Farage and Polanski get ready to chew through the London ‘donut’ – POLITICO

Forget the “donut.” The classic electoral map of London — a safe, red Labour core encircled by a dependable ring of blue Tory suburbs — looks set to be chomped to pieces.

As Keir Starmer braces for a brutal set of local elections on May 7, his party is confronting a terrifying new picture in the capital, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK biting into the right-leaning fringes and a surging Green Party gobbling up parts of the progressive center.

Labour officials struggling to hold on to the U.K. capital now fret about a “pentagon” — a mind-bending fight in which they’re fending off challenges on multiple fronts, while the Conservatives are grasping to stay relevant. An already priced-in hammering in Wales, Scotland and in councils across England could, according to YouGov polling shared with POLITICO this week, be compounded by big losses in the capital.