BREAKING: Labour will have a majority on the new Cumberland Council
This is a remarkable result - all 3 MPs in the area are Conservatives (Carlisle, Copeland, Workington)
2 seats still to be declared.
This is brilliant.
The Tory media are trying to play down Labour’s success this morning, I’m not sure how long they can hold that line.
It's an odd situation here though - as all the districts and all the county councillors are being done away with - to be replaced with two unitary authorities. So, it's actually quite hard to compare like-for-like. The county council was NOC, with Conservatives being the largest party.
Allerdale & Carlisle were only just about Tory anyway, Copeland was already Labour - and the county councillors in those areas were a bit of a mix. Still - even if you added all the previous councillors together, it wouldn't have come out as the Labour landslide that it has.
The other half of the county is also a bit mixed, as we have Barrow (strong Labour council, but with a Tory MP), South Lakeland (strong Lib Dem council and MP) and Eden (Just about Tory council, Tory MP). I'm expecting it to be Lib Dem, then Conservatives. May even be a NOC with Lib Dem / Labour combining to run it.