Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has admitted the local election results were “not good” for the Conservatives, but insists Rishi Sunak is “starting to deliver in a quiet way for the British people”.
Her party lost more than a thousand seats after voters went to the polls across England, seeing Labour take over as the largest party in local government for the first time in more than 20 years.
The minister told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that people were “angry and frustrated” with the government, and were finding the rising cost of living “difficult”.
But she blamed the long period the Tories have had in government, the impact of the pandemic and the fallout of the Ukraine war for the poor electoral performance, rather than Mr Sunak and his policies.
“I totally recognise we’ve had a really difficult few years,” she said. “[But] I do think that the prime minister, who’s been in office for six months, is getting the country back on track and is delivering, and I think we’re starting to gain the trust of the British public.”
Meanwhile, Labour’s Wes Streeting said his party was “confident but not complacent” after Thursday’s results, which saw them gain over 500 seats and control of another 22 councils.
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The shadow health secretary told Sophy Ridge: “I think those results do point to enormous progress made under [Sir] Keir Starmer’s leadership.
“He’s changed the Labour Party – now he’s got a hearing to be able to change the country. But there’s more to do.”
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2:26
Labour: ‘The best is yet to come’
Will Labour and the Lib Dems join forces?
Mr Streeting promised the party would be setting out more of its big “missions” in the coming weeks, including its plans to tackle issues in the NHS and education.
But while he insisted Labour would “win the next general election”, he did not rule out entering a coalition with the Liberal Democrats when pushed, instead saying he was “not entertaining the prospect”.
The shadow minister added: “This is a process, not an event. We’re not at the final destination yet in terms of the general election.”
Pressure on for Tories now focus is back on dire results
As coronation fever starts to fade and the bunting begins to come down, focus is returning to those dire local election results for the Conservative Party.
This is beyond the Tories’ worst nightmares. Ministers were predicting a 1,000-seat loss, but that was the worst-case scenario, and we saw more than that fall on Thursday night.
They also lost overall control of 49 councils, leaving Labour as the largest party of local government.
So, what does it mean for the prime minister?
We are starting to hear some rumblings of discontent on the Conservative benches, though it is the usual suspects like Sir John Redwood, saying there needs to be tax cuts.
We also had Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price on Sky News earlier saying that tax cuts were needed, and that the party had been like a “soap opera” for the last 18 months, full of bickering.
But despite these noises of unhappiness, the government is pushing ahead with more of the same policies.
For Labour, it was obviously a good night. But our analysis suggests that if you took those results and put them into a general election, the party would not win an outright majority.
Sir Keir Starmer was pretty happy last week, but now he is facing difficult questions over whether he would do a deal with the Lib Dems or SNP to get into power.
This attack line is sure to come from the Conservatives over the coming months, but it is their party that is under pressure, not Labour.
If anything like these local election results happens when the whole country goes to the polls, the Tories will be out of government for the first time in 13 years.
The Lib Dems had a successful night on Thursday too, with more than 400 seat gains and control of an additional 12 councils under their belts.
Deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Sophy Ridge it was “a record-breaking set of results for us, and we really exceed all of our own expectation”.
Ms Cooper also didn’t rule out entering a coalition government with Labour, instead saying: “Everything we do between now and the general election will be about focusing on getting the Democrat MP elected.”
She pointed to some key areas in the so-called “Blue Wall” where the party was making an impact.
“Thisweekend there’ll be a number of the Conservative big beasts, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, former prime minister Theresa May, even Nadhim Zahawi, who will have woken up to having a Liberal Democrat run council,” she said.
“And they’ll be looking over their shoulder, knowing that we’re coming for their parliamentary seats at the next general election.”
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2:14
Lib Dems don’t rule out coalition with Labour
The final results
The final tallies from this week’s votes showed Labour with 2,652 seats across local authorities, up by 528, the Tories with 2,287, down by 1,064, and the Lib Dems with 1,615 seats, up by 407.
The Labour wins came in key battleground areas the party had been targeting, including Medway in Kent and Swindon in the South West, as well as Red Wall councils like Stoke-on-Trent.
Meanwhile, the Tories lost control of 49 councils, including Surrey Heath, Staffordshire Moorlands and Central Bedfordshire.
The Green Party also had a good night, adding 241 seats to their total, bring it to 481, and winning an outright majority on a council for the first time.
Image: Projected national estimated vote share
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1:04
‘This is a big swing’ to Labour
Sky News’ election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said that based on analysis of change in vote share across 1,500 wards, Labour was the most popular party with 36%, with the Conservative share 29%, Lib Dems with 18% and others standing at 17%.
And if this week’s results were translated into a national election, Labour would be on course to become the largest party the next time the country went to the polls – gaining 95 seats to an improved total of 298.
But while this figure would be the highest number since Labour won the 2005 general election, it would still be 28 short of an overall majority.
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.
China’s economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year – but it reflects a moment in time before the explosive trade war with the US, which has seen the world’s two biggest economies effectively decouple.
Economists had predicted that gross domestic product would grow by about 5.1% in January to March, compared with a year earlier. In the end, it grew 5.4%.
But these impressive figures obscure the very serious challenges China’s economy is facing in the wake of Donald Tump’s trade war – and it is almost certain growth will not remain this strong as the year goes on.
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It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.