Local elections results as they happened: SNP gains and Lib Dem resurgence as Tories take a bruising
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Nicola Sturgeon hailed the seismic result and tweeted: “National/city trends aside, this result is seismic. For years, Pollokshields was the only Tory seat in Glasgow and it seemed we would never take it.”
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Hide AdElsewhere in the city, leader Susan Aiken was overtaken by the Scottish Greens on first preference votes in the Langside ward.
Meanwhile across Scotland and the UK it was a damaging night for the Conservatives.
Alex Salmond’s Alba party have failed to secure any councillors
Local elections results LIVE: 2022 Scottish council elections as they happened
Sir Keir Starmer hails ‘turning point’ for Labour
The Labour leader is clearly optimistic about the party’s fortunes after today’s results, but his shadow international trade secretary was more cautious in her cry of having “great hope” after the depths of 2019’s defeat.
Emily Thornberry said: “Some people were saying it was the end of the Labour Party, we weren’t going to get anywhere, that was it. And we are turning things around.”
She added: “We are not saying we would win the general election tomorrow. What we are saying is we are on our way.”
Aberdeenshire bucks the trend as Tories make gains
It’s not all doom and gloom for the Tories.
The Conservatives, who previously formed a ruling coalition at Aberdeenshire Council with the Liberal Democrats and a handful of independents, made gains in Troup, Ellon and Turriff.
Analysis: Why the Tories are bruised but still standing
Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown talks us through an election which saw the worst results for the Tories in Scotland and London, but he says the party could still be competitive.
Douglas Ross points the finger at Boris Johnson over party losses
Douglas Ross has stopped short of backtracking once again on his stance regarding Boris Johnson’s future as UK Tory party leader.He says that Boris can’t ignore these results, after the Conservatives suffered heavy losses in the council elections.
It comes after he originally called on Mr Johnson to resign in the wake of Partygate before backpedalling and saying he should stay.
However, the latest salvo fired at the PM shows Mr Ross is still keen to distance himself from his boss.Full story here
RESULT: The SNP is now the largest on Highland Council.
The Scottish National Party remain on 22 of the 74 councillors.
The Lib Dems made big gains, up five to 15, and the Scottish Greens were up three to four.
The Scottish Conservatives won 10 seats and Scottish Labour two.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says he is “very confident” his party will be “comfortably” in second place once all the council results are in across Scotland.
He told the BBC: Of course I’m pleased after a decade of being written off, but I want us to build on this. I don’t aspire for Labour to be in second - I aspire for us to be in first place. I had a mammoth task when I took over just over a year ago but we managed to stop Armageddon last year and have demonstrated progress this year, making gains off the SNP and the Tories, winning in parts of Scotland we haven’t won in for a very long time.”
RESULT: The SNP has gained three seats to remain the largest group on North Lanarkshire Council.
They now hold 36 of the available 77.
Labour remain on 32 while the Tories lost five seats to drop to just five.
There are also three independents and one Scottish Green.