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## Birmingham's Independent Candidate Having Big Impact on Result **Rajini Vaidyanathan** As votes continue to be counted in the West Midlands Mayoral contest, it’s worth noting just how well a relatively unknown independent candidate has done in some of the results so far. Akhmed Yakoob – who campaigned on the issue of Gaza - won a sizeable 42,923 votes in the Birmingham part of the result, coming third there. Labour’s Jess Phillips, a Birmingham MP, tells me she believed her party’s initial refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza has cost them votes. “I’d be lying if I said if I said this hasn’t been an issue that hurt the Labour party in this election,\" she says. Phillips quit the shadow front bench last year over Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the ongoing conflict \"This is a political issue that the people here care about,\" she adds. Whatever the outcome here in the West Midlands, she believes her party needs to “listen to what is being said to us\". But overall, Phillips does believe that Labour has \"many reasons to be cheerful.. the votes are building up in areas that we need to win in the general election\".

Rajini Vaidyanathan

## Labour Wins Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner as Conservative Vote Falls **BBC News** The focus for much of the day has been on council and mayoral elections, but we've also had results coming in for police and crime commissioners. Today, Conservatives held Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Thames Valley, Wiltshire, and Dorset, though they also saw their vote share generally fell. Labour candidates held Merseyside and the West Midlands, while in Cheshire Labour's Dan Price ousted Conservative incumbent John Dwyer. Of a total of 37 races, results have now been declared in 35, with only Sussex and Kent still to come.

BBC News

## Recount Shows Street Has Done 'Extremely Well', Says Mitchell **BBC News** The recount in the West Midlands mayoral race shows the Conservatives have done \"extremely well\" in \"core Labour territory\", local MP Andrew Mitchell says. Ballots are being counted again in Coventry, one of seven areas that make up the region, and the vote is believed to be close-run between Conservative incumbent Andy Street and Labour's Richard Parker. Mitchell, who represents the Birmingham seat of Sutton Coldfield, tells BBC News that “on any objective basis Labour would win this mayoralty by miles and miles”. “If Andy Street is even in contention here, that is a very good result for the Conservative Party,” he says. When it is put to him that the Conservative Party brand had not featured heavily in Street's campaign literature, Mitchell says many voted for him “because he was Andy Street and because he was a Conservative”. Asked whether he expects it to be a long night while recounts are carried out, he replies: “I think it may be”.

BBC News

## Labour's Paul Dennett Wins Third Term as Salford Mayor **BBC News** Leaving the West Midlands for a moment - Labour's Paul Dennett has been re-elected for a third term as Mayor of Salford. Dennett, who was first elected in 2016, received 30,753 votes, almost three times as many as his nearest rival, Conservative Jillian Collinson, who got 10,930. The position is different from metro mayors, who oversee a whole region, and serves as the effective head of Salford City Council, one of the constituent authorities of Greater Manchester. Dennett said it was a \"huge honour\" to continue in the \"most humbling and rewarding\" job and that the role was one he would \"never take for granted\".

BBC News