Local elections 2024: Live polling day updates as activists urged to give mayor candidates final push

Voters up and down the country are heading to the polls today in the last set of local elections before the next general election.

Though there are comparatively few local council elections this year, every person across England and Wales will have the chance to vote, as there will also be police and crime commissioner elections, combined authority metro mayoral elections and elections for the London Assembly and London mayor. Voters in Blackpool South will also be electing their new MP.

See below for updates, photos and more from the campaign trail as it happened today – we’re ending this blog now but we’ll be back with updates in a new results live-blog from around 10pm once polls close, counts begin and a flavour of the results in key battlegrounds starts to emerge.

It’s also worth signing up to our must-read newsletter for updates and analysis on Friday and Saturday as results come in – and if you can do your bit to sustain and expand our coverage as the leading dedicated media platform for all things Labour, please donate here.

4.10pm: Half pub, half polling station

You thought you’d seen it all with a car-turned-polling-booth? One reader just got in touch with this impressive two-for-one:

Reader Adrian Colwell writes: “I thought you might like this picture. I came to the Fox and Hounds at Christmas Common near Watlington in the Chilterns today for lunch. Half the pub is a polling station and the other half selling classic food and beverages. Great food too.

“This is why we live in a great country. A place where you have the opportunity to cast your vote, to have a refreshing pint and eat some great food! All the best to Labour List. You remain essential.”

3.50pm: Still a chance to help Sadiq Khan

London Labour is appealing for supporters to volunteer in the final few hours of the mayoral campaign.

We’re impressed to see just how young one of those out and about on the doorstep is – this from Chipping Barnet parliamentary candidate Dan Tomlinson:

3.15pm: Could the narrative shift as election results come in?

Luke Tryl, director of focus group and polling experts More in Common, told The News Agents that the order of results means there is a potential for the narrative to shift “quite dramatically” from when the polls close all the way to Saturday evening. Tryl in particularly highlighted the Blackpool South by-election, the West Midlands mayoral election, and several other key council races.

3.00pm: ‘It’s not over yet’, says Labour Tees Valley candidate

Chris McEwan has been out to vote with his wife Amanda. He has thanked everyone who has been involved in his campaign to oust Ben Houchen as Tees Valley mayor, but said “it is not over yet”.

“Please if you haven’t already, get out and vote Labour and remind your family and friends,” he said.

2.45pm: ‘Feeling extremely close’

Activists have been out campaigning in Nuneaton and Bedworth for their council elections today. Here, the Tories need to lose eight seats to lose their majority control, with all 38 seats being up for grabs.

One campaigner said that, in the Slough ward of Bedworth, “things are feeling extremely close”. They said: “It’s just a very evenly distributed vote between Labour and the Tories in the ward – the hardest majority to overturn.

“I understand it is feeling relatively positive in the other wards.”

2.30pm: Labour’s Blackpool South candidate in drive for votes

Chris Webb, Labour’s candidate for Blackpool South, has urged voters to “elect the first Blackpool born MP in 60 years”.

2.15pm: ‘Make change happen’, says Hastings Labour candidate

Hastings and Rye Labour candidate Helena Dollimore has urged people to come to the Sussex town and get out the Labour vote.

In a post on X, she said: “It’s so important that we send Rishi Sunak a message today that the country wants change with Labour and the country wants a general election.”

2.00pm: Loughborough candidate leafletting for election

1.45pm: Worthing candidate meets voters

Beccy Cooper, Labour’s candidate for Worthing West, has been out voting and seen “lots of lovely, smiling faces at the polling station”.

1.30pm: Richard Parker casts vote

Labour’s mayoral candidate for the West Midlands Richard Parker has cast his vote. Parker is facing a close race with incumbent Conservative mayor Andy Street.

1.10pm: What Blackpool’s deckchairs can tell us about the by-election

Voters in Blackpool South will also be voting in a parliamentary by-election after disgraced former Conservative MP Scott Benton was booted out by a recall petition.

While Labour has won a series of by-elections with huge swings, Tom Baldwin said in a piece for LabourList that “no-one should expect Labour to win on the kind of swing it got in other recent by-elections”.

Read the full story here.

12.50pm: Cambridge voters cast ballot in a car

This isn’t something you see every day…send us your best car-related political puns at [email protected] or on X. ‘Car poll hokey-cokey’, anyone?

12.25pm: MPs hit the doorstep for a final push

Some snaps from MPs getting out the vote today:

12.15pm: Anna Soubry and ex-Johnson adviser vote Labour

Not quite breaking news but…I’ve just seen former Tory MP Anna Soubry said yesterday she’d be voting Labour today.

She said on X she’d be casting her vote for Leicestershire police and crime commissioner candidate Rory Palmer, as he’s the best candidate, it sends a “clear message” we need a general election, and it “takes us closer to getting Keir Starmer into Number 10”.

Meanwhile Iain Anderson, a former adviser to Boris Johnson who quit the Tories last year and has been providing business advice to Labour, said he was voting Labour for the first time:

11.40am: Keir Starmer casts vote for Sadiq Khan

Keir Starmer has cast his vote at his local polling station for Sadiq Khan and Labour’s London Assembly candidates.

In a post on X, he said: “Voting Labour is the first step towards a decade of national renewal.”

11.20am: ‘We want to show Labour can demolish the blue wall’

North Hertfordshire is another key area Labour will need to win in order to be on track to secure a majority at the next general election. With every council seat up for grabs, Labour is in a battle with the Liberal Democrats to capitalise on a collapse in Conservative support.

Morgan Jones spent the eve of poll in North Hertfordshire, where campaigners told her voters are sick of the Tories and that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been attempting to position themselves as the main opposition to capture disaffected Tory votes.

Read the full story here.

10.55am: Dudley – where Labour cannot afford to lose

Dudley, where Labour launched its local elections campaign, is a must-win today. The Black County town would be an important symbolic victory for labour nationally to win in Dudley – given former Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose it for a major speech on levelling up in 2020.

LabourList’s Tom Belger met voters in Dudley, where some told him they will never vote Conservative again.

Read the full story here.

10.10am: Starmer’s message on polling day

The Labour leader has posted on X this morning: “Our country desperately needs change – but it can only happen if you vote for it. That starts by voting Labour today. Together, we can get Britain’s future back.”

He has written for The Mirror too here on his big-picture pitch to voters. This was his eve-of-polls video pitch too last night:

10.05am: Which contests should we watch most closely?

National executive committee member Luke Akehurst has written his annual piece for us on what a good set of results would look like for Labour. He picks out councils including Harlow, Thurrock, Bolton, Burnley, Cannock Chase, Dudley and Milton Keynes as places Labour will be looking to make gains.

Meanwhile Local Government Information Unit chief executive Jonathan Carr-West has also written for us on the key councils to watch and tests for Labour, writing that the “major expected shifts” are within the current ‘no overall control’ councils.

And our own Katie Neame has done a round-up of some of the interesting contests to watch as we look ahead to the general election, including Swindon and Worcester – though pollster John Curtice did stress in a recent interview that the locals “should not be used to project what the result of the general election would be”…

Inevitably a series of metro mayoral contests will also garner a lot of attention, from tight Tory-Labour races in Tees Valley and West Midlands to the red-on-red contest in the North East.

10am: What are the key elections today?

Polls are open in this year’s local elections. According to the Local Government Information Unit, 107 local council elections are taking place, with many of the seats up for election last contested in 2021.

There will be elections for ten metro mayors, representing South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Tees Valley, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, London, York and North Yorkshire, the East Midlands and the North East (the latter three of which are new positions), as well as for the mayor of Salford.

Voters in London will also elect London Assembly members, and further elections will take place across England and Wales for 37 police and crime commissioners. No elections are happening in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

A by-election in Blackpool South will also take place today, following the resignation of former Conservative MP Scott Benton, with Labour’s Chris Webb seeking to overturn the Conservatives’ majority of 3,690 votes.

Read more of our coverage of the 2024 local elections here.

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