Transport Secretary Mark Harper has insisted Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives still have “everything to fight for”, despite their terrible results in this week’s local elections.

The party lost 473 councillors across the country after Thursday’s vote, as well as high-profile mayoral races – seeing the West Midlands mayor Andy Street booted out by Labour in a tightly fought contest.

Yet Mr Harper insisted the best response for the Tories was to support the prime minister and prepare for the general election, which is expected later this year.

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Talking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, the minister said: “It is always incredibly disappointing when you lose hardworking councillors, police and crime commissioners and fantastic mayors like Andy Street… it was a testament to him that that result was so close… so I can understand people being disappointed by that.

“But I think the key thing that people need to do now is get behind the prime minister, focus on the things the government is focused on delivering – the British people’s priorities around the economy, dealing with migration – and get out there and take that fight to the country ahead of the general election.”

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Pointing to analysis by Sky News’ election expert Professor Michael Thrasher, which showed Labour was on course to be the largest party after the general election, but not have an overall majority, Mr Harper said his rivals hadn’t “sealed the deal with the public – so that means there is a fight to be had”.

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He added: “The prime minister is up for that fight, I am up for that fight and I know the Conservative Party is up for it.

“We have to focus on delivering on people’s priorities – that’s what the prime minister is doing – and then we have to get out there and sell that message and set out what we would do after the election with a Conservative victory.”

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Asked by Trevor Phillips if it was time to “put everyone out of their misery” and call a general election, Mr Harper said: “Well no, look, the prime minister has said right from the beginning of this year that his working assumption was that the election would be in the second half of this year – that remains the case.

“It is for this reason… he is focused on the British people’s priorities and about delivering lower inflation, stopping the boats and focusing on getting NHS waiting lists down.

“We have made a lot of progress, but I absolutely accept there is more to do on that and [he] wants to continue delivering on those priorities before we go to the country.”

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