Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

Labour sources say they have won West Midlands mayoral election.

Image source, Liam Byrne

Labour MP Liam Byrne has just posted a picture of himself cheering alongside Richard Parker, the party's candidate in the West Midlands, to social media.

Byrne is a long-standing MP and represents the Birmingham constituency of Hodge Hill.

A sign of growing confidence in the Labour camp?

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

One nugget for you as we wait for Sandwell to complete the West Midlands result.

In the council elections - Labour made gains in the area.

They won five extra seats, while the Conservatives lost six.

That doesn't tell us for sure what will happen with the mayoral race.

But it's useful context.

Image source, .

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

With Sandwell the last local authority to declare in the West Midlands mayoral contest, Labour need to win Sandwell by at least 11,456 votes.

In the last contest, Labour were 5,171 votes ahead of the Conservatives. So all now turns on whether Labour can win over 3,143 Conservative votes into their camp.

Our modelling of the results so far suggests Labour may well achieve this.

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

We've just reported the result for Coventry in the mayoral election - a win for Labour's Richard Parker.

The swing since 2021 is 6.1% from Conservative to Labour - and that is commensurate with what is required in both Coventry and Sandwell for Labour to unseat Andy Street.

Labour candidate Richard Parker has won in the Coventry part of the West Midlands mayoral contest, following a full recount.

He won 32,704 votes to incumbent West Midlands Mayor Andy Street's 23,237.

It leaves Street ahead by more than 11,400 overall, with Sandwell the only council yet to declare.

With Coventry about to declare, here's the state of play in the West Midlands.

Current Conservative mayor Andy Street has won in three of a possible seven constituencies, while Labour's Richard Parker has claimed two areas.

While we wait for the final two areas, Sandwell and Coventry, to declare, here's a look at the results so far:

Solihull

Street - 35,289

Parker - 11,728

Wolverhampton

Street - 18,582

Parker - 26,442

Birmingham

Street - 66,296

Parker - 80,251

Walsall

Street - 24,735

Parker - 18,097

Dudley

Street - 37,345

Parker - 24,807

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from Birmingham

Coventry is set to declare shortly in the West Midlands mayoral race, leaving just Sandwell to declare - where a bundle check has been taking place.

There has been a recount in Coventry.

With two areas to go, it's very tight in the West Midlandspublished at 18:56 British Summer Time 4 May

18:56 BST 4 May

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

So far in the local authorities in the West Midlands where results have been declared, the swing from Conservative to Labour is 3.8% - somewhat short of the 4.5% overall swing that Labour needs to win the mayoral contest.

If Labour is to win, they will need to secure a swing of 5.45% in the two remaining counts yet to declare - Coventry and Sandwell.

However, the swing was above that in three of the five local authority areas which have now declared.

This probably helps to explain why the Conservatives are hoping that a recount in Coventry might yet enable Andy Street to remain in office.

Rajini Vaidyanathan
Reporting from Birmingham

As votes continue to be counted in the West Midlands Mayoral contest, it’s worth noting just how well a relatively unknown independent candidate has done in some of the results so far.

Akhmed Yakoob – who campaigned on the issue of Gaza - won a sizeable 42,923 votes in the Birmingham part of the result, coming third there.

Labour’s Jess Phillips, a Birmingham MP, tells me on the BBC News channel she believes her party’s initial refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza has cost them votes.

“I’d be lying if I said if I said this hasn’t been an issue that hurt the Labour party in this election," she says.

Phillips quit the shadow front bench last year over Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the ongoing conflict

"This is a political issue that the people here care about," she adds.

Whatever the outcome here in the West Midlands, she believes her party needs to “listen to what is being said to us".

But overall, Phillips does believe that Labour has "many reasons to be cheerful.. the votes are building up in areas that we need to win in the general election".

The focus for much of the day has been on council and mayoral elections, but we've also had results coming in for police and crime commissioners.

Today, Conservatives held Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Thames Valley, Wiltshire, and Dorset, though they also saw their vote share generally fall.

Labour candidates held Merseyside and the West Midlands, while in Cheshire Labour's Dan Price ousted Conservative incumbent John Dwyer.

Of a total of 37 races, results have now been declared in 35, with only Sussex and Kent still to come.

The recount in the West Midlands mayoral race shows the Conservatives have done "extremely well" in "core Labour territory", local MP Andrew Mitchell says.

Ballots are being counted again in Coventry, one of seven areas that make up the region, and the vote is believed to be close-run between Conservative incumbent Andy Street and Labour's Richard Parker.

Mitchell, who represents the Birmingham seat of Sutton Coldfield, tells BBC News that “on any objective basis Labour would win this mayoralty by miles and miles”.

“If Andy Street is even in contention here, that is a very good result for the Conservative Party,” he says.

When it is put to him that the Conservative Party brand had not featured heavily in Street's campaign literature, Mitchell says many voted for him “because he was Andy Street and because he was a Conservative”.

Asked whether he expects it to be a long night while recounts are carried out, he replies: “I think it may be”.

Leaving the West Midlands for a moment - Labour's Paul Dennett has been re-elected for a third term as Mayor of Salford.

Dennett, who was first elected in 2016, received 30,753 votes, almost three times as many as his nearest rival, Conservative Jillian Collinson, who got 10,930.

The position is different from metro mayors, who oversee a whole region, and serves as the effective head of Salford City Council, one of the constituent authorities of Greater Manchester.

Dennett said it was a "huge honour" to continue in the "most humbling and rewarding" job and that the role was one he would "never take for granted".

Street close, but currently behindpublished at 18:08 British Summer Time 4 May

18:08 BST 4 May

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from Birmingham

It was beginning to look as if the best way to be elected mayor was to be mayor already. The power of incumbency.

From the Tees Valley to West and South Yorkshire, from London to Manchester and Liverpool, mayors re-elected.

But hang on. There are dollops of jeopardy here in the West Midlands. In a region of millions, I’m told it’s coming down to a few thousand votes.

To be a mayor is to be on a pedestal; on purpose – regional figures with an ambassadorial role, affording them a national stage. The personal brand elevated above the party one; if a candidate so chooses.

And boy Andy Street chose just that. He is, make no mistake, a proud Conservative. But he wears his affiliation lightly.

It afforded Tories optimism he could buck the national trend. And he is close, but currently behind.

Rishi Sunak had hoped Street would provide a second beam of positivity for him, alongside Ben Houchen’s victory in the Tees Valley; another bright spot in a cavern of Tory gloom.

But that now could be turned off – and so underlines yet further how bleak a few days the electorate is exacting upon the prime minister.

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from Birmingham

Senior Conservative and Labour sources now think the West Midlands Mayoral contest currently has under 2,000 votes in it, across the whole region.

The recount in Coventry continues.

The Birmingham part of the West Midlands result has been declared.

Labour's candidate Richard Parker came out on top with 80,251 votes.

The Conservatives came in second, with candidate Andy Street - currently the West Midlands mayor - winning 66,296 votes.

Independent Akhmed Yakoob came next, with 42,923.

As a reminder, Birmingham is one of the seven areas that make up the West Midlands electoral region.

Rajini Vaidyanathan
Reporting from Birmingham

Mayoral candidates are taking their places at the front of stage here in Birmingham, where the results are expected imminently.

As a reminder: this isn't the result for the West Midlands mayoral election, only the Birmingham part of it.

Susan Hall, the Conservative mayoral candidate, is speaking now. She starts by congratulating Sadiq Khan.

She continues by telling Khan he "owes it" to the families who have lost lives to knife crime under his leadership to improve the police's record on crime.

"This is isn't an episode of The Wire, this is real life on his watch," Hall adds, referencing an earlier disagreement with Khan.

"Our brightest days are still ahead of us," Khan concludes, to roaring applause in the room.

He finishes his speech thanking all Londoners, who he says make the city the "greatest" in the world.

Khan continues, promising Londoners "to repay the trust you've placed in me" and deliver a "fairer, safer and greener" city.

He says the last few months have been difficult, facing "non-stop negativity".

Khan says his campaign has "answered fear-mongering with facts", and countered attempts to divide with efforts to unite.