Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Lord Mandelson, a cabinet minister during the New Labour era and former Hartlepool MP, says "The two Cs - Covid and Corbyn" were the main factors in the party's defeat in the constituency.

He says former leader Mr Corbyn is "still casting a very dark cloud" over the party, and "he still gets them going on the doorstep".

He adds that previous Brexit Party voters switching to the Conservatives and "promises of a large dollop of Tory government money" for the area also played a part.

What the parties in Scotland are saying behind the scenespublished at 09:34 British Summer Time 7 May 2021

09:34 BST 7 May 2021

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

Treat everything you hear over the next few hours with a big dollop of caution. It’s going to be a while before the first results come in.

But from chat with the parties this morning, here are a few things I’m hearing.

The SNP think they have got their vote out – and attracted some new voters. Senior sources say it feels less like 2017, when the party lost a number of seats at a general election, and more like 2019 when they won many back.

We can’t say for sure what that means because the system is complicated, but the SNP are in good spirits over night.

The Tories are too – they think their regional list focus will bear fruit. The Greens are also confident of doing well on the list, with a source suggesting they are on course for a record return.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats are talking up tactical voting in the seats they hold, but both are keeping cards close to their chests when it comes to the list.

As I say, don’t get overexcited by this.

A lot could change over the next few hours, and the data machines they parties have aren’t the same this year because of the pandemic. But it’s a flavour of the chat behind the HQs this morning.

Hartlepool confirms Johnson as a 'vote winner'published at 09:24 British Summer Time 7 May 2021

09:24 BST 7 May 2021

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

The rickety folding tables looked like they could hardly cope with the weight of votes for the Tory's candidate, and now elected MP Jill Mortimer, in Hartlepool.

The result: more evidence for the Conservatives that they are digging further and further into territory where once they were total outsiders.

They didn't just win here, they romped home.

Hartlepool, as it's constituted now, has never had a Tory MP. It's also unusual that governments win by-elections - they are often moments when voters remind the administration of the day who is really in charge.

Not this time.

Boris Johnson's party has also scooped up council seats in places like Harlow and Nuneaton, with swings - at what is still, remember, an early stage - that give the impression the Tories really are consolidating their dominance in England.

Despite a bumpy few weeks, it's a reminder for the Tory party of Mr Johnson's record as an election winner.

The Hartlepool result is not a surprise for Labour. And it's important to remember that about 10,000 people voted for the Brexit Party in 2019 there, and at an early glance it seemed many of those voters switched across to the Tories.

But that doesn't mean it's not a setback. The result is more evidence of the long term shift in politics where areas that had chosen Labour for decades were less and less convinced.

Read Laura's blog in full here.

Image source, Getty Images

The Conservatives win in the Hartlepool by-election has dominated the early headlines this morning. The next headline grabbing set of results could be in Scotland.

We won't get the full results in Scotland until Saturday or Sunday but our Correspondent, Lorna Gordon, external, says nobody doubts that the SNP are going to be returned as the largest party and will have a fourth consecutive term in office.

She says the question really is how big they will win?

We will not have to wait as long for the picture in Wales - the results of elections to the Senedd will come later today.

BBC Wales Westminster Correspondent, Ione Wells, external, says the big question is how much opposition parties can chip away at the dominance that Labour has had since devolution began.

She says in the main this is a defensive election for Labour against the Tories.

Image source, Getty Images

Counting of votes to elect 60 members of the Welsh Senedd and the 129 members of the Scottish Parliament has just got underway.

With counting delayed until Friday due to the coronavirus pandemic most results are expected to be declared in the afternoon and early evening.

Voting also took place for four police and crime commissioners in Wales - those ballots will be counted on Sunday.

You can find all the results as the come in Wales here

And all the results in Scotland will come in here

Two listeners - a Labour voter and a Conservative voter - have told 5 Live's Nicky Campbell where they believe the Labour party is going wrong, following the party's devastating loss in the Hartlepool by-election.

What does Hartlepool result mean for the parties?published at 08:32 British Summer Time 7 May 2021

08:32 BST 7 May 2021

Richard Moss
Political editor, North East & Cumbria

Governments gaining opposition seats in by-elections is not supposed to happen.

But the Conservatives have done just that in Hartlepool, and handsomely.

Labour says this was a battle that came too soon in Keir Starmer’s push to rebuild support.

And it is true that the Tories would probably have won Hartlepool in the 2019 general election, had the Brexit Party not picked up a quarter of the votes.

The movement of that support to Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer does seem to have been crucial to this win. Add to that a vaccine bounce, and Labour says it was always likely to come off second-best.

That will not stop questions though about why Labour continues to lose in constituencies it used to count on, whether the party is heading in the right direction, and Keir Starmer’s appeal to voters in northern towns.

Many of those questions could come from within his own party.

Not only from the Left, but also from Northern MPs who will be wondering if 2019 really was the party’s low point, and whether any seats in the party’s supposed heartlands are truly safe anymore.

For the Conservatives, there are different questions.

Once the celebrations are over, they will have to make good on campaign promises to bring jobs and investment to a community they now represent at Westminster.

They have pinned the blame for high levels of unemployment and poverty on Labour. Now they need to show that backing a Tory really does make a difference to people’s lives and not just the political landscape.

We are picking up suggestions that the Green Party could be living up to their campaign hope of gaining seats from the main parties.

So far they have seen an increase in their votes in places like South Tyneside, Stockport and Colchester.

The co-leader, Jonathan Bartley has been celebrating on Twitter this morning.

Feels like one to watch as the day unfolds.

We've had the first result in the mayoral contests - Labour's Ros Jones has held on to Doncaster.

The results of the other 12 directly-elected mayor results will come over the weekend.

Labour's Paul Williams - who lost the Hartlepool by-election to the Conservatives - has tweeted his thanks to his supporters.

It's the first time in more than 50 years that the Tories have taken the seat.

Curtice: Swing to Tories in Hartlepool not just about Brexitpublished at 08:09 British Summer Time 7 May 2021

08:09 BST 7 May 2021

Labour's loss of the Hartlepool by-election is the most dramatic illustration yet that the party has so far failed to connect with the Leave/working class voters that, the party lost heavily in 2017 and 2019.

Support for the Brexit Party, which registered 26% in 2019, collapsed - the successor Reform party secured just 1% of the vote. It looks as though the Conservatives picked up the Brexit Party's former support, in line with the proportion of Leave voters preferring the Conservatives to Labour to the order of 3/4 to 1.

However, the swing to the Conservatives of 16% is more than can be accounted for by the collapse of the Brexit Party.

Labour's vote fell 9 points to 29%, so the party clearly lost some of its 2019 support, as well as suffering from the movement of Brexit Party voters to the Conservatives. Part of the explanation may lie in the success of independent candidate, Sam Lee, who won 10% of the vote.

Together with the pattern in key wards, there is clearly a debate about whether Labour can win support from Leave voters by ignoring Brexit as it has in the last 12 months.

Hartlepool by-election winner Conservative Jill Mortimer hailed her victory as a "truly historic" result, and pledged to "work tirelessly" for the town.

She said people in the town have "had enough" of Labour, and had "made it clear it's time for a change".

Labour's Diane Abbott has called on party leader Sir Keir Starmer to rethink his strategy, following the 'crushing defeat' in Hartlepool.

Abbott was Labour's shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn.

Reaction to Labour's defeat in Hartlepool is coming in now from the left of the Labour Party.

Momentum, the campaign group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, has called it a "disaster".

The group's co-chair Andrew Scattergood said: "[Keir] Starmer's strategy of isolating the left and replacing meaningful policy with empty buzzwords has comprehensively failed."

And Labour MP Richard Burgon, who chairs the party's Socialist Campaign Group, says the party is "going backwards in areas we need to be winning" and the leadership "needs to urgently change direction".

"It should start by championing the popular policies in our recent manifestos," he adds.

Image source, Getty Images

Concerns about bin collections and the state of the high street are believed to be behind the collapse of Labour's control of the council in Harlow, Essex.

Divisions among Labour councillors also caused concern among voters, it is reported.

But campaigning Conservatives in the area said the vaccine programme came up repeatedly on doorsteps, suggesting the success of the roll-out was a major factor in Tory success.

The Tories also seized Redditch and Nuneaton & Bedworth councils in the Midlands from Labour and saw heavy losses across North East local authorities overnight.

Ballots continue to be tallied up across England, Scotland and Wales following the Super Thursday polls - the largest test of political opinion outside a general election.

The Conservatives gained control of two of the councils that were counted overnight, including taking Harlow in Essex from Labour.

You can find all the results in the English local elections here.

Labour's shadow local government secretary Steve Reed says the result is "absolutely shattering" to Hartlepool, where he thinks the Brexit Party vote from 2019 election "collapsed towards the Conservatives".

He says Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer "never made any bones about the fact we had an electoral mountain to climb" after the party's poor result at that general election.

"It was always going to take more than a year to make this change," he tells BBC News.

But he adds: "People understand we have a new leader, people do not understand that the party has changed, because it frankly hasn't changed enough".

"We need to drive change harder and faster if we're going to win back the trust that has been broken over many, many years between too many British people and the Labour Party".

Massive Tory win in Hartlepool 'an earthquake' for Labourpublished at 07:24 British Summer Time 7 May 2021

07:24 BST 7 May 2021

Chris Mason
Political Correspondent

This is an earthquake.

This morning, for the first time in 56 years, people in Hartlepool are waking up to a Conservative MP.

This is a huge majority for the Tories - a 16% swing from Labour to Conservative - with Jill Mortimer winning by a country mile.

There is a curiosity here: the Conservatives acting as insurgents, kicking Labour as the establishment, despite the fact the Conservatives have been in government for over a decade in Westminster.

The result won't change the maths at Westminster, but it will change the mood.

Recriminations are already beginning in the Labour party. Some - those loyal to Jeremy Corbyn - have been itching to be able to criticise Sir Keir Starmer - this result will give them plenty of opportunity to do that.

The Conservative Party Co-Chairman, Amanda Milling has responded to the Hartlepool result.

She said: “This is a historic result.

“We’re delighted that the people of Hartlepool have put their faith in Jill and the Conservatives to deliver on their priorities: to bring the change, investment and jobs Hartlepool deserves.

“The work to repay that faith starts right now, as we continue with our agenda to level up and build back better from the pandemic.

“I want to pay tribute to Jill Mortimer who will be a fantastic MP and will work tirelessly for the people of Hartlepool.

“And I want to thank the voters of Hartlepool who have put their trust in us to deliver on their priorities”