Top Tories were bracing themselves for a ‘tough’ set of local elections as the first council results began to stream in tonight.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet ministers are fearing a voter backlash for the last 12 months of political turmoil at Westminster.

It has been claimed the Conservatives could lose as many as 1,000 seats across councils in England.

Labour said they were ‘confident’ of success in key battleground areas ahead of an expected general election next year.

Sir Keir Starmer’s party were handed an early boost tonight when they gained seats in Sunderland as the party held control of the city’s council.

They also retained control of councils in Chorley, Halton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, South Tyneside, Sefton, Exeter, Stevenage, Ipswich, Lincoln and Coventry.

But Labour failed to gain Hartlepool despite high hopes they could win control of the council two years on from suffering a devastating by-election loss in the ‘Red Wall’ area.

In other early results, the Tories held Broxbourne, Harlow, Redditch, Basildon, Havant, Rushmoor and North East Lincolnshire, but lost their majorities in both Brentwood and Tamworth.

Tamworth’s local MP is Chris Pincher, the former Conservative whip who faced groping claims last summer in a scandal that ultimately led to Boris Johnson’s downfall as PM.

As of 2am, the Tories had lost almost 50 council seats, with Labour gaining 30 seats.

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice told the BBC: ‘The Conservatives cannot be sure that they won’t end up losing 1,000 seats.’

The Liberal Democrats held on to Eastleigh and were confident of keeping control of Hull. 

Sir Keir has been warned he needs a double-digit lead in the local elections projected national vote share to show he is on course to become the next PM.

From 7am to 10pm yesterday, voters across England visited polling stations to choose around 8,000 councillors in 230 councils.

Results from all four corners of the country began to arrive around midnight, with the major parties on tenterhooks to discover whether they had a good or bad night.

The full results will provide a key indicator as to whether Mr Sunak can stage a revival in Conservative fortunes against Labour.

Council elections in Bolton, Stratford-on-Avon, Stoke-on-Trent, Colchester, Torbay and Plymouth will be among those scoured over as crucial contests between the major parties.

Tory sources were pessimistic about their chances in Bolton and Windsor and Maidenhead, but were more bullish about their performance in the key Midlands areas of Dudley and Sandwell.

Labour were hopeful of gaining control of Plymouth – a target area ahead of the general election.

Cabinet minister Chris Heaton-Harris admitted the Tories had suffered ‘a bit of a blip’ following last year’s ousting of Mr Johnson and Liz Truss as PM.

The Northern Ireland Secretary said ‘fantastic councillors’ were set to lose their seats but insisted the Conservatives were ‘trying to make sure we win people’s trust back’ under Mr Sunak.

‘We know we’ve got work to do and it is going to be a tough set of results for us — we are in no doubt about that,’ he told BBC’s Newsnight. 

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said she was ‘confident’ the party had made progress in key battleground areas.

‘I’m confident we’re going to see progress in those key areas where we need to make gains come the next general election, and I think we have run a really strong campaign that will demonstrate that,’ she said.

Prior to polling day, the PM had predicted a ‘hard night’ and warned that – despite ‘good progress’ since he entered No10 – Tory councillors could yet be punished for the turbulence of the past 12 months at Westminster.

Mr Sunak personally paid for a delivery of 10 large Domino’s pizzas at Tory HQ tonight ahead of votes being counted across England. 

Senior Tories have admitted they could lose more than 1,000 council seats across England – although Labour have furiously accused the Conservatives of expectation management ahead of election day.

Losing fewer than 500 seats overall would be viewed as a good night at Tory HQ, at a time when the party currently trails Labour in most national opinion polls.

Amid growing signs of a late Conservative surge ahead of polling day, one forecast even suggested Tory losses could be as little as 338 seats.

Tory hopes of a decent performance will be buoyed by the fact the local council seats being decided this year were last contested in 2019, at the nadir of Theresa May’s time as PM.

Following a poor performance that night, Mrs May went on to suffer humiliation in European Parliament elections just three weeks later, which swiftly led to her resignation.

But Labour was also failing to make major inroads at the time with an unpopular leader in Jeremy Corbyn.

Meanwhile, polling experts have said that Labour needs to score a victory of more than 10% in the projected national vote share in this year’s local elections to show that Sir Keir is on course to be the next PM.

Sir Tony Blair had double-digit local election vote share victories in the lead-up to New Labour’s landslide in 1997, as did David Cameron’s Tories before 2010 when they ended up in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Labour gaining 700 seats or more would be the party’s best local election performance for at least 10 years.

And gains above 500 seats would point to Sir Keir being poised to win the keys to Downing Street at the next general election, experts have said.

But both Labour and the Tories will be keeping a close eye on the number of independent councillors elected.

Success or otherwise for non-party candidates is set to provide evidence as to whether the two major parties are currently garnering much enthusiasm among voters.

As the polls closed last night, a Tory spokesman said: ‘This will be a tough night for the Conservatives.

‘Any Government which has been in power for 13 years is highly likely to lose seats. Independent experts Rallings and Thrasher have said we could lose over 1,000 seats.

‘But if Labour want to be in with a chance of taking office after the next general election as they did in 1997, they need to be making very significant gains as they did in 1995 – the last most comparable election – anything less than that will pose serious questions for Labour HQ.’

Labour sources swiftly rubbished the Tories’ comparison with the 1995 local elections, as they pointed out Scotland and Wales were included in the council elections that year – but no contests were held in the two countries on Thursday. 

They also claimed the dominance of the two main parties in local government had long since ended, with the number of independent candidates having massively increased in recent years.