the proud boys group are convicted. and polls havejust the proud boys group are convicted. and polls have just closed after local elections in england. votes for thousands of council seats will now be counted. coronation this saturday. polls have closed. we will have the first reaction from professor sir john curtice. people hoping to get the best in person view on the day are camping in central london this evening as rehearsals and final preparations take place in and around westminster abbey. buckingham palace has revealed that the abbey will be full of seasonal flowers for the occasion and with two yew trees which will be planted at sandringham afterwards. in a series of reports, on tonight s programme we will be looking at the crown that will be used for the first and only time in the king s reign and at the defining moment the coronation will be in the public life of his consort, queen camilla. ourfirst report tonight is from our royal correspondent nicholas witche
But they will give us a huge indicator of our politicians fortunes as we hurtle towards the big contest. The Prime Minister tried to look cheerful on the campaign trail. But hes been under the cosh for many months. If the results are gruesome, could rishi sunak sjob be at risk . Will sir keir starmer be able to show convincing progress tonight . Labours been miles ahead in the National Polls for months though real life votes are what really count. Ed davey and his army of activists want to call time on the tories. In how many parts of the country will they get their way . Thousands of Council Seats are up for grabs, a by election in blackpool, Police Commissioners are being chosen too, and there are elections for those powerful mayors around the country it is the biggest test of Public Opinion before The General Election. Reeta chakrabarti will bring us the numbers as the hours tick by. These are the seats at the main parties are defending. Just under 1000 for the conservatives, and fo
Time that that happened. the last time that most of these seats were up and last fought was in 2019 and you can see on that occasion, both labour and the conservatives had a pretty poor set of results. so we ll be looking to see whether both parties can do better, particularly labour, given their lead in the opinion polls. so the councils that we ll be watching out for during this election, brentwood in essex, which is conservative and the conservatives have been strongly challenged by the liberal democrats there. and the lib dems are the main opposition also in windsor and in south gloucestershire, which is the area just north of bristol. then there are whole swathes of councils which are conservative but used to be labour in the days of tony blair, and they include harlow, tamworth, basildon, redditch, medway and dudley. can labour win back support in those areas? in the labour column we will be looking to see if they can hold onto bolsover which was hung last time it was fought, but
Seats labour have won this new council, 12 seats gained, and what is really important seats gained, and what is really important about this, what labour will take important about this, what labour will take heart from, is that this is a part will take heart from, is that this is a part of will take heart from, is that this is a part of the country with crucial is a part of the country with crucial swing states that the conservatives only won in 2017, you might conservatives only won in 2017, you might remember copeland, the canary in the might remember copeland, the canary in the coat might remember copeland, the canary in the coal mine in 2017, the by election, won by the conservatives, one of the first breaks conservatives, one of the first breaks of conservatives, one of the first breaks of the blue wall to fall. workington man you might remember from the workington man you might remember from the 2019 general election, and according from the 2019 general electio
Is treading water when they are supposed to be making progress, and that would be true if we were comparing it to the 2019 performance, but we are comparing it to the 2018 performance, and the labour party would say that in 2018, the red wall hadn t collapsed. it was not necessarily in the rudest of health, but it hadn t collapsed, so their argument would be, if we can replicate the 2018 performance, which is basically what they have done, if they could replicate that at the next general election, quite at the next general election, quite a few of those seats should tumble back into the labour column, going quite a way to providing keir starmer with the majority or at least the biggest party status that he so craves. but of course it is a risk, because if you only tread water in these places, there is a lot of conservative voters macro in these places who have stayed at home, they have decided to vote for the labour party, they may have voted in protest for an independent or another gr