Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accepted blame for Tory losses on a "tough night" in Thursday's local government elections.
Asked by reporters during a visit to a junior school in his west London parliamentary seat if he took responsibility for the loss of over 150 council seats so far, the PM replied "Of course."
"It is mid-term. It's certainly a mixed set of results," Johnson conceded. "We had a tough night in some parts of the country."
"But on the other hand, in other parts of the country you are still seeing Conservatives going forward and making quite remarkable gains in places that haven't voted Conservative for a long time, if ever," he stressed.
The big winners so far have been the Liberal Democrats, who hold just 13 out of 650 seats in Parliament. By early on Friday afternoon they had made a net gain of 70 councillors, compared to 40 for the main opposition Labour Party and 25 for the Greens, who have a single MP. The number of independent and residents' association seats had also risen by 20.