The second day of counting is underway for the London elections, with the London Assembly and London Mayor races still to be decided, so what is the state of play going into the day?
London Mayor
With half of the counting for the London Mayor election done, Sadiq Khan is holding a narrow 2% lead over Shaun Bailey.
Bailey’s team were very pleased with his performance yesterday and have been telling the press they believe they have a good chance to win, and certainly the race is tighter at this stage than many imagined it would be.
However, Khan remains favourite, with better Labour results predicted today, and a hefty lead on second preference votes, which are set to be all important if the race – as expected – goes to a run-off.
The Green Party’s Sian Berry is third with 8% of the vote, and the Liberal Democrats’ Luisa Porritt is fourth with below 4%, but the Lib Dems are also hoping for better results today, with the likes of Kingston and Richmond still to be counted.
Results for the London Mayor election are expected hopefully this evening, but very possibly first thing tomorrow. Follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day.
London Assembly Constituencies
Seven London Assembly Members were elected yesterday – four Labour and three Conservative. In south west London, the West Central seat went to Tony Devenish whilst Labour’s Marina Ahmad romped home in Lambeth & Southwark.
All seven seats counted yesterday voted the same way as they did in 2016, with no clear pattern as to which way the vote was swinging overall.
Labour, who held 12 of the 25 seats going into this election, need another strong day today, and held five of the remaining seven constituency seats.
Whilst they will feel confident about winning the majority of those, the picture looks slightly different in south west London.
Croydon & Sutton was a Conservative victory in 2016, as was South West, with the latter expected to be a three-way close contest, as the Liberal Democrats’ Gareth Roberts is popular in Richmond and Kingston.
The real nail-biter is expected to be Merton & Wandsworth, where Leonie Cooper won by just over 4,000 votes in 2016 and South West Londoner’s sources say Conservatives are quietly confident that low turnout this time round will enable them to steal the seat.
With three south west London seats up for grabs, there’s a real possibility for some drama this afternoon and into the evening, as at least two of those seats could go either way.
London-wide Assembly
The remaining 11 London-wide Assembly seats are divided by a complicated representational system that takes into account how the 14 Assembly constituency seats were awarded.
As such, we’re not expecting a result until much later in the evening, maybe even Sunday morning alongside the mayoral result.
Here, the picture is looking good for Labour, who currently have 38% of the vote, compared to the Conservatives 32%.
In 2016, Labour’s 40% of the vote translated to just three seats because of their constituency dominance whilst the Conservatives got the same number of seats with 29%.
So although the Tories have closed the gap slightly up until this point, it remains to be seen how that will translate to actual seats.
One party who will be very happy with the state of affairs is the Green Party, who are looking to improve on their two seats from 2016.
Sian Berry and Caroline Russell secured their seats with just 8% of the vote that time round, and with the collapse in the UKIP vote meaning their two seats are up for grabs, the Greens are polling so far at 12%, representing a real chance to pick up at least one extra seat, due to their expected lack of constituency seats.
The Liberal Democrats will also be hoping to benefit, but are currently facing a battle to outperform their one seat and 6% of the vote from 2016.
No other parties are expected to challenge.
