Liz Bates , Political Correspondent

Liz Bates joined us from Birmingham to tell us the latest there.

The Conservatives wanted three key victories last night: along with Hartlepool they wanted to keep their mayors in the West Midlands and the Tees Valley.

After a week dominated by allegations of sleaze surrounding Boris Johnson, how much is it cutting through with voters?

The Prime Minister is under mounting pressure to reveal how the revamp of his Downing Street flat was funded – as opposition MPs demanded full disclosure.

In the last couple of hours, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has released further details of the cuts being made to foreign aid.

There has been some breaking news while we have been on air: Johnny Mercer has resigned as defence minister.

In his first television interview since his dramatic political downfall, Joe Anderson spoke to us.

It is just a month till voters across the UK head to the polls for the first major elections since the pandemic, and in England they’ll be choosing new local councillors and regional mayors.

The prime minister has confirmed that England will push ahead with the next step out of lockdown in a week’s time – allowing shops, hairdressers and outdoor pubs and restaurants to open again. But he warned people not to be complacent – with Europe’s third wave of infections showing all too clearly the risks still…

A Covid passport system risks creating a “checkpoint Britain”, according to dozens of MPs and peers from across the party divide – who say demanding proof of a vaccine or negative test would be “divisive and discriminatory”.

Downing Street has insisted that the departure of its most senior black adviser, Samuel Kasumu, has nothing to do with the hostile reception to yesterday’s government-backed report on race.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has caused uproar, and perhaps that’s exactly what the government wanted. Anti-racism campaigners, and Labour, are furious.

Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond is making a bid to return to public life by launching a new political party at the end of a dramatic week for Scottish politics.

Commissioners have been parachuted in to take over planning and property decisions in Liverpool after an inspection identified “multiple failures” and “mismanagement” by the city council which have cost taxpayers millions.

The basic aspects of local democracy in Liverpool aren’t functioning: that, this programme understands, is one of the damning conclusions of an inspection into the city council due out tomorrow.