PM could win Commons majority of 48 based on local election analysis

Corbyn issued a statement acknowledging some of the problems Labor faced: "The results were mixed".

Theresa May's Conservatives performed strongly in British local elections, early results showed Friday, handing the prime minister a boost ahead of next month's Brexit-dominated parliamentary polls.

The Conservatives effectively obliterated Ukip - which won just one seat and lost more than 100 - as voters who had deserted the Tories for Ukip returned in their droves.

Those still optimistic of a shock Labour win have pointed to the fact that opinion polls have been wrong in the past, including at the 2015 general election when they consistently predicted a hung Parliament but the result was a small Tory majority. "We knew it was going to be a hard night". "But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, can t afford not to seize our moment".

Cable said: "Ukip has virtually disintegrated, and that matters politically because, if you are a middle-of-the-road Conservative who voted Remain and you see your own party effectively assimilating Ukip and its values as well as its voters, I think they will have pause now and worry about the future".

It lost 143 seats, every one it was defending so far.

Alex Salmond has accused the Tories of making "vainglorious boasts" about their chances of winning his seat in the General Election, as he warned Ruth Davidson she could be brought "back down to earth with a bump" by the voters.

He told LBC radio its performance was "really disappointing" and that its message had to "cut through" better in the five weeks to the general election. "That is why I'm not taking anything for granted", she said.

"In seats like Rutherglen and Hamilton West, and in most areas across Scotland, it's a two-horse race between Labour and the SNP". With Douglas Carswell now nearly actively supporting the Conservatives, with Paul Nuttall not seeming to care about his party's decimation and UKIP's reason of existence essentially now part of the Conservative manifesto, the effective number of parties has lowered.

Conservatives won the West of England metro mayor contest and topped the first round of voting in the West Midlands, while Labour claimed the mayoralties in Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Doncaster and North Tyneside.

Britain's ruling Conservative Party made considerable gains in local elections on Friday as the populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) suffered a massive blow, according to incomplete results from across England, Scotland and Wales. "We in the Labour party have to hear that message coming up from our people and we need to respond and we need to respond to it now", he said.

Labour's vote didn't just collapse in Scotland but in traditional English heartlands where the scale of the victory took even the Tories by surprise.

Ian Lavery, Labour's national campaigns co-ordinator, said he was not sure why Mr Burnham had not been there but he wanted to "dispel this myth that there is a rift between Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham".