{"id":572740,"date":"2026-05-08T10:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/572740\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:08:09","slug":"local-elections-in-greater-manchester-lancashire-and-liverpool-city-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/572740\/","title":{"rendered":"Local elections in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Liverpool City Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reform takes Labour leader&#8217;s seat in Boltonpublished at 08:44 BST<\/p>\n<p>08:44 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"People on stage in an arena in Bolton\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/875ad5ae-3357-4dca-aec6-d0dda1546f3a.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, LDRS<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Reform won nine seats on Bolton Council including that of Labour Councillor Nick Peel, who led the council for the last three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Trevor Jones of Reform seized the ward of Tonge with the Haulgh, receiving 2,089 votes to Peel&#8217;s 1,329.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;National issues have played a part we have run a local campaign and tried to keep it about Bolton,&#8221; Peel told BBC Radio Manchester.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The government has been harshly judged but the people have made their views known,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There were sustained celebrations from the Nigel Farage-led party\u2019s supporters in Bolton Arena as they secured their first-ever victories in the borough, taking nine seats in the council chamber.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jones said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a great night for Reform in Bolton. We\u2019re up to 10 councillors and it\u2019s been through hard work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was also a chastening night for the Tories, who lost four seats to Reform, but a night of celebration for the Greens, who gained three seats from Labour. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The results leave the borough still under no overall control with an even more diverse mix of parties forming its political make up than previously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform takes Labour leader&#8217;s seat in Boltonpublished at 08:44 BST 08:44 BST Image source, LDRS Reform won nine&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-572740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}