Labour and the Conservatives are both braced for heavy losses in the upcoming local elections, with Reform UK and the Green Party poised to oust them in seats across the country. The Lib Dems “used to be the sole party of protest”, local government professor Tony Travers told The Standard. Now there is “a smorgasbord of choice”.

When are the local elections?
Thursday 7 May. About 42 million people across England are eligible to vote: the biggest ballot since the 2024 general election. Elections for the  devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd will take place on the same day.

Where are the English council elections?
About 5,000 seats across 136 local councils will be “up for grabs”, said the BBC. These include: six county councils; 15 unitary authorities; 51 district councils; 32 metropolitan borough councils (out of the total of 36), and all 32 London borough councils.

What are the results likely to be?
All six English county councils are currently controlled by the Tories. Three – Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex – are “large councils where all the seats are up for grabs”, political scientist John Curtice told the Financial Times. These are the type of areas that should “mimic where Reform did well last year”.

In cities such as “heavily Leave-voting Barnsley and Sunderland”, Reform has a “potential breakthrough in their sights”, Curtice said in The Independent. But it’s London, “prime Labour territory” where 1,800 seats are at stake, that is most “under threat” – from a rejuvenated Green Party, which already has “a track record of performing well in local elections”.

At the last local elections, in 2022, Labour won 1,156 seats – about 64% of London – and seized three flagship Tory councils. But the party could lose more than half, Travers told The Standard. It could be “a worse blow” than the Gorton and Denton by-election, he said. That was “a rock-solid safe seat”, but “it was one seat”.

What about the devolved elections?
In Scotland and Wales, Labour are trailing behind the SNP and Plaid Cymru respectively, as well as Reform. In Scotland, the SNP is on track for a decisive win, according to an Ipsos poll published on Wednesday. In Wales, where Labour has run the devolved Welsh government since its inception in 1999, a defeat by Plaid Cymru would be “cataclysmic”, said Curtice.

After the arrest of four people suspected of spying for Iran on London’s Jewish community, focus is intensifying on the depth of Tehran’s reach across the Western world.

The regime’s intelligence services “have long targeted Jewish and Israeli people, along with dissidents living in Britain, frequently using criminal proxies as part of their operations”, said The Telegraph.

More than 20 “potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” were identified by MI5 in the year to October 2025, said the intelligence service’s director general Ken McCallum last year.

‘Outpost of the regime’
Several Labour MPs have written to the government asking for a clamp-down on charities that could be operating an Iranian “influence network” in the UK, said The Telegraph. These include the London-based Islamic Centre of England, which has been “accused of being an outpost of the Iranian regime”, and where mourners this week lit candles in front of photographs of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “These are vigils for a man who had British blood on his hands, who ordered terror plots on British soil,” said Kasra Aarabi, of United Against Nuclear Iran, who has been monitoring the activity. “That is deeply concerning.”

The centre broadcast daily religious messages from Khamenei during Ramadan last year, said The Times, dubbing the organisation “Iran’s nerve centre” in the UK. A spokesperson for the centre insisted it “does not represent, promote, or advocate for the political views or agendas of any state, figure or regime” and concerns itself only with “matters of faith, ethics, and spirituality”.

‘Radical zealots’
Research published last June by the National Union for Democracy in Iran, a US-based think tank, found Britain had become a “flashpoint” of Iranian influence.

It warned that education was at the “front line” of the Islamic regime’s efforts and it has been “ushering in a generation of radicalised, ideological-based zealots”. The regime is “planting seeds of suspicion” against the British government in British people’s minds, and “establishing historical falsehoods as reality”.

F2 driver Colton Herta crashes out of his debut practice session at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia. The former IndyCar star lost the rear of his Hitech F2 car but emerged from the crash unscathed to applause from fans.

John Morris / AFP / Getty Images

Salisbury: The Close
An elegant Grade II townhouse within Cathedral Close and overlooking this medieval early Gothic masterpiece. At 80 acres, this is the largest cathedral close in the country, described by Pevsner as “the most beautiful of England’s closes”; it is locked at night and has private security. Main suite, 3 further beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £1.7m; Myddelton & Major.

Bath: Brock Street
An impressive Grade II Georgian townhouse situated between The Royal Crescent and The Circus. The property boasts many period features, including a grand staircase, Venetian window and a beautifully landscaped walled garden. Main suite, 4 further beds, 2 showers, kitchen, 4 receps, garden. £3.5m; Knight Frank.

London: Redhill Street, Regent’s Park NW1
This stylish flat is close to Regent’s Park and Marylebone High Street. Main suite, 1 further bed, family bath, open-plan kitchen and dining room, balcony, courtyard. £950,000; Savills.

Liverpool: Water Street
A handsome flat in the Grade II Tower Building, designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas. One of the earliest steel-framed buildings in England, its striking façade is clad in grey granite and faced with white glazed terracotta made by Doulton. 1 bed, family bath, open-plan kitchen and living room. £160,000; Mistoria.

Donald Trump must stop soon
The Economist’s editorial board
“Surrounded by sycophantic courtiers,” the US president “has become rash in his second term”, says The Economist. “When you command a machine as lethal and overwhelming” as the American military, “you have a responsibility to define what you want to achieve”. But Donald Trump’s failure to explain the goals of war with Iran risks “regional chaos” and a “hit” to the global economy. He should “degrade Iran’s military capabilities and then stop. He is almost there.”

Why so many men my age want women to obey them
Zak Asgard in The Times
“We’re in trouble” if almost a third of Gen Z men really do think a wife should always obey her husband, as a new global study suggests, writes Zak Asgard. “Lads, your grandad is more progressive than you.” As to the reason, “my strong hunch” is that it’s “fear and anger”, fuelled by “online machismo” and the weak men who view “record numbers” of women in the workplace as a “threat”. Let’s hope it’s just a “temporary quagmire of naivety”.

Influencers sold the world a fantasy Dubai – and now it’s gone in a puff of missile smoke
Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian
“Who could have guessed that living a few hundred miles as the drone flies from Tehran might have risks?” writes Gaby Hinsliff. As “Dubai’s content-creating gym bros and wellness girlies” are forced to “pack up and run from falling bombs, I’d like them to interrupt the #sponsored content” to learn “from this luxury version of a refugee experience”. They should tell TikTok that “moving abroad for a better life – as millions do daily in far more life-threatening circumstances – isn’t as cushy as some pretend”.