Thread by @jburnmurdoch

NEW: what we learned from the local elections
• Tories suffer worst defeat in 24 years
• Lib Dems’ best for 30+ years
• Clear Remain/Leave gradient to Conservative and Labour performances. Tories hammered in Remain areas, Labour stung in Leave areas ft.com/content/9e4c90…

Here are those extreme highs and lows:
• Tories’ worst defeat since under John Major in 1995
• Lib Dems: historical numbers vary, but I have this down as narrowly the most seats they’ve won in a local election since before my dataset begins in 1973 ft.com/content/9e4c90…

Finally, the two-party-share of the national equivalent vote (projected % of votes each party would have got if elections had taken place across the full country):

Lab (28%) + Con (28%) = 56%, down sharply on last year (73%) and even more so relative to the 82% they won in 2017

Conclusions (1/2):
• Tories are ... not in good shape. And this was *without* Brexit Party to compete with. European elections could be brutal
• Labour did much worse than expected, and those losses in Leave areas certainly don’t make Lab backing a second referendum more likely

Conclusions (2/2):
• Without general election on horizon, we shouldn’t read too much into the two party share of the vote. Loads could change.
•That said, without big changes e.g new leader(s) or a popular solution to Brexit (lol), I don’t see that share rising any time soon.

Here ends a 16 hour shift.

⚠️⚠️ One thing I regret not making clearer here:

I'm certainly not saying Labour *should* use losses in Leave areas to double down on Brexit, nor even that lost Leave voters were the key dynamic for Labour — just saying that's what I believe the leadership *will* do.