UK Conservatives suffer 'terrible' night of local election losses
UK Conservatives, who have been in power for over a decade, have suffered what has been described as a "terrible" defeat in local elections which is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's first major electoral test since he took office last year.
Early results on Friday showed that Sunak's Conservatives lost nine councils adding to a possible one thousand of the 8,000 council seats in local government authorities, which have responsibility for the day-to-day provision of public services such as bin collections and schools, while the main opposition Labor Party led by Sir Keir Starmer was on course to win the elections.
The Conservative Party is in "considerable electoral trouble," John Curtice, Britain's best-known pollster said.
Johnny Mercer, a member of parliament for Plymouth, said it had been a "terrible" night for the Conservatives.
However, a full picture of the Conservatives' dire situation will not be clear until later on Friday when most of the councils will announce their results.
A former Conservative minister and a member of the upper House of Lords, said the poor results in the latest elections reflect the political and economic chaos of the last year.
In the past year, the Conservatives changed prime ministers three times as the nation reeled from a high cost-of-living crisis and soaring inflation leading to a multitude of strikes and protests across the country.
Sunak, who came into office in October promising the people to deliver on their priorities to revive his party's fortunes, has failed to do much in this regard.
In an interview with UK media, however, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed he was "improving the situation, but he started miles behind and he's got a hell of a job to do to try and close the gap."
In the meantime, Labor claimed it was on course to win the next general election with an eight-point lead over the Conservatives.
Starmer has promised to revive the UK economy, improve public services and take the government out of an “endless cycle of crisis” if he is chosen to lead the country at its next general election.
Speaking at the Labor party’s annual conference in Liverpool in September, he urged voters not to “forget” or “forgive” the economic hardships slapped on them by the Conservatives.
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