Labour has continued its string of by-election defeats, losing council seats to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Greens in the latest set of polls on what was dubbed “super Thursday”. The results of 20 local by-elections across Britain were announced on Friday.
Labour did not win any new seats and lost four of the 11 it was defending.
The party was beaten by the Tories in wards on Worthing Borough Council and North East Derbyshire Council. Conservatives also gained a councillor on Elmbridge Council in Surrey, beating the Lib Dems.
The Greens won a seat from Labour on Leeds Council. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems gained a councilor in Southampton after Labour’s vote share plummeted by more than 20 per cent, pushing the party into third place in the Shirley ward seat.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer is set to mark 100 days in office on Saturday after leading his party to a landslide victory at the General Election in July. Before Thursday’s by-elections, Labour sent an email to its members encouraging then to engage with the votes on what it dubbed “super Thursday”.
Labour successfully defended seats in Harlow, Essex and Coventry as well as two on Ealing Council in London where polls were called after two former councillors became MPs.
Ex deputy council leader Deirdre Costigan was elected MP for Ealing Southall and Callum Anderson won the Buckingham and Bletchley parliamentary seat in July.
Council by-elections often see low voter turnouts and candidates can win by campaigning on a single local issue, making it harder to draw conclusions about how a political party is fairing nationally.
However, Labour has now lost a flurry of local votes called after the General Election and national polling suggests Sir Keir’s popularity has plummeted in the almost 100 days since he became Prime Minister.
In by-elections last week, the party surrendered seats to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in Blackpool, the Greens in Lancaster and the SNP in Dundee.
But the survey also found that most voters still think Sir Keir’s Government, the first Labour Government in 14 years, will do a good job or want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Nearly half of those who voted Labour in the election (47 per cent) said they had positive expectations, but feel let down so far following a scandal over the PM and cabinet minister accepting lavish gifts of designer clothing and tickets to football matches and concerts.
His chief of staff, Sue Gray, quit less than 100 days into his premiership amid rumours of discontent in Number 10.
Asked whether he was embarrassed she had not been at the gathering, which is key to her new role, the Prime Minister said: “We’ve just had the first meeting of the Council of Nations and Regions.
“I’ve had every First Minister here, the Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, and all the mayors from across England.
“We’ve had a really constructive discussion about economic growth, about jobs, about investment, and even today, we’ve had a further announcement of £24 billion investment in the United Kingdom.
“I set out when we won that election, to change the country for the better, to stabilize the economy, and these investments that are coming in… they’re a drumbeat into our Investment Summit.”
Asked why Ms Gray was not present, he said: “For everybody listening and watching this, who’s concerned to know, is there going to be investment in my region? Are there going to be jobs where I live? The answer is, today, we’ve got a long way down the road of collaborating to that end.”
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