are winning seats off everyone all over the country, including in places where Labour couldn’t even dream of winning,” he says.
“And they are building these coalitions of voters who are very different types.
“It would be really daft to think that they are just young, hippy, liberal voters and old tree huggers who vote for them, it’s not.”
4. High profile Tory mayors dig in
Ian Forsyth via Getty ImagesRe-elected Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen with health secretary Matt Hancock
While Labour looked set to win 11 of the 13 mayoralties being contested in cities and metropolitan regions across England, the party’s heavy defeats in former strongholds in the West Midlands and Tees Valley provided more evidence of the Brexit alignment.
Andy Street was re-elected in the West Midlands with more than 48% of the vote, embarrassing Labour challenger Liam Byrne, who suggested he could win easily.
And Ben Houchen’s thumping victory in Tees Valley with 73% of the vote inspired Johnson to reportedly leave a voice note for the current toast of the Tory Party saying: “You’re just showing off now with that majority”.
English says: “Is it because the Conservatives are flooding money into these places so the mayors can campaign on it? “Or you could flip it around, and the Conservatives would say that’s just evidence the mayors have done a bloody good job, securing money for their areas.
“There are general incumbency effects as well – once you’ve got a mayor in there and they have done a good job, they are going to get rewarded.”
Perhaps the most significant result of them all was north of the border, where Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP fell just short of the overall majority that would have made her calls for a second independence referendum even more difficult to ignore.
However, there is a majority in Holyrood for another referendum, thanks to the pro-independence Greens picking up eight seats to add to the SNP’s 64.
In response, there are signs that the UK government’s position on a referendum may be softening slightly.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove made clear on Sunday that now was not the time for an independence vote, with the UK recovering from coronavirus.
But he pointedly refused to say the Westminster government would go to the Supreme Court to block referendum legislation from Holyrood, and stopped short of an outright rejection of another vote in an interview with ITV Scotland.
Starmer has already removed deputy leader Angela Rayner as party chair and campaigns coordinator, after Labour lost control of a host of councils and the “red wall” parliamentary seat of Hartlepool for the first time since its inception in the 1970s.
The Labour leader has faced a backlash from senior figures for apparently sacking Rayner.
Allies insist she has been offered another job in the shadow cabinet but they could not say what it would be, with Starmer in the process of reshuffling his top team on Sunday.
Reports suggest shadow communities secretary Steve Reed could be in line to replace Rayner.
Ian Murray, the shadow secretary for Scotland, and MP Chris Bryant have also been tipped for promotion.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds is meanwhile among those reported to be in line for a demotion.
There has also been criticism from some sections of the party of Starmer’s key aide Jenny Chapman, the former MP for Darlington.
Speaking to Times Radio on Sunday, Murray insisted Rayner had not been sacked and that Starmer wants to move her to a “much more prominent role” so Labour can benefit from her “authentic voice”.
But after headlines that Rayner had been sacked sparked outrage from some in the party, Murray admitted: “Communications over the last 24 hours have not been top-quality.”
Pool via Getty ImagesStarmer and Rayner on the campaign trail on Wednesday in Birmingham
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has signalled he is ready to take over from Starmer if asked, said of Rayner’s sacking: “I can’t support this.
“This is straightforwardly wrong if it’s true.”
Members of former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s team, who come from the left of the party, were among those to criticise the move to “scapegoat” the deputy leader.
Former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott called it “baffling” while John McDonnell labelled it a “huge mistake”.
McDonnell, a former shadow chancellor, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “When the leader of the party on Friday said he takes responsibility for the election result in Hartlepool in particular and then scapegoats Angela Rayner, I think many of us feel that is unfair, particularly as we all know actually that Keir’s style of leadership is that his office controls everything.
“It is very centralised and he controlled the campaign.”
In a further sign of the splits in the party, Labour grandee Lord Peter Mandelson urged Starmer to dilute the influence of party members and “hard left factions” linked to train unions.
He said Starmer was set to embark on a “serious review” of Labour policy.
“I also believe that he needs to to look at how the party is organised, how it represents the genuine grassroots of the party and reflects the genuine views and values of Labour voters across the country in all the nations and the regions of the country,” Mandelson told Times Radio
“The idea that the Labour Party and its policies and its outlook can be driven disproportionately frankly by a mixture of grassroots members in London and the south-east and the sort of hard left factions that are attached to trade unions – that has got to go, we have got to change.
“Party reform therefore I think is an essential part of what Keir has got to take on next.”
As well as undertaking a reshuffle, Starmer has hired Gordon Brown’s former chief pollster Deborah Mattinson – who has written a book about why Labour lost the so-called “red wall” at the 2019 general election – as director of strategy.
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS via AFP via Getty ImagesThe government has been accused of using public money to “feather the Tory party nest”.
Boris Johnson’s ministers are facing legal action over claims his government misused public funds to pay for Tory party “political messaging” ahead of local elections.
The Good Law Project has triggered proceedings in a letter to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and has told HuffPost UK the “Trumpian” government is using public money to “feather the Tory party nest”.
Ministers are trying to boost the Tories’ chances in town hall elections next month by blurring the divide between the “dissemination of government information and party political campaigning”, the campaign group says.
It says government-funded videos, which often feature the Conservatives’ “Build Back Better” slogan and the No 10 crest, are “virtually impossible to distinguish” from political campaign videos on the ruling party’s website.
It comes as Johnson faces a slew of allegations of “Tory sleaze”, with the prime minister himself texting billionaire James Dyson pledging to “fix” tax problems for the manufacturer if they would make ventilators.
The party’s ‘Build Back Better’ slogan on the Conservative Party websiteThe party’s ‘Build Back Better’ slogan on the Conservative Party website
Gemma Abbott, legal director of the Good Law Project, told HuffPost UK: “Make no mistake, this is Trumpian stuff. And is all the more egregious given that we are just weeks away from the biggest set of local elections this side of a general election.
“This issue goes to the very heart of our democracy. The British public should not be paying to further the electoral ambitions of the Conservative Party. We will not allow this misuse of state resources to go unchallenged.”
Lawyers pick out the “Build Back Better” slogan, used both on the masthead of the Conservative Party website and in government communications, and replicated as “Bus Back Better” and “Build Back Greener” in separate publicly-funded campaigns to underline investment in buses and energy projects.
Sleek ads promoting Union connectivity projects in Scotland and Wales, where devolved administrations are electing new governments
An ad for two new offshore wind ports in the Humber and on Teesside, where key mayoral elections are taking place
A video marking a long-planned and previously-promoted boost to the minimum wage on April 1
Governments are legally required to have a policy for how they maintain a clear dividing line between informative communications, and electoral materials, so that they cannot use state resources to maintain their grip on power.
The Good Law Project is calling on the government to outline its policy and how it has been adhered to.
The letter from the campaign group to Gove says: “The government has disseminated publicly funded videos and other media purporting to provide information to the public concerning government initiatives and policies, but where it is very difficult to see the public benefit of the information.
We’re building back greener, with a £95 million investment to create two new offshore wind ports in the Humber and on Teesside, building the next generation of offshore wind turbines whilst creating 6,000 new green jobs.
“Instead the material would appear (in effect if not in purpose) to be primarily material that promotes a political party, reflecting and supporting the party’s political messaging.”
The Cabinet Office has said the slogan “articulates the government’s priority to support economic recovery”.
It also says the government issues guidance to communications officers on material that may be political and says that videos outlined to the government predate the election campaign period.
Boris Johnson has used his party’s ‘Build Back Better’ slogan across governmentBoris Johnson has used his party’s “Build Back Better” slogan across government
The civil service code also says civil servants must remain politically impartial and cannot “act in a way that is determined by party political considerations, or use official resources for party political purposes”.
The legal challenge follows strong criticism of Johnson hijacking a press conference on Covid to launch a political attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan, who is running for a second term against Tory candidate Shaun Bailey.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “‘Build Back Better’ articulates the government’s priority to support economic recovery, increase job opportunities and level up across all four corners of the UK.
“The government issues guidance to ensure that civil servants act with political impartiality, in line with legislation and the civil service code.”
