London Mayor Sadiq Khan promises to "strain every sinew to help build a better and brighter future for London after the dark days of the pandemic".

"I am proud to have won an overwhelming mandate today," he says.

Addressing those Londoners who didn't vote for him he says: "I will never ignore your voice, your concerns or your worries."

He says the city and the country are divided - "the scars of Brexit remain, a crude culture war is pushing us further apart," he adds.

"We must use this moment of national recovery to heal those divisions.

"Coronavirus doesn't care if you are a Brexiteer, a Remainer or woke."

He says it is better to build bridges rather than walls and promises to "build bridges between City Hall and the government".

After two rounds of results, the results are as follows:

• Sadiq Khan (Labour): 1,206,034
• Shaun Bailey (Conservative): 977,601

Labour's Sadiq Khan has won a second term as London Mayor, beating his Conservative rival Shaun Bailey.

Sam Francis
BBC News, London

Image source, bbc

Labour's Sadiq Khan will face Tory rival Shaun Bailey in a run-off to be mayor of London, after neither won a majority in the first round of voting.

Mr Khan, the current mayor, has 40% of first-preference votes while Mr Bailey has 36% with all constituencies declared.

The mayor is elected on a Supplementary Vote system, where each voter can select a first and second preference.

Second-preference votes for both candidates will now be counted.

A record-breaking 20 candidates ran to become the next mayor of London.

If any candidate had received more than 50% of the first preferences they would have won the election outright.

As no winner was found based on first-preference votes, the top two candidates enter a run-off, where their second preferences are added to their total vote.

The final result is expected to be announced later on Saturday night.

Sam Francis
BBC News, London

Image source, Getty Images

Labour is on course to retain its majority on the London assembly, after winning nine of the 14 constituency seats available.

Sadiq Khan is also predicted to be elected mayor of London, putting Labour in charge of both parts of the Greater London Authority.

Membership of the London Assembly is split in two - with 14 representing constituencies representing two boroughs, and the other 11 elected by a party-list system.

The Conservative party won the remaining five constituencies. No constituencies changed hands.

The party-list members will now be decided. These London-wide seats are worked out in a way that benefits parties that did not win constituency seats.

The BBC's polling expert Prof Sir John Curtice projects that Labour will remain the largest party on the London Assembly, with 11 seats once - gaining two from the list system.

This will give Labour one less assembly member than the last term.

In 2016 both Labour and the Conservatives received three more assembly members via the list system. The Green Party won two assembly seats, as did UKIP.

The Liberal Democrats claimed the last remaining seat.

The results of the list-member elections and the mayoral election are expected later tonight.

In the fight between Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, there can only be one winner.

We're still waiting for the London mayor result which BBC London's Political Editor Tim Donovan says will not arrive before 10pm now.

The candidates are currently waiting around at London's City Hall.

Green London Mayoral candidate Sian Berry says the party is expecting a "record number" of councillors and has made gains all around England.

She says the Greens are taking seats from Labour and Tories and attracting voters "fed up of two-party tribalism" who are inspired by their environmentalist message.

With just 13 councils still to declare the Greens have added 70 seats.

Jamie Moreland
BBC London

There has been a lively mood outside London's City Hall as the mayoral candidates gathered ahead of the results announcement.

UKIP's Peter Gammons shared a joke with Rejoin EU's Richard Hewison, and YouTubers Niko Omilana and Max Fosh met, surrounded by their camera crews.

Candidates from the smaller parties soon arrived too, with Steve Keller, Brian Rose, Laurence Fox, Mandu Reid and Piers Corbyn entering through the tight security.

Despite some chants and songs by anti-vaccination protesters, there's a feeling of nervous excitement in the air, even though most candidates are aware of the BBC's projection that Sadiq Khan is likely to win.

Mother-of-two Maria Jane Rawlings was found dead in a bush by a man walking his dog.

Sam Francis
BBC News, London

Labour appears to have retained its majority on the London assembly, after winning nine of the 14 constituency seats available.

Sadiq Khan is also predicted to be elected mayor of London, putting Labour in charge of both parts of the Greater London Authority.

Membership of the London Assembly is split in two - with 14 representing constituencies representing two boroughs, and the other 11 elected by a party-list system.

The Conservative party won the remaining five constituencies. No constituencies changed hands.

The party-list members will now be decided. These London-wide seats are worked out in a way that benefits parties that did not win constituency seats.

In 2016 both Labour and the Conservatives received three more assembly members via the list system. The Green Party won two assembly seats, as did UKIP.

The Liberal Democrats claimed the last remaining seat.

The results of the list-member elections and the mayoral election are expected later tonight.

Sadiq Khan set for London mayor re-election - BBC forecastpublished at 19:42 British Summer Time 8 May 2021

19:42 BST 8 May 2021Breaking

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

On the basis of the 11 constituency mayoral results declared so far, the BBC is projecting that the results of the London mayoral election will be in the first round:

• Khan (Labour) 41
• Bailey (Conservative) 35
• Porritt (Liberal Democrat) 4
• Berry (Green) 8
• Others 12

On the basis of these figures it looks as though Sadiq Khan should be comfortably elected as London mayor once the second preferences have been distributed.

London's next mayor will be declared at around 8.30pm on Saturday night, officials at City Hall have confirmed, with London Assembly results to follow shortly afterwards.

Rain affects Saturday's County Championship fixtures, with six games abandoned without a ball bowled.

Sam Francis
BBC News, London

Image source, PA Media

A candidate standing to be mayor of London has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

Police arrested Valerie Brown, 68, at an address in Islington in the early hours of Saturday morning and taken into custody.

Ms Brown is running to be mayor of London representing Burning Pink, a political party set up as an offshoot to the Extinction Rebellion protest movement.

Police said she was arrested on suspicion of "conspiracy to commit criminal damage at an address in York Way on Friday".

Ms Brown's campaign manager, Ramon Salgado-Touzon, was arrested on Friday after spraying pink paint on the Guardian newspaper's offices, external on York Way.

This is the second time Ms Brown has been arrested during the election campaign. She was one of nine women charged with criminal damage after windows were shattered at HSBC's headquarters in Canary Wharf during a demonstration on 22 April.

Windows were shattered at HSBC's headquarters in Canary Wharf d

The result of the mayoral election in London is expected to be announced tonight - but could take longer if the contest is close.

Jamie Moreland
BBC London

The result of the East Ham Central by-election for Newham Council has been declared, with Labour's Farah Nazeer retaining the seat.

She pledged to "promote the wellbeing of the people of East Ham.

Jamie Moreland
BBC London

The results of four by-elections for Lewisham Council have been declared, with Labour winning all four seats.

Rachel Onikosi won the Bellingham ward, James Royston won Catford South, Samantha Latouche won New Cross and Jack Lavery won Sydenham.

They each promised to represent their area with passion, tackle inequality and celebrate diversity in the borough.

Image source, EPA

A "confusing" ballot paper is being blamed for a record number of rejected ballots in the mayor of London election.

With only half the votes counted 56,358 first preference votes have been rejected - roughly 5% of the total votes counted.

The mayor of London is elected on a Supplementary Vote system, where each voter can choose a first and second preference for mayor.

This year's figure is just short of the current record for the highest number of rejected ballots in the 2004 mayoral election, when 56,874 first preference votes were rejected, roughly 3% of the total votes that year.

Official figures show 47,091 votes were rejected this year because too many votes were cast.

This year saw a record-breaking 20 candidates stand to become mayor of London.

Professor Tony Travers, from the LSE Department of Government, said: "We already knew from previous elections that many people find the two preference opportunity in this election confusing.

"It would appear that this time the number of people using their vote wrongly, and therefore getting the whole vote not counted, is going to be even higher than last time.

"The whole purpose of voting is that everybody knows that their vote counts equally – that’s how the system works."

Mary Harpley, who as Greater London Returning Officer has been in charge of running the mayoral election, said: "We know that the supplementary vote system used to elect the mayor of London can result in spoilt ballot papers.

“In order to help London’s voters this year, we published clear ‘how to vote’ information in the booklet sent to every registered voter, in postal vote packs and on our website, worked in conjunction with major media organisations to run voter education information and supplied polling station staff with explanation notes to pass onto voters.

“However, the record number of 20 mayoral candidates in 2021 made it necessary to split the Mayoral ballot paper into two sections.

“The government intends to move to a first past the post system for the mayor of London election in 2024.”

It's currently a close race in London's mayoral election.

Here's the vote share as it currently stands:

Sadiq Khan, Labour: 39% Shaun Bailey, Conservative: 37% Sian Berry, Green: 7.9% Luisa Porritt, Liberal Democrat: 3.7% Niko Omilana, Independent: 2%Lawrence Fox, Reclaim Party: 1.9%

Police are called to stabbings in Romford and Woolwich, as well as a shooting in Hackney.