Keir Starmer on the brink after elections hammering: Live updates

The Green Party is ‘open to having conversations’ with Plaid Cymru over the next Welsh government, the party’s leader has said.

In a statement, Anthony Slaughter said:

We welcome the defeat of Reform and congratulate Plaid Cymru on their result – this is a victory for everyone who wanted to keep Reform’s divisive, Trumpian politics out of Wales.

We are a welcoming nation – and Wales needs to stay a place where everyone is treated with respect and dignity, and can thrive.

When it comes to the next government of Wales, we are open to having conversations, but no decisions have been made at this point.

In any negotiations we will be looking to deliver on the Green objectives that people voted on in this election – including action to address the cost-of-living crisis, protecting our NHS, fixing the renting crisis and restoring our natural environment.

Based on the results from 129 out of the 136 councils in England that held elections on Thursday, Labour has won 47 per cent of the seats it was defending.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have won 63 per cent of the seats they were defending.

These figures are a comparison with seats the parties held just before the elections took place.

Using the same calculation, at last year’s local elections in England both Labour and the Tories won 33 per cent of the seats they were defending.

Reform UK has won 31 per cent of the seats in which it stood candidates this year, while the Greens have won 12 per cent.

Last year, Reform won 42 per cent of the seats it contested and the Greens won 7 per cent.

Gordon Brown and Sir Keir Starmer were pictured on the steps on Number 10 this morning after the pair met following Labour’s hammering in the local elections.

Brown, a former Labour PM, was handed a new top job of special envoy on global finance.

However, as the pair left and posed for the cameras, Starmer was awkwardly photographed reaching for a handshake that was not returned.

No.10 has confirmed that Gordon Brown has been handed a new job of ‘Special Envoy on Global Finance’.

He was spotted leaving Downing Street this morning after holding a meeting with the Prime Minister.

‘The PM has committed to boosting the country’s security and resilience,’ Number 10 said.

‘In this role, Gordon Brown will advise on how global finance cooperation can help to achieve this.’

Sir Keir Starmer handed Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman new jobs this morning as he attempts to reset following a disastrous series of local election results.

Brown served as Chancellor for ten years, between 1997 and 2007 under the premiership of Tony Blair.

He was then chosen as Prime Minister and was in the job for three years until 2010.

Gordon Brown is meeting with Sir Keir Starmer at Number 10 as part of the Prime Minister’s next steps plan.

The ex-Labour leader was seen exiting Downing Street this morning. Brown shook hands with the PM before walking away.

Starmer is also believed to have met with Harriet Harman, who he has appointed as his adviser on women and girls.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has continued to attract speculation about his ambitions despite publicly denying plans for a leadership tilt, said the Prime Minister will ‘have my support’ in setting out how the Government will move forward on Monday.

But facing questions from reporters on Friday night as he attended the count for Redbridge Council, where Labour clung on to power, he declined to say whether he believed Sir Keir was the right person to lead the party into the next general election.

‘I’ll continue putting my shoulder to the wheel as the Health and Social Care Secretary, who’s getting the NHS back on its feet and making sure it’s fit for the future,’ he said.

Sir Keir Starmer has appointed former deputy leader Baroness Harriet Harman as his adviser on women and girls.

The move comes as he attempts to shore up his position following a bruising set of election results in England, Wales and Scotland.

Lady Harman will work with ministers on work to tackle violence against women and girls, improving job prospects and increasing representation in parliament and public life.

She will work with the head of the civil service to ‘drive a shift in culture’ across the civil service and ministerial offices, No 10 said.

Lady Harman will report directly to the Prime Minister in the unpaid part-time role.

By Elizabeth Ivens, Mail on Sunday reporter

Labour backbencher Debbie Abrahams said she believes the Prime Minister should ‘put the country first’ and if he could not get it right, she forecasted he would be ‘gone within months’.

The left wing MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, a former supporter of ex Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, said today: ‘I think it is a matter of months.

‘I think there needs to be a step change not just in our communications but in our culture and within the party and how that then ensures there is delivery in local areas and people can see that.’

The Labour Party suffered a catastrophic result in her region in north west England where it lost nine out of 12 seats in Oldham borough.

Ms Abraham told the BBC that when she was out in her constituency ‘the usual refrain is that ‘we like you Debbie but we have concerns about your leader’ and warned that the party’s failure to get it right as soon as they were elected was to blame.

The Conservatives and Reform must now form a pact to ‘unite the Right’ ahead of the next election to prevent a hard-Left government, a senior Tory has warned.

Analysis shows that if the local election results were transferred to a general election, Reform UK would fall well short of an overall majority in the Commons.

Tory grandee Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘What this shows is the need to reunite the Right.

‘Reform are doing extremely well in places that voted Leave. The Conservatives are showing they can still do well in less Brexity areas. If you combine the two you have an unstoppable force.

‘The alternative is that you have a general election where Reform are in the mid-20s, the Conservatives are in the low-20s and you end up with a governing coalition of the Left.’

An open-collared, stony-eyed Keir Starmer got in his self-denials early. As demolition day began, the PM insisted he was ‘not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos’.

Four times he did that telephone-tree thing of repeating a message, no matter what had just been said. He kept saying the results were ‘tough’, as if they were some slice of undercooked pork. That another person had cooked.

Responding to election losses is miserable for any politician. Such moments do give us voters fleeting vengeance on the boobies who govern us but the catharsis is better when the politicians show emotion.

Sir Keir just kept mechanically blurping, ‘I am not going to walk away’.

While the nasal knight was indoors at a Methodist hall in Ealing, surrounded by droopy bunting, Nigel Farage was on the far side of London in the sunshine, flanked by gurning Reformers. Behind them stood Havering town hall, built in 1937 in the international moderne style. It was, cried Mr Farage in his pint-of-gin voice, ‘under new management!’

A suntanned, blue-suited Farage clutched the signet ring on his left hand’s pinkie. There was much gassy laughter as he eyed his succulent prospects. Should Sir Keir quit? Farage hoped not. ‘He’s our best asset!’

Read the full sketch below:

Donald Trump has congratulated John Swinney on his election victory in Scotland.

The US president described him as a ‘good man’ who had worked ‘very hard’ with respect to tariff relief for ‘great Scottish whiskey’.

The SNP won 58 seats in Holyrood and are the largest party – but failed to gain a majority.

Mr Swinney was re-elected as First Minister of Scotland.