Of all the stories making national headlines this morning, one has mysteriously escaped the gaze of the mainstream media.
A loss of almost 500 seats was described as a “bullish” performance from Boris Johnson by The Express, while The Sun and the Mail decided to lead on ‘beergate’ allegations that land conveniently on the day after the local election results were revealed.
But what of Labour’s performance?
Strong shows in London have clouded what is otherwise a mixed bag of results for Sir Keir Starmer.
As Owen Jones points out, the Green Party has managed to gain more seats than Labour, with a strong Liberal Democrat march undoubtedly one of the biggest stories to come out of the elections.
It was left to Sir John Curtice to point out a seemingly newsworthy outcome that everyone else has ignored.
Outside of London, Labour was actually down on the results Jeremy Corbyn had produced in 2018.
It meant on a national scale that Labour’s estimated share of the vote simply matches that of four years ago, an improvement for sure, but hardly credit-worthy.
But contrast today’s headlines with those of 2018 and an interesting picture emerges.
Most of the MSM had their guns out for Corbyn following those elections, with the Times splashing calls for an inquest into Corbyn’s leadership and several other news outlets bemoaning a disappointing set of results.
Starmer may well have performed well in London, but any shot at the top job will have to be built around areas outside of the capital.
In those places, it is clear that the Labour messaging is not cutting through.
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