Chris Webb wins back ‘red wall’ seat held by Tories since 2019; Labour take control of Hartlepool, Thurrock and Rushmoor

• Local elections 2024: full council results for England
• Labour claims huge byelection win to claim back ‘red wall’ seat Blackpool South

The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are due on Saturday. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term and polls have put him comfortably ahead of Tory Susan Hall, despite jitters in Khan’s campaign team.

Following the closure of the polls tonight, Khan said his campaign and Labour activists “sent out a message of fairness, of equality and of hope”.

Pollsters say early results suggest Tories could lose half of council seats contested, putting party on course for as many as 500 losses

• Local and mayoral election results – live updates

Keir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “seismic” win in Blackpool South in a night of local elections that provided further evidence that the party is heading for a large majority at this year’s general election.

The Labour leader called the result in the Blackpool South byelection “truly historic” after the party’s candidate, Chris Webb, won the seat with the third biggest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in postwar history.

Results from more than 100 English councils, as well as for several mayors, are announced as early results show the Conservatives losing control of some key councils. Find out what happened in your area

• Local and mayoral elections – live updates

Result shows Starmer is heading for sizeable Westminster majority, while Sunak has failed to recover ground since taking over from Liz Truss

For the fifth time since the start of 2023, Keir Starmer woke up on Friday morning to a byelection result that indicates that he will be prime minister by the end of the year.

The Labour leader called the result in Blackpool South, where the party’s candidate, Chris Webb, won with a swing of 26%, “seismic” and “historic”. Polling experts point out that even Tony Blair did not secure such a sustained series of strong byelection results in the run-up to his landslide election victory in 1997.

Results across 107 councils and in 10 mayoral votes will start coming in from the early hours of Friday

• Local and mayoral elections – live updates
• Local elections 2024: full council results for England

Voters across England have the opportunity to give their verdict on Rishi Sunak’s government on Thursday in the last set of local elections before the general election.

Many of the seats up for grabs were last contested in May 2021, when the Conservatives under Boris Johnson were enjoying a Covid “vaccine bounce”. Fast-forward three years and the Tories are trailing 20 points behind Labour in national polls.

Experts fear children questioning their gender may turn to hidden economy to obtain hormones illegally

Cross-sex hormones designed to masculinise or feminise a person’s body are available to buy online for less than £11 a month, with experts warning that growing numbers of under-18s may turn to the medicines hidden economy.

Last month the landmark Cass review of children’s gender treatment in England concluded there was a lack of reliable evidence supporting the use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers by young people questioning their gender identity.

Civil servant Josie Stewart spoke to media after government presented ‘dishonest account’, tribunal told

A Foreign Office civil servant felt “morally compelled” to speak to the media about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the government presented a “dishonest account” of what happened, an employment tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was sacked by the Foreign Office (FCDO) after blowing the whistle on the failures of the withdrawal from Kabul and disclosing emails indicating Boris Johnson’s involvement in an “outrageous” decision to prioritise the evacuation of staff from the animal charity Nowzad, despite his denials.

Post featured compromising image of the broadcaster Narinder Kaur, who said she was left ‘incredibly upset’

Police are investigating a social media post by Laurence Fox in relation to an “upskirting offence”.

The tweet, posted on Tuesday, featured a compromising image of Narinder Kaur, a broadcaster on Good Morning Britain and GB News. The post remained on Fox’s account until it was deleted on Thursday.

Joshua Dean, 45, former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, alleged ‘gross misconduct by quality management’

Joshua Dean, a Boeing whistleblower who warned of manufacturing defects in the planemaker’s 737 Max, has died after a short illness, the second Boeing whistleblower to die this year.

Dean, 45, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alleging “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line” at Spirit.

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

The foreign secretary called the conflict ‘the challenge of our generation’ after making second trip to Kyiv to meet Zelenskiy

The UK has promised £3bn a year “for as long as it is necessary” to help Ukraine, David Cameron said on Thursday as he made his second visit to Kyiv since becoming UK foreign secretary.

He also said he had no objection if weapons supplied by the UK were used to strike inside Russia.