Badenoch apologises for local election ‘bloodbath’ in op-ed
Kemi Badenoch has apologised for the “bloodbath” of the local elections in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the Telegraph.
The Conservative party leader wote:
After last year’s historic defeat, and with protest votes cutting across every ballot box, we knew Thursday would be hard. I’m deeply sorry to see so many capable, hard-working Conservative councillors lose their seats. They didn’t deserve it – and they weren’t the reason we lost.
In the piece, Badenoch explained that as party members were voting in the final round of the Conservative party leadership contest, an unnamed male MP took her aside in parliament and warned “the May 2025 locals are going to be a total bloodbath”. She acknowledged that the prediction was right: “The results confirm he was correct. But to be honest, it wasn’t a controversial prediction to make.”
She added:
These local election results show the scale of the work needed to rebuild trust in the Conservative party and the importance of redoubling our efforts to show that this party is under new leadership and is doing things differently.
Key events
Keir Starmer has congratulated Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on his election victory.
In a statement shared on X, Starmer said:
Congratulations to Anthony Albanese on your election win. The UK and Australia are as close as ever – which goes to show that long-distance friendships can be the strongest.
I know that we will continue to work together on our shared ambitions, including on trade, investment and energy, working towards a better life for working people in the UK and Australia.
Our collaboration on defence, especially the Aukus programme, will continue to grow, and as fellow steadfast supporters of Ukraine we will continue to stand together against Putin’s illegal war for as long as it takes.
Not one to miss the opportunity for a photo opportunity and a pun, Ed Davey has been out playing cricket today while claiming that the Conservatives are “on their last innings”.
The Liberal Democrat leader joined Wiltshire Lib Dem group leader councillor Ian Thorn, local councillors and campaigners at the Harnham recreation ground in Salisbury.
Davey said:
The Conservatives are on their last innings and we’re on track to overtake them at the next general election. Middle England put its faith in us because they are appalled by Kemi Badenoch’s lurch to the right and pandering to Farage. I’m calling on everyone who is alarmed about the future of our country to join us.
In Wiltshire we kicked the Conservatives out of control and are now the largest party, just like we have done in so many other parts of the country, from Devon to Gloucestershire.
The Liberal Democrats are now the second largest party of local government, and we’re on track to overtake the Conservatives at the next general election.
Kemi Badenoch doesn’t understand what was wrong with her sneering remarks about us being the party who would fix your church roof. Across the country, voters have chosen our community politics over the Conservatives’ division and disdain.
As the Tories faced the Reform UK surge in the north and parts of the Midlands, the Liberal Democrats put the squeeze on their vote farther south, gaining more than 100 councillors, PA reports.
The Lib Dems gained 163 councillors across the 23 councils in this election.
“If you’re appalled by lurch to the right by Reform and the others, come and join the Liberal Democrats because we’re the ones taking the challenge to Reform,” Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson told the BBC.
Reform UK have captured the headlines, but the Green party made some gains in these local elections too. The Greens gained 44 councillors across the 23 councils in this election.
“Following Thursday’s election we’ve reached a new record high 859 councillors on 181 councils! The Green party is the only party offering a real alternative to the tired old parties,” the party’s official X account said.
Kim Leadbeater: Assisted dying is about ‘human cost’ not ‘pounds and pence’
Assisted dying is about the “human cost” and not pounds and pence, the MP behind the proposed legislation has said after an assessment of the potential costs, PA reports.
An impact assessment into the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill was published on Friday, exactly a fortnight before the next Commons debate on the proposed new law. It set out estimates for how many people might apply and go on to have an assisted death, as well as potential costs of the service and reduced end-of-life care costs.
“It’s a very uneasy sort of conversation to have,” Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the bill, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She added:
Because for me, assisted dying and giving people the choice at the end of their life when they’re facing a terminal illness is about the human cost. It’s not about pounds and pence.
The assessment estimated that assisted dying could cut end-of-life care costs by as much as an estimated £10m in the first year and almost £60m after 10 years. It noted that reducing those costs “is not stated as an objective of the policy” but some have expressed concerns that this could put pressure on people to end their lives.
Writing in the Times on Saturday, the prime minister insisted there was “tangible proof that things are finally beginning to go in the right direction”, although he said he was not satisfied with where the country was.
Keir Starmer wote:
I am acutely aware that people aren’t yet feeling the benefits. That’s what they told us last night. Until they do, I will wake up every morning determined to go further and faster.
Starmer signalled his priorities as he pledged to deliver “more money in your pocket, lower NHS waiting lists, lower immigration numbers”.
Nigel Farage has hailed his party’s “unprecedented” results in the local elections.
In a post on X on Saturday, the Reform UK leader wrote:
In postwar Britain, no one has ever beaten both Labour and the Tories in a local election before.
These results are unprecedented.
In case you want to see the full mayoral and council results from Thursday’s elections, you can find them in the Guardian’s tracker here:
Yesterday, Nigel Farage warned council staff working on diversity or climate change initiatives to seek “alternative careers”.
Today, a newly elected Reform UK councillor said Durham county council would be “getting the auditors in” right away to slash spending in areas like net zero and green initiatives.
“We’re getting the auditors in to see … actually what those jobs are, and if they’re good value for money, and if they’re not, well, the answer is, ‘Yeah, goodbye’,” Darren Grimes, a Durham councillor and former GB News presenter told the BBC’s Today programme.
Cash spent on such programmes is “vanishingly small” and discretionary spending for councils is mostly spent on social care, libraries and filling in potholes, Tony Travers, a professor of public policy at the LSE, told the programme, according to the PA news agency.
Paula Surridge
Reform UK’s victories are just the latest chapter of political fragmentation, writes Prof Paula Surridge, the deputy director at UK in a Changing Europe and professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol.
Nigel Farage’s party has benefited this time as voters flee the main parties, but there are faultlines within its own coalition too, Surridge adds. You can read Surridge’s full analysis here:
Helen Livingstone
Saturday papers in the UK were dominated by the Reform party’s victory at the polls, in which it gained an MP at Labour’s expense and won a string of local councils.
A jubilant Nigel Farage said his hard-right populist party had now supplanted the Conservatives and pledged that Reform-run councils and mayoralties would block asylum seeker accommodation and dismantle equalities programmes.
The Guardian’s front page led with “Reform wins ‘beginning of end for Tories’, says Farage”, adding that it was a “sobering day” for prime minister Keir Starmer and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.
You can see how other papers reported on the local elections here: