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the scottish national party consolidated their position as the dominant force in scotland.for the tories here — labour now in second place. as ever with local elections, it's a patchwork of results not a neatly drawn picture, but there's plenty for all sides to digest. jonathan blake, bbc news. the snp has underlined its commanding position in scottish politics, increasing both its share of the vote and its number of councillors. the scottish labour party regained some of the ground it had lost in recent years, retaking second place from the conservatives. lynsey bews reports from glasgow. the snp finishing once again as the biggest party in scotland, increasing their number of councillors and their share of the vote. it is their 11th consecutive election victory for the party. there were also gains for scottish labour after a period of decline here in scotland for the party. they replaced the scottish conservatives in second place and the party leader hopes this is the start of a revival for labour north of the border. it was a disappointing night for the scottish conserva

a score 100 for years has been run by the scottish national party who's, whose job is to, to break up united kingdom creation independence daughter states. they still haven't succeeded in doing it for the house of season governing. so from graham, i will bring you in here because as nicholas is saluted to their vote for the d, u. p. used to be a vote to camp, keeps and fan hours of government. now we've seen this huge shift in the political landscape, a huge growth. and as we were saying earlier in the center, i see the alliance party 117 seats. so that's up from 8 in 2017 and 13.5 percent of fast preference versus a we in a sense, seeing a normalization of irish politics did to a slight extent, i think, but we shouldn't accept your agency line 30 cent. we don't know that this is really a long term trend. it aligns tend to be a part of that gets protest phones from people who are temporarily disaffected from the main parties. so it may be a physical thing, but or it may be a long, long, long term structural change or other suspect that it is, i think, are quite a lot of young professi

the scottish national party consolidated their position as the dominant force in scotland. ever with local elections, it is a patchwork of results, not a neatly drawn picture, but there is plenty for all sides to digest. jonathan blake, bbc news. let's get some more detailed analysis of the results so far. we can cross the newsroom to lewis goodall at the touchscreen. lewis. yes, we have nearly all of the results in from the english councils, 144 of 146, i think we are just waiting on croydon and tower hamlets, not sure what is taking them so long stop the conservatives had a bad night, perhaps at this time yesterday looks like a slightly better at night than they ended up having, but —341, you have the scottish total, whilst a total and nearing 500 losses. this is one of their worst election performances since 2010, certainly since their general election victory of 2019. a decent solid enough at night for labour, not a spectacular, better in some places than others. worth bearing in mind that labour are up 52, but in terms of overall gains in england, that is way behind th

tony blair came to power at westminster with new labour, and 15 years ago this week, the scottish national partyurgh. historically, what is striking is how short the gap was between those two events, and things have continued to change since. the snp have strengthened their position, at the expense of the labour party, including in glasgow, in many ways the heartland of the labour movement, where the snp now run the council. what is going to happen this time, and that's up to the voters, and they will be choosing more than 1200 councillors and 32 councils around the country. they will be considering many things, including local issues, such as bean collection and libraries and schools and so on, but there will be questions that might be answered on a national level, how much support is therefore independence? have the conservatives been damaged by the parties which were held at westminster, whitehall and in downing street itself, particularly given the scottish conservative party, douglas ross, at one point called for the prime minister to resign and then changed his position and withdrew that c

scotland, not a surprise, a victory of the scottish national party.ery pleased with those results, saying the fact that there have been 12 years of government just shows that they are getting things right and they are on track. what she would like is to call an independence referendum but that is not going to happen anytime soon. the liberal democrats gained more than 180 council seats in england so far, and the greens doing well. let me give you one more figure. that is that the british media are saying that if the whole country had been voting right now in a general election, if you project that score, the labour party would have 35% of the boat, the conservatives only 30%, and other bill democrats would have 90% and others 16%. what you've got is if it were a general election, the labour party would be in the lead and we would have a hung parliament and possibly a need for a coalition, which is not a traditional thing here. we had one a few years ago. but we are not there yet. also, bad results i am seeing in wales for the conservatives. overall, i

the scottish national party consolidated their position as the dominant force in scotland. a patchwork of results, not a neatly drawn picture, but there's plenty for all sides to digest. jonathan blake, bbc news. the ukrainian army says it's recaptured five villages northeast of kharkiv, in a counter—offensive against russian forces who've been shelling the city for weeks. it comes as the united nations and the international red cross continue efforts to rescue more civilians from the besieged city of mariupol. on friday, 50 more people, including children, were evacuated from a huge steel factory complex. these are the latest pictures of some of those who've got out. the azovstal plant is under siege by russian forces. dozens are still trapped inside. the city, in the country's south, has been under constant shelling by the russian military. earlier i spoke to my colleague ben brown who's in kyiv and gave us this update. good news that another 50 people have been evacuated from azovstal. we don't know how many civilians are left there — we think probably about another 150,

the ofgem boss was asked by the scottish national party mp alan brown, how that number might change.olds. the neck number we have, if you accept all the caveats, want even run through them, is around 12 million households. one thing i would say, just in addition to fact, you know, one of the most helpful but difficult parts of my job is talking to customers and feel poverty, which i do on a regular basis. we understand this is going to have a huge impact on households. this is a story that effects every household. here's one beth, from bristol. energy has skyrocketed. it is a big difference at that. over the summer, i think we will be ok because we just switch the energy totally, totally off of heating, it's this winter that will be a problem when the cap rises again, that's when we are going to struggle. the government announced £9.1 billion pounds of support to households back in march that's comprised of council tax and energy bill rebates, and through a scheme called the warm home discount. more recently the government has hinted, further measures are to come. here's our business

the scottish national party consolidated their position as the dominant force in scotland.cond place. as ever with local elections, it is a patchwork of results, not a neatly drawn picture. but there is plenty for all sides to digests. —— to digests. our political correspondent damian grammaticas is in westminster. good morning to you. we'll start with the conservatives and their reaction to the results. i with the conservatives and their reaction to the results.- reaction to the results. i think conservatives _ reaction to the results. i think conservatives by _ reaction to the results. i think conservatives by the - reaction to the results. i think conservatives by the end - reaction to the results. i think conservatives by the end of i reaction to the results. i think. conservatives by the end of the counts seem to have had a pretty rough time of it, around 340 council seats in england lost in some real angen seats in england lost in some real anger, actually, some local conservative leaders, anger they point to the national leadership and borisjohnson, saying that they

you will answer uh-huh in early may, local government elections were held in the uk and the scottish national partyming referendum on independence from london and even give an approximate date of 2023, such a referendum is already held in 2014 and then the supporters of independence lost. however, now support for the nationalists has reached its peak since 2014 changed in many ways. so it's important to make sure we offer independence perspectives that take these changes into account . above this, another hotbed of separatism is in full swing northern ireland following the results of local elections for the first time in a century of history, the nationalist tire party won the most votes. she is demanding a referendum on unification with the irish republic of us coming for unification will continue to push for it. i encourage you to join the conversation. let's go through. about what our future looks like about what will be better for each of us. in the twentieth century, the shinhain party was the political umbrella of the valiant irish republican army for decades, opposing the british administrat

the westminster leader of the scottish national party, our thanks to him.s performance isn't likely at the moment to be in a position to win an overall majority. but that said, it is in a position to have many more seats than the conservatives. and on the kind of performance we saw in yesterday's ballot boxes, the conservatives would have no prospect of being able to remain in office. labour's chances would depend on its ability to reach a deal with the other smaller parties. what i invite you to note is that if you add the labour figure of 291 and liberal democrat figure of 31 you get to 322, which means, once you take into account the fact that sinn fein don't take all their seats, and any sdlp mps that get elected from northern ireland will vote with labour, that probably, probably, sir keir starmer, mightjust have enough support from the liberal democrats, if he can get it, without having to look to the snp. if that were to happen, the implications would be that if he wished to deny the snp a second referendum he might be able to do so. but the liberal

kerstin oswald for the scottish national party, the deputy leader at westminster.ef secretary to the treasury, the chief secretary to the treasury, the conservative mp simon clarke, good morning. thank you all for coming, we will have a little chat in a moment. i am coming, we will have a little chat in a moment. iam bound coming, we will have a little chat in a moment. i am bound to ask, chris, first of all, about the nature of today's event because it is a state opening unlike any other we have seen. it is a state opening unlike any other we have seen-— we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what _ we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what we — we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what we are _ we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what we are so _ we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what we are so used - we have seen. it really is, isn't it? what we are so used to - we have seen. it really is, isn't i it? what we are so used to when we have seen. it really is, isn't - it? what we are so used to when we witness these moments, the turning of the years, is the f

the liberal democrats defending over 600 seats, the scottish national party and plaid cymru several hundredions in scotland and wales and the green party defending 72 seats. 0ne the green party defending 72 seats. one other screen is useful, the projected national share so that is what we have projected it would have happened in each of these election years if the whole country had been voting so you can see last year in 2021 labour came seven points behind the conservatives, they had a pretty poor night but we are more interested for the sake of england interested for the sake of england in 2018 because that�*s when the seats that are up tonight were last voted on and there you can see that labour and the conservatives were neck and neck. in scotland and wales the seats were last voted on in 2017 and a much bigger gap there. this means that labour has to have a much stronger performance in england in order to show its going forward than it does in scotland or wales. irate it does in scotland or wales. we will be back for more detail with reeta in a moment. we will be talking about lots of