Former prime minister Gordon Brown visited Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Downing Street on Saturday morning (Alamy)

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Starmer has appointed Brown as special envoy on global finance, with the former prime minister having visited Downing Street on Saturday morning. 

Harman, who was deputy leader of the Labour Party between 2007 and 2015 and now sits in the House of Lords, has been appointed as Starmer’s adviser on women and girls.

The appointments come as Starmer faces widespread criticism from within his own party, after Labour was dealt heavy losses in local council and devolved parliamentary elections across the UK this week. 

Labour has lost more than 1,100 English council seats, including in its heartlands across northern England and the Midlands, has lost power in Wales for the first time since the devolved administration was established, and failed to win power from the SNP in Scotland.

With Reform UK picking up more than 1,400 seats on local councils and the Green Party achieving the second largest national vote share after Reform, many Labour MPs have blamed Starmer and the party leadership for the results. More than 20 backbench Labour MPs have called on Starmer to resign or suggested that he cannot lead the party and government into the next set of elections next year.

Brown will reportedly advise the government on how global finance cooperation can help to boost the UK’s security and resilience, particularly looking at how international finance partnerships can support defence and security-related investment.

This will form part of the Labour government’s push to move closer to Europe.

Harman will work with ministers to bring in measures to tackle violence against women and girls, and increase women’s representation in politics and public life. The part-time role will be unpaid.

Brown has been supportive of Starmer in recent months. In February, he told the BBC in the wake of further revelations about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador that Starmer was “a man of integrity” who “wants to do the right things”.

“Perhaps he’s been too slow to do the right things, but he must do the right things now,” he said. 

“And let’s judge what he does on what happens in the next few months, when he tries – and I believe [he] will try – to clean up the system.”

Harman, on the other hand, has been critical of the Prime Minister’s handling of the Mandelson scandal in recent months, warning that it could “finish him off”.

She has, however, said that she believes Starmer should continue as Prime Minister as long as changes are made to how the government is being run.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast on Friday, Harman said: “There needs to be a consensus built and led by Keir Starmer about what the government is going to do differently, because more of the same is not acceptable.

“The country is entitled to a government that actually delivers on its manifesto, but more than that, they’re entitled to a government and a prime minister who gives them a sense of direction of where the country’s going and hope for the future.

“So it’s not just about delivering the nuts and bolts, it’s about a narrative, it’s about telling the story where people can all feel the country’s getting better.”

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Speaking on Friday morning, he vowed not to “walk away” from No 10 after watching his party bleed support across the country, in multiple directions. “Tough days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised. They strengthen my resolve,” the PM said.

But by the end of the day, the pressure on his leadership had hit a new high, with Labour MPs who Starmer allies cannot simply dismiss as the usual suspects publicly declaring that he may have to stand down for the good of their party.

Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary who co-chairs the Tribune group of soft left MPs, said Starmer cannot lead the party into the next year’s local elections, never mind the next general election, if he does not deliver an urgent change of course. 

She was followed by Sarah Owen, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, who agreed that Starmer will have to be removed from Downing Street unless he “delivers tangible change and truly connects with the public on a human level”.

Once Friday had drawn to a close, the list of Labour MPs who had publicly questioned whether Starmer should fight for the next election, or who had gone further and called on him to announce a departure timetable now, had grown significantly.

The concern for the PM and his allies as they head into the weekend will be that patience is wearing thin across the Parliamentary Labour Party, not just in a single section of it.

As one senior Labour MP put it to PoliticsHome on Friday: “It’s easier when one person has moved… I don’t think it’s factional, it’s a broad feeling.”

“This is not just the left of the party,” warned a different Labour MP. 

Meanwhile, a typically loyal Labour minister told PoliticsHome: “It’s time to go. I don’t care who [comes next].”

Labour has lost over 1,400 council seats across England at the time of writing, with the results confirming party strategists’ worst fears that it is haemorrhaging support both to the Greens on its left and Reform UK on its right. In Wales, where Labour has been in power since the turn of the century, and has deep historical links, it has plummeted to a distant third place.

“We can’t do another election like this,” said the senior Labour MP quoted above. “It’s not fair to the people we represent. It’s not fair to the councillors and the handful of activists we have left.”

PoliticsHome understands that one proposal that is being pushed by Labour MPs who want a resignation timetable is for Starmer to resign by the end of the year.

This, in theory, would allow for what is being described as an orderly transition, while also giving Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham enough time to find a vacant House of Commons seat and return to Parliament.

One publicly loyal minister said the local election results had made them “more pro-Burnham” than they were before. “How can you not be, frankly?”

Mainstream, the soft group with links to Burnham, is due to hold a call on Monday to discuss next steps, PoliticsHome understands, while the Red Wall caucus of Labour MPs representing seats in northern England and the Midlands will hold its own meeting on Wednesday.

Writing in The House on Friday, Ipsos’ Ben Roff said the polling company’s latest data shows that Labour cannot afford to ignore Burnham, arguing that he is best placed to help the party to win back progressive voters from the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

The Times reported on Thursday that Energy Secretary Ed Miliband suggested to Starmer that he should consider setting out a timetable for his departure in a private conversation earlier this month. A spokesperson for Miliband said they did not accept this account of the conversation, but did tell the newspaper how it differed.

Starmer’s cabinet has publicly come to his defence as the Prime Minister looks to shore up his position in the coming days. “Keir has won before, he can win again. We need to deliver change, not chaos,” posted Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. One of Labour’s worst results of the night came in Phillipson’s Sunderland, where Labour lost 49 councillors, and Reform won 58, giving Nigel Farage’s party control of the council.

Labour MPs most loyal to Starmer are trying to play down the 7 May results.

“It’s a bad set of results – but not as bad as was predicted”, one told PoliticsHome.

Another added: “I don’t believe the country will suddenly improve just by changing prime minister. Whoever carried the burden of leading Britain at this time would face the same set of challenges that Labour inherited two years ago.”

On Monday, Starmer is expected to give a speech designed to boost Labour MPs’ faith that he is still the best person to turn it around.

Labour MPs are urging the Prime Minister to be genuinely “bold” and “radical”, with one telling PoliticsHome that he should announce a policy to rejoin the European Union.

“Which number reset are we on now?” joked one of his backbenchers. 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Starmer would have his support when he delivers his speech, adding: I’ll continue putting my shoulder to the wheel as the Health and Social Care Secretary, who’s getting the NHS back on its feet and making sure it’s fit for the future.”

The third leading leadership contender, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, had not yet broken her silence as of early Saturday morning.

Additional reporting by Sienna Rodgers, Tom Scotson and Zoë Crowther

Well, we told you so. We told you in March that the 2026 Holyrood election was a giant waste of time and money that would deliver exactly the same Parliament we already had, and so it proved.

The SNP ended up giving half-a-dozen seats to the Greens, Labour donated a handful to the Lib Dems, the Tories split into two parties with 29 seats instead of a single party with 31 and that was about it. A pro-indy tally of 72 became a pro-indy tally of 73 and almost every SNP list vote elected Unionists instead, just as we told you for almost a year it would do.

We also told you that the only place there was even a chance of an SNP list seat was in the  Highland region, where they did indeed sneak one at the very death, only because they’d pulled off the incredible feat of losing Kate Forbes’ old seat of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch despite starting with a 15,000 majority in a seat where only 39,000 people voted.

So there we are.

Anas Sarwar, meanwhile, managed something almost as bleakly impressive as losing Skye – he managed to continue Scottish Labour’s unbroken record of getting fewer seats and a lower vote share at every successive Scottish Parliament election since the first one in 1999.

Even though the SNP recorded its lowest vote, vote share and seat tally since 2007, the result was a dream come true for John Swinney – not only did he manage to avoid winning a majority and therefore having to awkwardly face up to his impossible promise that it would lead to a second indyref, he now finds himself in a position where his minority government can pass any bill with the support of ANY other single party in the chamber – the SNP’s 58 seats plus the 10 of the last-placed Lib Dems is enough to pass the majority threshold of 65.

While we can’t rule out him being stupid enough to repeat Nicola Sturgeon’s mistake of entering a formal alliance, making him a hostage to the minority partner, it would be SUCH an idiotic move that we can’t see it happening. It’s hard to imagine any law the new government would want to pass that it couldn’t get support from ONE of the other parties on.

So while the Greens will crow about their increased vote share and seat tally, it doesn’t actually count for much. They have the ability to give the SNP a majority just as they did before, but so does everyone else. They’ll have to compete for the government’s favours rather than being the tail that wags the dog.

So we really may as well not have bothered. Everything will be business as usual for the next five years just as it was for the last 10, except that the UK government will feel even more empowered to reject demands for a new referendum when it’s backed by just 41% of the votes cast in the election, compared to 49% five years ago.

(That 41% is the SNP and Green votes combined, even though Swinney said only SNP votes counted. If you count SNP votes only it’s 33%.)

The SNP lost over 910,000 votes in this election compared to 2021 (roughly 1.5m vs 2.4m). The result is the most disproportionate and unfair in Holyrood’s history. The Unionist parties will have a fair point when they say they got almost 60% of votes cast and mock the idea that the outcome represents any sort of mandate.

Yes still leads in most opinion polls, but the election did some serious damage to the credibility of polling, with figures and predictions all over the place, and the election was a hard count. The SNP are now a firewall for the UK government against having to allow another referendum.

“Look”, they’ll say, “Swinney said this vote was all about independence and you had to vote for him to get it, but only 33% of you did.” 

By making an unpopular party the proxy for the concept of independence itself, the SNP have dragged the cause down with them. As Wings has told you for years, they are the corpse blocking our path.

The next five years will be a degraded replay of the last five, in every sense. Holyrood now has the most wretched, embarrassing collection of MSPs it has ever assembled. A brutal financial reckoning is on the way and the government’s already threadbare popularity will take a hammering as a result – especially as hopelessly inexperienced and clueless new MSPs take control of the levers of state – and even a divided opposition won’t be enough to save it next time in the way Reform did yesterday. Nigel Farage’s party have their sizeable beach-head in the Parliament now and five years of easy shots to take. Things will change.

Make no mistake, as resounding as it looks on the surface, this victory is the SNP’s equivalent of John Major’s triumph in 1992: the last gasp of a lame duck staggering towards its doom. SNP supporters should gloat while they can – Swinney’s victory comes from an even lower vote share than Keir Starmer’s 33.7% landslide at Westminster less than two years ago, and look at the state of Starmer and Labour now.

It took the Tories almost 20 years to get back to power after Major’s term. For most readers of this site, this will be the last SNP government of our lifetimes. And since it has no hope whatsoever of achieving independence, you can finish the grim logic for yourselves.

Labour has suffered heavy losses in London (Alamy)

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With results still rolling in on Friday evening, Labour has suffered a day of heavy losses across the country, losing voters to both the left and right. Labour has also lost power in Wales – where it has formed the government ever since devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century.

Reflecting on the results, Khan said that while mid-term elections can often be difficult for the government of the day, what Labour was seeing on Friday “is different”.

“These results speak to a far-reaching disillusionment and fracturing in our politics, which cannot be downplayed, spun or dismissed.”

The Mayor of London, whose relationship with the Labour government has reportedly become increasingly fractured, warned on Friday that the party’s election results in London were “bitterly disappointing”.

A YouGov MRP last month predicted that Labour’s control of London councils would fall from 21 to 15 at the elections, with the party losing six councils.

With results across the capital still being declared, Labour’s losses have already exceeded that prediction.

At the time of writing, results for 23 of the 32 London councils have been declared, with Labour set to lose control of Barnet, Brent, Enfield, Ealing, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster and Southwark.

Khan said that the results would have a bruising effect on the capital: “Labour is only able to deliver when we win elections, whether that be general, mayoral or local. Losing control of councils in London will limit our ability to serve the public in the way we want.”

London Labour MPs have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the loss of councils in the capital, with PoliticsHome reporting on nervousness in City Hall last year about this set of elections.

The losses in London will also hit right at the heart of government, with four members of the cabinet serving as MPs in the capital, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself.

While the focus had been on the threat to Labour from Reform UK and the independent vote, the Greens have emerged as the biggest insurgent party in London.

Khan said: “Labour has lost votes in London to a variety of different parties, but the biggest change has been Labour voters switching to the Greens.”

Speaking about the country as a whole, Khan said that many people who had voted Labour in 2024 “clearly feel angry, disappointed and let down”.

“They want a Labour government to address the cost-of-living crisis while demonstrating the core values the party was established to promote,” he continued.

But Khan said that instead, “too many of the government’s achievements have been overshadowed by basic mistakes and a failure to boldly assert our progressive values.”

On London specifically, Khan said those in the capital “are also frustrated with the slow pace of change and are impatient to see the delivery they were promised”.

“London has been taken for granted for too long,” he continued.

“This must change. Without a change in course and an acceleration in delivery, the threat to Labour is existential. We risk a repeat in London, Wales and across England of what happened in Scotland, where we have still not recovered.”

“Labour is the only party capable of delivering the change our capital city and country needs, and the only party that can unite progressives and close the door to the darkness and division of Reform.  It’s time for us to be bold and show this to be true, before it’s too late.”

(Alamy)

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The centre-left, pro-independence party, led by Rhun ap Iowerth, has won over 35 per cent of the vote, making it the largest party in the Senedd.

Reform UK came second on just below 30 per cent of the vote, while Labour and the Conservatives both suffered dramatic falls in support.

The result on Friday means that Labour will not rule in Wales for the first time since its devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century. One of the Labour Senedd members to lose their seat was Eluned Morgan, the current first minister.

The results are as follows:

Plaid Cymru: 43 seats (35.4 per cent)

Reform UK: 34 seats (29.3 per cent)

Labour: 9 seats (11.1 per cent)

Conservative: 7 seats (10.7 per cent)

Green: 2 seats (6.7 per cent)

Lib Dems: 1 (4.5 per cent)

Plaid is six seats off forming a majority in the Senedd and is expected to agree on a coalition government with Welsh Labour. Leader ap Iowerth told reporters today he was willing to “reach out” to other parties to form a government in Cardiff.

At a press conference, the Plaid leader said Wales needed a government that represented the “change” which the country voted for.

“We could all see it. We could all sense it. Wales demanded a new beginning.

“And now a new dawn beckons. But we have not yet reached the destination. Far from it. We’re just setting out on our journey, and we set off with new leadership, with new energy and new ideas.”

In an interview with The House magazine at the end of last year, the Plaid leader compared his party’s rise to that of New York’s left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Morgan took responsibility for the result and did not lay the blame on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose position is coming under renewed pressure amid major Labour losses across the UK.

But the result in Wales is particularly tricky for Starmer, with the country having historically been a deeply-rooted heartland for Labour.

Morgan and all of her predecessors have been Labour. Even as Labour collapsed in Scotland in 2015, and then saw its historic dominance in post-industrial parts of northern England fall away nearly a decade later, its vote managed to hold up in Wales.

The party’s founder, Keir Hardie, represented the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, and some of its most high-profile figures, like former prime minister Jim Callaghan, have strong links with Wales.

The result represented another major electoral breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has cemented its status as the main challenger on the centre right of Welsh politics.