LABOUR’S “fantastic” local election results show the party is on course for Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer claimed today while Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempted to remain defiant despite heavy losses. 

The Labour leader told jubilant supporters that they are heading towards a Westminster majority after Thursday’s polls in many parts of England saw the official opposition seize Swindon, Stoke-on-Trent, Plymouth, Medway and other key battlegrounds. 

But polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice warned the “jury is still out” on whether the party is making enough progress to win outright at the next general election, expected in 2024. 

The BBC’s projected vote share for the next national poll put Labour on 35 per cent, 9 per cent ahead of the Tories on 26 per cent, but short of the double-digit figures which Sir Tony Blair enjoyed in local elections ahead of his 1997 landslide victory.

“Labour is going to have its biggest lead over the Conservatives in terms of votes than at any point since 2010, but it’s going to be as much to do with the Conservatives being down as much as it is Labour being up,” Prof Curtice stressed.

The now largely purged left of the party has repeatedly warned that Sir Keir’s lurch to the right on many issues is failing to offer voters a genuinely progressive alternative, which is only benefiting Mr Sunak.

A spokesperson for grassroots group Momentum said: “To win the next general election, we cannot rely on Tory implosion alone — we need to mobilise our core vote and inspire millions.

“People are hungry for change.”

Mr Sunak conceded the results, which could see his party lose more than 1,000 councillors, are “disappointing” but said he is “not detecting any massive groundswell of movement towards Labour or excitement for its agenda.”

The PM attempted to talk up Tory progress in Peterborough, Bassetlaw and Sandwell, but the party suffered significant setbacks nationwide amid the worsening cost-of-living crisis.

His pre-poll prediction that the Tories are now moving beyond “box-set drama” politics is also looking increasingly naive, after an anonymous source loyal to his disgraced predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss told the BBC that Mr Sunak must “own these results.”

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey hailed a “ground-breaking night” after his party won Stratford-on-Avon, Dacorum and Windsor and Maidenhead, while the Greens made gains – taking overall control of Mid Suffolk.