LABOUR’S leader in Leeds said his party members’ hard work during the pandemic has paid off as his group comfortably kept control of Leeds City Council following today’s local election count. The party bucked the trend seen in the rest of the UK by making only minimal losses in the city, while one senior councillor held onto her seat by just a dozen votes. However, the leader of the Leeds Conservatives claimed the share of Labour’s vote had “collapsed”, despite his party gaining only one seat on the authority. Labour went into the contest with 54 seats and left with the same number – winning back two vacant Roundhay seats, and losing Ardsley and Robin Hood, and Morley South to the Conservatives and Morley Borough Independents respectively.