Boris Johnson is preparing to be unveiled as the new mayor of London later today following LabourÂ’s collapse across Britain in the local elections.
Senior Conservative sources said they would be “gobsmacked” if Mr Johnson did not win the mayoral contest and even Downing Street aides appear to have conceded that Ken Livingstone has lost. Confidence of a Tory win was boosted after one bookmaker announced it was paying out on a Boris Johnson victory hours before the official result is expected later this evening.
Paddy Power said the "mauling" Labour had received elsewhere in England and Wales suggested the Conservative candidate was on his way to City Hall.
Winning the London mayoral contest is expected to cap an historic electoral win for the Conservatives with David CameronÂ’s party on course for more than 44 per cent of the national vote. Labour is now expected to finish with as little as 24 per cent, humiliatingly pushed into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent.
Labour has lost more than 300 council seats – the worst result since the 1960s – and the Conservatives are expecting to win between 230 and 240 extra councillors. This morning, Labour announced it had lost Reading, its last council in the south outside London, while the Conservatives won North Tyneside as the party continued to make inroads in the north and Wales.
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