IT'S A CONSERVATIVE EPOCH:

They called it 'Super Thursday', yet for Keir Starmer's Labour, it was anything but. As well as losing the Hartlepool by-election--where a Labour majority of just under 3,600 was converted into a Tory one of nearly 7,000--the party shed more than 300 councillors, and lost its majorities on councils as diverse as County Durham (which it had held continuously since 1925) and Bristol, where the Greens made major inroads despite Labour hanging on to the city mayoralty and winning the wider West of England mayoralty.

Sadiq Khan retained the London mayoralty but in unconvincing style, winning 40% of the first-round vote against 35% for the hapless Shaun Bailey, whose campaign had been all but abandoned by Tory Party HQ prior to the election. In Scotland, meanwhile, despite the media hype around new Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, it posted its worst ever Holyrood result, losing both parliamentary seats and vote share. However, that didn't stop Starmer hailing the Scottish campaign as a success in a post-election call with party staff.

There were some bright spots for Labour, though it would be difficult for Starmer to claim any personal credit for them. In Wales, for example, where Welsh Labour under Mark Drakeford has again positioned itself somewhat to the left of the Westminster leadership, the party won 30 seats in the Senedd--just one short of an overall majority--and will lead the next Welsh government. Andy Burnham was re-elected as Greater Manchester mayor by a landslide, and is again being talked up as a potential future contender for the Labour leadership.

Labour's left-led councils in Preston and Salford also enjoyed successes; in Preston, the party won all the seats it was defending--a clear vote of confidence in the council's widely-praised community wealth building model--while in Salford, socialist mayor Paul Dennett won his election with 59% of first preference votes, and Labour also gained a seat in the previously rock-solid Tory ward of Worsley and Westwood Park. Keir Starmer, it should be noted, made no mention of either Preston or Salford during the local election campaign.

The Labour right, having spent the run-up to the elections getting its pre-emptive excuses in, was quick to propagate its factional lines via the media before most of the results had even come in. Frontbenchers Steve Reed and Bridget Phillipson, for instance, both insisted that the disappointing showing was evidence that the party hadn't changed quickly enough. We know what sort of change they have in mind: ditching whatever remains of the Corbyn-era policy programme and escalating the ongoing factional war on the Labour left.

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