Bridget Phillipson tells LBC Labour ‘expecting’ losses in local elections as they are 'traditionally Tory councils'
2 May 2025, 02:03 | Updated: 2 May 2025, 07:05
Bridget Phillipson isn't too worried about tonight's local election results as they're 'traditionally Conservative councils'
Bridget Phillipson told LBC’s Ben Kentish she isn't too worried about tonight's local election results as they're 'traditionally Conservative councils'.
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It comes as counts are in progress across England after polls closed in a series of elections which could see Nigel Farage’s Reform UK deal blows to both Labour and the Conservatives.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour faces a battle to hold on to the Runcorn and Helsby seat in the Commons, with Reform hoping to take a seat the governing party won convincingly at the 2024 general election.
But Bridget Phillipson has said that Labour was 'expecting' the results after Ben Kentish said her party 'should be winning seats, not losing them'.
The Education Secretary said “The Majority of councils that are up thus evening are traditionally Conservative councils - often that have been conservative for decades.
"So you know we wouldn't have been expecting anything else really in that sense," hinting that Labour was expecting to suffer a number of blows tonight.
"But you know during the campaign I think what we've also seen is the talk from Robert Jenrick and others about the kind of the packs that they're anticipating with reform - the Tories are in free fall really," she added.
Robert Jenrick was the runner-up behind Kemi Badenoch in the Tory leadership election, and had suggested the Tories could work together with Reform as a coalition during the next general election.
"You would expect the main opposition party at this point to be making a bit more progress given how devastating that defeat was," Phillipson continued.
"I mean, all I've heard from the various interactions I've had in studios like this this evening so far is just a real lack of understanding from the conservatives about what happened last year."
Kemi Badenoch faces her first test as Tory leader with the party braced for a difficult set of results, with both Reform and the Liberal Democrats hopeful of stealing council seats last contested in 2021 at the height of Boris Johnson’s popularity with Conservative voters.
The Runcorn and Helsby by-election was triggered when former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting punching a constituent.
The 2024 result suggests it should be a safe Labour seat – Amesbury won 53% of the vote – but Reform’s Sarah Pochin is the bookmakers’ favourite to secure a by-election victory.
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More than 1,600 council seats are up for grabs across 23 local authorities, while four regional mayors and two local mayors will be elected.
Mr Farage said he wanted to “smash the two-party system”.
But Sir Keir said voters faced a clear choice between Labour politicians “working together to bring change to Britain” or “chaos and division with parties who have no plan for change”.
Mrs Badenoch said the Tories would offer “better services and lower taxes” but she has acknowledged her party faces a tough set of results.
A Tory spokesman said: “Tonight will be the first real test of Keir Starmer’s Labour government, 10 months after they won an unprecedented majority at the general election.
“The Conservatives have started on the process of renewing our party under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership.
“But we also have always been clear that these would be tough elections for the party – defending an incredibly high watermark from 2021 when we took two-thirds of all seats.
“If the 2024 general election was replicated on today’s battleground, we would lose control of almost every single council.”
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said Mrs Badenoch faced “a reckoning at the ballot box as former Conservative voters across the home counties rally behind the Liberal Democrats”.
Davey was optimistic about his party's prospects as polls closed.
"We are expecting to see big gains against the Conservatives in their former Middle England heartlands," he said.
"Last year the Liberal Democrats won a record number of MPs and became the largest third party in 100 years. Now we are on course for our seventh year of local election gains, making this our best ever winning streak.
"Voters have delivered their verdict on a Conservative Party that broke the country and a Labour government that is too timid to fix it."
