Local elections 2018: polling day live

London mayor Sadiq Khan joins in with the dogs-at-polling-stations thing.

As does Green party co-leader Jonathan Bartley.

There’s even a poem.

Goda Naujokaityte, a Lithuania student studying in Nottingham, is sampling the mood in Kensington and Chelsea where anger about the Grenfell Tower fire could hit sitting Conservative councillors.

But the Westfield polling station near Grenfell tower is not busy.

Unlike Theresa May, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, turned up at his local polling station without his polling card or his spouse.

You do need proof of ID to vote in Bromley, Gosport, Swindon, Watford and Woking where controversial pilot schemes are running.

Ministers say the scheme will help combat electoral fraud but critics argue it will suppress turnout.

None of the five English boroughs taking part in the trial has experienced a single instance of polling station impersonation in the past decade.

There have been more complaints and reports of problems about mandatory voter ID being piloting Bromley, Woking, Gosport, Watford and Swindon (see earlier).

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage has prompted outrage from senior Belgium politicians by claiming that Belgium is not a nation.

Speaking in the European Parliament Farage said: “Belgium is not a nation and maybe that’s why you’re happy to sign up to a higher European level.

“You’re losing folks, you’re losing. Brexit is the first brick out of the wall, you’ll learn the lesson, the days of this project are over. “We want to live in nation-states, not false, artificial creations.”

Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, responded angrily. The Daily Express quoted him saying: “Mr Philippe Nigel Farage you are slipping into populism and extremism and I don’t think that is worthy of your political party.”

Former Belgian prime minster, Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s chief negotiator on Brexit, said Farage would find out how real Belgium is when England play them in World Cup on 28 June.

Former Labour minister Stephen Timms points out that the government has still to decide on customs arrangements just months before an October deadline for concluding the Brexit negotiations. “How many weeks longer will it be before our government has a clear position on customs?” he asks.

Davis replies: “The clarity of the position on not being a member of the customs union is absolute and has been since the beginning, unlike his own party who have had a number of different positions on this matter. It is incredibly important that we get this right, not just for trade, which is massively important, but also for the extremely sensitive issue of maintaining the peace process in Northern Ireland. And I don’t undertake to put an artificial deadline on something as important as that.”

Meanwhile Brexit secretary David Davis is taking questions in the Commons on exiting the EU.

He is ducking questions on the fraught issue of the customs arrangements, after the government’s inner Brexit cabinet broke up without agreement on Wednesday.

“It is no surprise that it takes some time to nail down this policy,” he said after laughing off a question about whether he would resign over the issue.

HuffPost’s Paul Waugh has more battlegrounds to look out for (in addition to those we mentioned earlier).

Hillingdon has got little coverage but it could turn out to be a surprise Labour win if the party can mobilise its forces and if Tories stay at home. And don’t forget Hillingdon is home to Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge seat.

Outside London, the collapse of UKIP’s vote virtually guarantees both Labour and the Tories will increase theirs overall compared to 2014, when most seats were last fought and when Nigel Farage won the Euro elections on the same day. It will be fascinating to see just which party benefits most from the Kipper collapse. The Tories and Labour alike would be delighted to take Dudley or Walsall from no overall control, as well as Basildon, Thurrock and Cannock Chase. Trafford, an island of blue in a sea of Greater Manchester red, may well see the Tories lose control but it is really difficult for Labour to win seats needed to take it outright. If it does, however, it may come down to the party causing an upset in Altrincham. Yes, that’s the backyard of Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee – the man who knows just how many Tory MPs want to get rid of their leader ...

The current opinion polls putting the parties neck and neck on around 40% confirm the post-UKIP landscape and the Lib Dem squeeze of last year. But real votes in real ballot boxes, not answers to pollsters’ questions, have a recent habit of biting the PM on the backside. And with her Cabinet kicking up rough over Brexit, the last thing she needs is more proof of her electoral toxicity.