Final week of campaigning begins as Labour faces heavy losses forecast

Good morning. We are now into the final week of campaigning for the Scottish parliament, Welsh Senedd and English local elections. Keir Starmer had been planning a big speech today, but he, and other political leaders, are today focusing on their response to the Golders Green stabbing and the antisemitism threat facing Britain's Jewish community – described as a "national security emergency" by Jonathan Hall KC, the government's independent reviewer of terror legislation. Here is our overnight story. And here is our live blog by Taz Ali. Taz will be covering most of the political reaction to that story, and so that won't be something I will be covering here. (And because criminal proceedings are active, comments relating to the attack won't be allowed below the line, I'm afraid.) Instead, let's start with the elections, and a member of the House of Lords called Robert Hayward. Hayward is a Conservative and former MP but at Westminster he is best known as an elections specialist who produces detailed forecasts ahead of elections. They are not always perfect – no forecast is – but they are well-informed, and politically neutral, and Hayward is one of the very few people doing forecasting of this kind whose views are taken seriously by the main political parties. He won't necessarily tell you exactly what will happen; but he is worth reading if you want to know what the politicos expect to happen (which is useful intelligence because often election results are assessed by how they match up against expectations). Last night Hayward revealed his forecast on ITV's Peston. And this is how Hayward explains it in his summary. double quotation markEngland all figures given are net losses and gains Labour will lose 1850 seats The losses will be nationwide What impact on Sir Keir's role? Given S Times comment re 1500 losses and 'nervous breakdown' this is bad news for Sir Keir and Labour. Reform will be biggest gainer from both Labour and Conservatives, overwhelmingly outside London. They will gain 1550 seats Will their national equivalent vote be lower than last year? I believe it will be The Conservatives will lose 600 seats many in councils deferred from last year. These seats were previously contested in the vaccine bounce year of 2021. Do they gain any notable councils or stop Reform from taking control of target councils? Yes Have they improved on the national equivalent vote last year? About static The Greens will gain 500 seats in London and middle class areas of other cities Can they take any mayoralties or control any councils? Yes definitely mayoralty possibly a council or two The Lib Dems will gain 150 seats but will need to gain councils to be involved 'in the conversation'. Will national equivalent vote share reflect decline in poll position. Yes Have they lost their position as part of the protest parties? Up to a point. Independents will gain 250 seats Many of these will be in east London, Birmingham and Lancs Other forecasts are available too. I will post more on those soon. Parliament is not sitting today, and there is not much in the diary. But we won't be short of politics. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can't read all the messages BTL, but if you put "Andrew" in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can't promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.