Local elections results: Labour finds cause for optimism about vote from Wales and mayoral elections

Senior Conservatives are urging their supporters not to become complacent

The Conservatives have won a landslide across the UK in the local elections. But Labour supporters are finding cause for optimism.

Jeremy Corbyn's party have managed to hold on to many seats in Wales – where the Conservatives had hoped to take every seat – as well as relatively weak results in the mayoral elections.

The Tories managed to win the West of England mayoral election, with Tim Bowles being elected to represent the region. But he did so by a much more narrow margin than expected – potentially signalling more support for Labour than realised.

Mr Bowles achieved a total of 70,300 votes, while Labour's Lesley Mansell had 65,923 – a difference of just 4,377.

Ms Mansell described the narrow loss as "incredible", considering six of the nine constituencies that make up the West of England region are Conservative.

"This acts as a beacon of hope for the rest of the country," she said. "We have shown that people are crying out for alternatives to austerity.

"During the course of the campaign I have seen what a united Labour Party can achieve."

Ms Mansell urged voters to back Labour candidates in the General Election.

"We have some great candidates," she said, adding that she was now returning to work for the NHS. "I would like to wish them the best of luck in the campaign."

And the Labour party lost less badly than had been expected in Wales, a key area for the Conservatives' plan to take seats in next month's election.

Shadow Welsh secretary Christina Rees MP claimed Labour had "defied the pundits" to deliver some strong results across Wales.

She said: "Although there are still results coming in, it's clear from what we know so far that the predicted Tory advance in Wales has simply failed to materialise...

"It's obviously been a difficult night for Welsh Labour in Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil, and it's always a blow to lose hard working Welsh Labour councillors."

Ms Rees pointed to Mr Scully's comments on the big picture for Wales and added: "Though many counts are still to take place, the clear message from tonight is large swathes of Wales rejecting the Tories and voting Welsh Labour to stop them from walking all over Wales".

Senior Tories have been publicly urging against being too confident after what is being interpreted as a strong night for the party. They are thought to be doing so in part to try and stop voters not turning out because they think it is a done deal.

Defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon insisted the Tories were not complacent about the General Election despite the "encouraging progress" in the local contests.

"The reason we are not crowing is there is nothing yet, really, to crow about.

"Only a quarter of the votes have been counted and the turnout is only half what you get in a general election," he told ITV's Good Morning Britain.

"So it is far too early to predict - even from last night - what is going to happen by the end of today and it is five more weeks to the General Election."

Tory minister Brandon Lewis said Mrs May would "take the view that the results thus far are encouraging but there are still a lot of councils to declare".

"We can't assume that what happens in local elections will automatically be replicated in general elections," he told the BBC.

"There's a long way to go, there's a lot of work to do, we have got to work for every vote out there to make sure that we return Theresa May with a clear mandate on June 8."