Conservatives take a battering in the South as support for the party falters

The Conservative-controlled councils continue to fall.

Overnight, we had Southampton and West Oxfordshire. Now add Wokingham and Maidstone to the list. There will be more.

Every time the Tories lose control of a council, you can sense the jitters of some Tory MPs in the south.

Many have been frustrated that so much Government attention - and rhetoric - has been aimed at the north in recent years. That's where Boris Johnson thinks the next election will be won and lost.

But if the Tories are to win next time they can't afford to lose seats in the south. And for them it will be a war on two fronts - in some places, like Southampton, they'll be fighting Labour; in others, like Winchester, the Lib Dems.

Some Tories take comfort from the fact that these election results could have been worse, which is certainly true. They also say this is what happens in mid-term. That's also true. 

But they're relying on the usual pattern: get the unpopular stuff done early in the electoral cycle, suffer in mid-term, then watch things improve as the general election approaches. 

This electoral cycle could be very different. With inflation soaring and a possible recession looming, the most difficult times for the Government could still lie ahead. To misquote Tony Blair's famous campaign song from 25 years ago - for the Tories, maybe things can only get worse.

In Southampton, Labour's leader Sir Keir Starmer is celebrating his party's success, taking back control of a council they lost last year.

This was a win Labour needed, but in truth it's not spectacular: they ran Southampton for 9 years before losing there in 2021.

Labour's real target in these elections is Worthing, where we'll get the result later today. Five years ago, there were no Labour councillors there at all.

When Beccy Cooper won a by-election in August 2017, it was Labour's first council seat in Worthing for 40 years. Later today, Ms Cooper will almost certainly become the leader of the council.

The Tories lost control of West Oxfordshire overnight, partly thanks to Lib Dem gains. It's a symbolic area - the home of former Prime Minister David Cameron - but it's the Lib Dems and Labour have been making steady progress there over the years.

Stand by today for more Tory losses - and an important political trend: Conservative support is falling away much more steeply in our region than elsewhere in the country.

Their vote share is down by more than 7.6% so far.

While politicians and political commentators have obsessed in recent years about the Red Wall - those traditional Labour areas in the north which the Tories captured in 2019 - the really significant action now is taking place in the traditional Tory strongholds of the south and southeast.