British Local Elections, May 2024

[Blair]

I'm very confused about why the press are pretending it's a 'mixed seat of results' for the Conservatives.

They lost in Cumbria! and Aldershot! These places mean something to the former colonels who make up the party

[CumbrianLefty]

To me the Labour PCC gain in Northants is maybe the stand out result - because this is somewhere Tory support has generally held up annoyingly well in recent local council byelections, despite their widely publicised problems at that level.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I'm very confused about why the press are pretending it's a 'mixed seat of results' for the Conservatives.

They lost in Cumbria! and Aldershot! These places mean something to the former colonels who make up the party

But the PCC map is still pretty blue and if you have an agenda to push who cares about “different voting system” or “turnout”.
Also Ben Houchen is the BoJo of the North East imo tbh jao.
Also pretend Blackpool South didn’t happen because you’d never know it did from the tabloid coverage!

[CumbrianLefty]

Lol, Would you expect him to try joining the Worcester Labour now that it would give them a majority? I doubt they would accept, but there is glory in the attempt...

A re-re-rat?

He could just agree to "support" them, that would be hilarious enough.

[Blair]

I also stole it from someone on twitter who said that PPCs are actually the closest party line election; the incumbents aren't well known, there isn't a local issue that impacts it & it's quite a broad area that votes...

[Blair]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786706835321368798

[Flyersfan232]

So what if conservatives finally win London? It'll still be considered a horrible election for them?

the tories taking london would say more about khan then keir

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm very confused about why the press are pretending it's a 'mixed seat of results' for the Conservatives.

The handful of good results in the council elections have nearly all occurred in places where the main opposition group is... problematic... and this also goes for the somewhat larger list of places where the results have been relatively good: and in the context of this set of locals, even the relatively good results have been objectively bad ones. Why there were some councils where Labour held up just fine in 2008 as well: this is the way with local elections and, well, it's meaningless.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786723197636796570

[afleitch]

I'm thinking a good aggregate at the end of the weekend might be PCC elections, and Mayor elections where no PCC and Assembly results for London.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786708509825888425

[CumbrianLefty]

With the first few results in, it can already be said that the "Hall to win" London rumours were wrong.

And could yet be majorly so.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786723197636796570

On a truly paltry turnout of 24%.

[Torrain]

Yeah - turnout’s pretty grim.

Labour also comfortably hold South Yorkshire:


West Midlands reportedly still too close to call.

[IceAgeComing]

Swings I've seen from London are approx. 5% from Conservatives to Labour - so polls will be out again but showing the right result. The caveat is that I don't think we've had outer London boroughs in yet; especially the areas where you might expect an anti-Khan backlash if one exists.

West Midlands appears to be very close - a lot better for Labour than they were expectation managing yesterday.

[Alcibiades]

Indeed — results from Merton and Wandsworth are 48% Khan, 29% Hall. That is the kind of area you’d expect Khan to overperform (plus it’s his home turf), but frankly that’s a massive gap regardless. Hall would have to be getting North Korea numbers in Outer London to keep this close.

[CumbrianLefty]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1786723197636796570

On a truly paltry turnout of 24%.

Liverpool, St Helens and Wirral all had no council elections - which will have lowered turnout a bit.

[Alcibiades]

I also stole it from someone on twitter who said that PPCs are actually the closest party line election; the incumbents aren't well known, there isn't a local issue that impacts it & it's quite a broad area that votes...

What’s stuck out to me about them is that the Lib Dems have been doing very well — getting well into the 20s in percentage terms in areas you wouldn’t expect them to have much strength in at a general election. A corollary of this is that many winners have been getting low vote shares — often the mid 30s is enough. Evidently people don’t care enough about PCCs to bother voting tactically (now that they’re FPTP)!

[JimJamUK]

What’s stuck out to me about them is that the Lib Dems have been doing very well — getting well into the 20s in percentage terms in areas you wouldn’t expect them to have much strength in at a general election. A corollary of this is that many winners have been getting low vote shares — often the mid 30s is enough. Evidently people don’t care enough about PCCs to bother voting tactically (now that they’re FPTP)!

They’re also usually one of the only (if only) alternative to the major 2 parties. The most hilarious example of which is them coming a not too distant 2nd in Blackburn and Darwen council area despite being irrelevant at the actual council elections where Muslim independents came from nowhere to win the most seats.

[Alcibiades]

What’s stuck out to me about them is that the Lib Dems have been doing very well — getting well into the 20s in percentage terms in areas you wouldn’t expect them to have much strength in at a general election. A corollary of this is that many winners have been getting low vote shares — often the mid 30s is enough. Evidently people don’t care enough about PCCs to bother voting tactically (now that they’re FPTP)!

They’re also usually one of the only (if only) alternative to the major 2 parties. The most hilarious example of which is them coming a not too distant 2nd in Blackburn and Darwen council area despite being irrelevant at the actual council elections where Muslim independents came from nowhere to win the most seats.

Yes, that’s true. The same goes for the Greens, many independents, and even the English Democrats, who hilariously got 13% in Essex. It’s basically rare to see any PCC candidate get much below 10%.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Khan has just taken West Central (Westminster, Chelsea, Kensington, Hammersmith), the first time a labour candidate has taken it. I think we can call this...

[Alcibiades]

Khan has just taken West Central (Westminster, Chelsea, Kensington, Hammersmith), the first time a labour candidate has taken it. I think we can call this...

And by a margin of almost 10%…

[DL]

Two questions:

1. Why would any Tories bother trying to spin that the London mayoralty was competitive?
2. Why would any sane observer of British politics have believed them?

[Torrain]

Two questions:

1. Why would any Tories bother trying to spin that the London mayoralty was competitive?
2. Why would any sane observer of British politics have believed them?

Amongst other reasons:

1 - to distract from a very poor set of results on the first night, aware they could shift the narrative for 24 hours, and make Sunak a little safer until Houchen and Street’s results came in

2 - the Lobby want any sign of a competitive race they can find, and “Labour in disarray” appeals to a lot of their instincts. Also, they almost live in London, so it’s a race they’ve all got a vote and opinions on.

[Torrain]

Khan’s won London South West - another constituency that’s always voted Tory for Mayor and Assembly, with the single exception of a vote for Livingston in 2000. Includes heavy Lib Dem areas like Richmond.