British Local Elections, May 2024

[JimJamUK]

The Conservatives performed strongly in 2021 in the Rother Valley constituency, where they won a comfortable majority of the seats, including in some very implausible wards (e.g. Maltby East); they also won some scattered seats in the area covered by the new Rawmarsh & Conisbrough constituency, and it will be interesting to see how they hold up in this borough.

Truly one of those results that makes you wonder, even by the standards of 2021, ‘what the hell what there!?’

[JimJamUK]

It would be pretty humiliating for the Greens if they can’t take Bristol City Council. I’d honestly be shocked if they don’t win by a lot.

Tbf, 2021 was a very bad year for Labour, the unpopular Labour mayor is on his way out, and the most recent by-election in a Green held ward saw a decent swing to Labour. The Greens ‘only’ won 1/3 of the seats in 2021, and this was largely based on winning naturally Green friendly wards rather than the Lib Dem style local targeting that will be needed for them to win majority (Bristol isn’t just Bristol West).

[JimJamUK]

I think if you’re not in Bristol you can’t quite appreciate the hatred for Marvin Rees (which is not unlike that for Sadiq Khan), and how it’s manifested particularly in the south of the city which may lead people who aren’t obvious Greens to vote for them just as anti-Labour vote.

Also the city has changed demographically massively in the last 20, even 10 years, its become so much more gentrified where places like Bedminster that were homogeneously white working class up until the last few decades are now completely changed. Even places like Knowle west and Hartcliffe are starting to gentrify.

Also the local Labour Party members are concentrated in the centre of the city, so they aren’t positioned ideally to go after Tory seats that are almost exclusively in the outer fringes. We should get Frome Vale + Avonmouth, I seriously doubt we’d get anymore without more work.

All the Conservative wards had quite substantial differences between candidates, such that even a modest swing could see the bottom Conservative lose out. And given Rees will not be on the ballot this time, it’s not clear how many people would be tactically voting Green against him/his legacy (especially anymore than they did last time).

[JimJamUK]

FWiW, Sunderland Labour are still serial underperformers, it’s just that they’re underperforming a far higher baseline than they were in 2019/2021. The Tories will also continue to overperform in a few key wards in North Tyneside, but that could be anywhere from a near wipeout to double digits. South Tyneside Greens are very well organised and pushing against an open door so I would expect their success to continue. Hartlepool Labour should romp home, although that probably means they will get smashed in 2025.

[JimJamUK]

TUSC are running the most - 290 candidates, including a full slate in Plymouth. I think they basically get every cadre SPEW member to run, though i know some other miniscule groups have joined as well, including the British Spartacists.

Haven't seen it mentioned here that Jaime Driscoll got RMT's endorsement - i don't think theyre endorsing any TUSC candidate this time.

They disaffiliated in 2022. They recognise Labour as the main alternative to the Tories, albeit they’re happy to endorse candidates like Driscoll who are seen as having a decent chance of winning.

[JimJamUK]

RE the Cambridge Congestion Charge, the Tory vote doubled in 2023 and seemed to come more from Labour than the Lib Dems. They actually gained a (working class) seat a couple of months later. I assume the anger will have subsided enough that they’ll fall back quite a bit, but the change or resilience of their vote could lead to some funny results.

[JimJamUK]

There are a lot of TUSC candidates; indeed they're standing in every ward but one, and they've explicitly endorsed an "anti-cuts and pro-Gaza" independent in that ward (Darnall).

On that note, TUSC sound fairly pro-Galloway these days and I suspect they will come to some sort of accommodation for the forthcoming general election. Given they (and other minor far left parties) have largely presented themselves as progressive (immigration, LGBT etc), you have to wonder if there will be a bit of friction towards such alliances.

[JimJamUK]

The thing is, Reform ‘should’ want some credible 2nd places at the general election which could be greatly assisted by properly establishing themselves in a few areas. Even though UKIP were organisationally a bit of a shambles at times, they still did have a number of places where they elected councillors, were capable of campaigning, and achieved better results than they got in similar areas.

[JimJamUK]

FWIW, Labour’s polling has not changed since May 2023. The change in Conservative polling has been entirely down to Reform. Given Reform are contesting only a small minority of seats (and it’s unlikely the full swing to them is even real), it’s not clear that the Conservatives will do much worse than last year. 

[JimJamUK]

I’m not saying it’s wrong, but the ability of Redfield and Wilton to always produce relatively flat polling in the cross tabs (in this case, equal approval by party) is not comforting…

[JimJamUK]

My impression is that the Greens and especially the Lib-Dems have enough wards locked down that the city can never leave NOC barring a change in local preferences. 

They have very few seats locked down. What they do have is a large number of seats that have been very marginal at some point in the last few years but never actually flip to Labour.

[JimJamUK]

Curious about Cambridge as well. Labour lost a seat in by election to the Conservatives possibly over opposition to congestion pricing plan.

Could the council go to NOC?

Very unlikely but not impossible. Labour are not overrepresented in the seats up this year and a repeat of last year would certainly keep their majority. The Conservative success was in a by-election rather than regular election, and the congestion charge plan is dead. There could still be some lingering effect, but it would only really endanger Labour’s majority if there were a ton of Lab22-Con23-LD24 voters in key wards.

[JimJamUK]

how are local councils powerless?

Councils have statutory duties to provide certain services. On top of that, there’s certain things which are expected even if they’re not legally bound to provide them. Given the rising demand for statutory services* along with council funding cuts (especially for more disadvantaged areas), you end up with a situation where councils have very little room for manoeuvre or policy experimentation. They are increasingly just the implementers of national government policy, not that it stops councils claiming they are choosing to do lots of great things or with a little more power they could do so.

*adult social care, education for disabled children, and homelessness are a particular worry for council’s budgets at the moment

[JimJamUK]

So Khan is ahead 46-33 in a pure FPTP contest - presumably if London still used the preferential ballot his would scoop virtually all of the second preferences of Green and LibDem voters and the final count would be something like 63-37

A large chunk of them would abstain so he would end up under 60%.

[JimJamUK]

Cherwell, Tunbridge Wells, and West Oxfordshire are three councils where the situation can be generalized as a Lib-Dem and Labour (and localists in Tunbridge) team-up to force something close to a duopoly versus the Conservatives. Neither party on its own can win their own majority, neither presently can eliminate the other, but together they do/will hold power. There is no alliance between the the parties electorally, but recently voters behaved tactically in most circumstances. In all three Labour is concentrating in a urban area – Banbury, Whitney, and Tunbridge Wells town – with the Lib-Dems advancing elsewhere. Cherwell is the only one not under a coalition administration, but that’s because Labour refused to work with the Greens in 2023, leaving the council with a Tory minority. In all three The Conservatives are overexposed cause of the 2021 wave, enabling all all parties to potentially make gains.

Not quite. Labour were the largest party in a potential non-Tory coalition so were expected to take control. However, the Lib Dems and Greens formed one council group and therefore claimed a Lib Dem should lead the council. Labour were understandably a bit narked off with these shenanigans and ultimately the Tories retained minority control. Whether relationships have healed, the Tories falling further into minority, or one opposition party doing particularly well/badly will change this dynamic we’ll have to wait and see.

[JimJamUK]

North East

McGuinness (Lab) 35
Driscoll (Ind) 33
Donaghy (Reform UK) 14
Renner-Thompson (Con) 11
Gray (Green) 4
King (Lib Dem) 4

FWIW, there is a massive turnout gap in Driscoll’s favour and he is basically level with the Conservative candidate among Conservative voters. Far from a left wing challenger, if this poll is true he’s basically the anti-left candidate. There does seem to be a big issue with political engagement with this. The pollster themselves are caveating it by saying their focus group is not paying attention to the race and don’t know who Driscoll is, which makes the likelihood of him winning as an independent rather unlikely. It’s certainly true that he was very low profile until his bust-up with Labour, and his actual campaign seems to largely amount to spending shed loads on social media advertising touting ‘his’ achievements as mayor.

[JimJamUK]

Pardon my ignorance but when you say these contests did NOT seem close at the start of the year - is that because people assumed both would be easy Labour pickups in what promises to be a Tory meltdown in the locals or that because people assumed the Tory incumbents had enough personal popularity to be unbeatable?

No, quite the opposite - Houchen and Street were both expected to win easily *despite* the polls.

Which is ridiculous given Street only won re-election by 54-46 in a very good Tory year. Just goes to show how ignorant our media is.

[JimJamUK]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsMoments/status/1785963934786244779

He’s claiming it’s down to his dyspraxia, and therefore Labour are attacking disabled people by mocking him for forgetting the necessary ID his own government legislated for.

[JimJamUK]

First P & C result (some are lagging their schedules...) is a Tory hold. This is a two-party swing of 16% to Labour, but the real story is Reform. But at the same time they arn't doing so well in what should be a great area, and they didn't pull the Tories under even with what seems to be a Labour surge from Lincoln city.

Lincolnshire is if anything even more suited to Reform than UKIP given how Conservative leaning their voters are, so 14% really isn’t that great as you say.

[JimJamUK]

Broxborne has declared it's inevitable 9-1 Con-Lab result.

Whats up with Broxbourne? Is it just one council estate surrounded by rabid and unusually Brexity commuters?

There’s one ward bordering London which is noticeably very working class/non-white, while the rest is basically as you describe. Still quite working class, but longstandingly Tory (more so than what are now some other similar areas).

[JimJamUK]

FWIW there does seem to be a relatively good performance by Labour vs Lib Dems/Greens in a number of places. In the past few cycles once the latter were defending a ward it was very unlikely for Labour to actually regain any of these wards. Obviously spotty, but for once Labour is actually making up ground in a number of wards and even councils where you wouldn’t have expected them to given they didn’t in 2022 or 2023.

[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.

[JimJamUK]

are the york party like the snp?

Nah - they’re pro-devolution and a bit localist, rather than being full-blown separatists.

Less campervan-based financial allegations too.

Also sort of left of centre, but a weirdly high number of them seem to defect from/to the Conservative Party.