The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Former Conservative Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, denies that his party's general election strategy is focused on taking voters from UKIP, even though the local elections' results show UKIP has suffered huge losses. 

BBC News Channel

Andrew Gwynne, Labour campaign and elections chair, said his party "must do a lot better" after losing ground to the Conservatives in the local elections.

He told BBC News: "We have got a general election on 8 June. We've got five weeks to determine the future for the next five years for this country and I believe that we now need to get on the ground.

"We need to be knocking on doors, talking to people and reminding them that Labour values are fundamentally the values that the British people support."

BBC News Channel

The BBC's political editor in the Midlands, Patrick Burns, says it could be around three hours before we know the outcome of the West Midlands mayoral election.

With no overall winner in the first round of voting, the race is between Labour and the Conservatives as second preference votes are counted.

"Neither side is displaying a great deal of confidence," Patrick says.

As for other parties, "UKIP, as elsewhere in the country, have performed very badly" while "the Greens have polled tolerably well".

There is also a question of where Lib Dem voters have placed their second preference votes and whether these will benefit the Labour or Conservative candidate more.

Conservative Ben Houchen wins the mayoral election in Tees Valley.

He received 51.1% of the vote to Labour candidate Sue Jeffrey's 48.9%.

Would you believe it - we've got a THIRD drawing of lots! This time it's in Caerphilly - specifically the Newbridge ward.

Leeroy Jeremiah is the lucky man in the 50/50 draw with Kath Baker left cursing her luck.

Professor John Curtice
Polling expert

With over 1,000 of the wards in England where the BBC is collecting the detailed votes cast for each party, we are now in a position to publish a first estimate of the projected national share of the vote.

                          Share     Change since 2013

CON                   38           +13

LAB                     27           -2

LIB DEM              18           +4

UKIP                     5           -18

OTHERS               12           +3   

These figures represent what the share of the vote would have been, had all parts of Great Britain had local elections yesterday and had swung since 2013 in the same way that England did in the county council elections.

This is the highest estimate of Conservative performance in the annual round of English local elections since 2008.

For Labour, in contrast, it is the worst performance since the 2010 general election.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems appear to have performed somewhat better than at any set of local elections since 2010 but their vote is still well down on the 25% or so vote that was commonplace for the party in local elections during the run up to the 2010 general election.

UKIP's projected national share is the lowest since a figure was first calculated for the party in 2013 and represents a further decline in support from the 12% they recorded in last year's local elections.

Brian Taylor
BBC Scotland Political Editor

Is it going to be a question of balance, to borrow an album title from the Moody Blues (Look them up, they were rather good)?  

The SNP is recording gains in various councils – but the Tory advance is consistent. For example, in Aberdeen, the SNP put on seats to become the largest party. The Conservatives put on even more to push Labour into third place. 

This probably reflects the nature of contemporary political discourse in Scotland, defined as it is by attitudes to independence as well as the UK-wide topic of Brexit. 

The SNP have made substantial gains in recent elections, most notably in the 2015 UK General. The Conservatives have, deliberately and precisely, sought to counter that by projecting themselves as the most formidable defenders of the Union, edging out their rivals. 

Remember too that the Scottish Tories used to stand under the banner of the Unionists.  Without changing their name back, they are now doing so again. Days of Future Passed. 

• Keep across my updates and analysis

Conservative - 38%

Labour - 27%

Lib Dem - 18%

UKIP - 5%

Others - 12%

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Despite a "bad night", UKIP will recoup support from Conservative voters, deputy party leader Peter Whittle has said. 

"Over the next two years of these [Brexit] negotiations it will become clear that the government and Theresa May are not walking the walk and you will find political ground coming back to us," he said.   

Image source, PA

With the Lib Dems currently on 10 seats, leader Tim Farron said: "These results tell a clear and stark message. 

"Labour has collapsed. They cannot win the general election.

"If you want a strong opposition to this government, we are the party for you."

The party claimed they were on course to win "scores" of seats. 

Labour's Steve Rotherham won 59.3% of first preference votes to Conservative Tony Caldeira's 20.4%.

Second preference votes are only used to elect the mayor if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. The top two candidates then receive the second preference votes from their eliminated opponents.

The Conservative Party have gained an overall majority, external in the Lancashire local elections.

They needed 43 for a majority and currently have 45 of the 84 seats on Lancashire County Council.   

There was no overall control in the council after the 2013 elections, with Labour the largest party.

Image source, Lancashire CC

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

A senior Labour figure has just described the party's local election results as "catastrophic".

 As the counts continue, this set of results is proving to be very disappointing for Jeremy Corbyn's party. 

Officially the party is of course not as admitting as much, with sources suggesting in fact the result are not as bad as they had expected.

Yet another senior Labour politician, not one of Corbyn's prominent critics says, this is the "third time in a row we have gone backwards. There is no metric under which these results are not very bad."

I can't say enough that we need to be cautious about translating the results directly across to the General Election next month. 

Yet they are a useful barometer of real votes, that set a depressing backdrop for Labour's prospects in June.