Oh no, Jeremy Corbyn. Labour may have won a handful of extra council seats in yesterday’s local elections but, in truth, for an opposition party facing an eight-year-old government beset by troubles, it was a disaster.

Remember, the Labour leader and Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan launched their council campaign in Westminster, claiming that even this true-blue stronghold was within their sights. Not only has the Tory administration held on in that borough, but in Wandsworth, and Kensington and Chelsea too. In Barnet — where Labour needed to win just a couple of seats to take control and which most Tories privately thought was lost — the Conservatives actually advanced. In one ward there, Golders Green, the turnout was 70 per cent. Repelled by the pervasive anti-Semitism that the hard-Left has brought into the Labour movement, citizens in that part of north London came out in droves to punish a party that once stood for compassion and inclusion.

Outside London, Labour spin doctors point to successes in places such as Plymouth and Trafford — but they went backwards in Dudley, Bedworth and Peterborough. It is particularly satisfying that that arch-Corbynista and neo-Stalinist MP Chris Williamson saw his home town of Derby swing to the Tories.

There is one overwhelming conclusion for the Left. In a country where many clearly seek an alternative to a Conservative Party drifting to the Right, voters simply do not see Labour as a party they can trust with power. That is because of who leads them. There is a Jeremy Corbyn “effect” — and it is keeping Labour from office.

Breathing space

The Tories, by contrast, are breathing a huge sigh of relief. Last night was a vindication for well-run Tory councils that have delivered good local services, and which this paper recommended our readers support.

It was also a success for the new party chair, Brandon Lewis, who worked hard to gee up an ageing and diminished volunteer force. But the Tory party shouldn’t treat the result as a ringing endorsement. The party got fewer votes, and won far fewer council seats than Labour. While it mopped up the votes of Ukip — who were riding high the last time this set of elections were held but today were compared to the Black Death by their own general secretary — that in itself is a risk for the Tories. “We must not drift into the malaise that affected us in the Noughties: wanting the country to adapt to our point of view, rather than the other way round,” Ed Vaizey writes compellingly on this page.

On housing, the Government must confront its Nimby tendency and recognise the cry of injustice from younger families who also want a chance to own their home.

On immigration, the Windrush scandal has exposed the hypocrisy of those Tories who give succour to anti-foreigner sentiment in our country and then blanche at the real-world consequence for those who have come to these shores and made such a huge contribution to our society. We hope that Sajid Javid’s very welcome decision today — to grant Afghan interpreters who risked their lives helping the British Army a route to permanent settlement here — is a sign of the more “humane” immigration system the new Home Secretary has promised to rebuild.

On Brexit, the Prime Minister must now choose between hard-line Brexit ideologues, who are holding her hostage, and the pragmatic, moderate approach that Parliament will back, our stalling economy needs and the country supports. It is telling that, on a night when the Conservatives held off the Corbynistas, they lost significant ground to the Liberal Democrats — who won control in Richmond and advanced in Cheltenham, both areas with sitting Tory MPs. Yes, Middle England did not endorse the extremism of Jeremy Corbyn. But there remains a deep anxiety in metropolitan, professional Britain about the Rightwards direction that the Conservative Party is allowing itself to be pulled in.

These local election results give the Tories the breathing space to find a new sense of direction and put that right.