UK: May Plays Down Talk Of Possible Landslide General Election Victory
By PanARMENIAN
Theresa May has sought to play down talk of a landslide general election victory after the Conservatives made major gains at local elections, BBC News reports.
The Tory leader said she would fight for every vote on 8 June to strengthen her hand in Brexit talks.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party faced a challenge on a “historic scale” to win back power, but insisted he could close the gap on the Tories.
The Tories gained 500 seats and seized control of 11 councils.
It was the best local election performance by a governing party in 40 years, with the gains mostly coming at the expense of Labour and UKIP, which lost all of its 145 local authority seats.
The Lib Dems increased their share of the vote by 7% but lost more than 40 seats.
Labour was beaten into third place by the Conservatives in Scotland, where the SNP was comfortably the largest party despite failing to take control of target councils.
If the results of Thursday’s polls in Wales, Scotland and 32 county councils in England were repeated nationally, the Conservatives would be on 38%, Labour 27%, the Lib Dems 18% and UKIP 5%, according to analysis by polling expert John Curtice.
That would mean a bigger majority for Theresa May but not necessarily the landslide some were expecting, said Prof Curtice, but he also cautioned against reading too much into the results.
