British Local Elections, May 2024

[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.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Would I be correct in comparing Labour's win in the London mayoral election with Doug Ford's byelection win in Milton? An unpopular incumbent party that gets reelected due to the greater unpopularity of the senior government?

[Oryxslayer]

To finally put the nail in the coffin of that "projected national share" the Conservative Party leadership is using it's modeled seat totals  to convince their MPs, in reaction to the West Midlands, to stay the course. But nobody is buying it cause everyone knows the model is a BS exercise.




Also buried below the mayoral declarations Reform ended up with a London Council seat in the city-wide PR allocation.

[Torrain]

Also buried below the mayoral declarations Reform ended up with a London Council seat in the city-wide PR allocation.

This could be a little interesting.

One of Reform’s aspirations (on background briefing to the Times, of course) is to stay relevant long enough to haul 4-5 list seats in Wales (as UKIP did), so they get ‘short money’, (government cash for staff, campaigning), and an allocation of party political broadcasts.

Would be interested if one of our posters knows whether London Assembly representation provides some/all of the same benefits.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Indeed, the Tory candidate in the mayoral election referred to started off in the Yorkshire Party.

[Oryxslayer]

Would I be correct in comparing Labour's win in the London mayoral election with Doug Ford's byelection win in Milton? An unpopular incumbent party that gets reelected due to the greater unpopularity of the senior government?

Electorally,  maybe. But campaign/candidate-wise, incomparable.  I don't think even CCHQ expected to win London and therefore picked a candidate list accordingly.  Their campaign was about satisfying the outer borough and keeping the anti-ULEZ torch aflame for the future. It also ended up as a cuture war fight that only appeals to the base. Nick Rodgers,  who failed to be selected for the Tories,  was certainly out there yesterday saying that things could have gone differently (maybe not in outcome but  margin) if the Tories actually had a viable alternative and not just reacting to khan.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Khan is not massively popular, but he is not hated - most people think him as a genial guy. Therefore the really personal attacks from tory partisans (who do loathe him beyond normal partisanship) has limited effects on median voters.

[Torrain]

Kinda impressive for the Lib Dems to win more seats than the Tories on the night - first time since 1996 by the look of it.

The fact they did so while remaining third-place in total votes should trigger some alarms in CCHQ about the risk of tactical voting later in the year. That’s the sort of vote efficiency you’d expect from the Ashdown era Libs.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

New assembly. Tories lose one seat, reform gain one. You'll note that conservatives didn't force the "simple" FPTP on this race like they did elsewhere. Although the flip in the chelsea seat was amusing (and in line with trends), the swing in the east constituency was largest.

[Oryxslayer]

Lib-Dems should have 2 not 1 on that map FYI.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Guys I've seen enough! A Conservative politician, that was elected with 72,8% of the vote three years ago, only lost 20 percentage points and managed to get re-elected. The Conservatives almost won a second mayoral race. And there were quite persistent rumours that the Conservatives would win in solidly red London of all places, sure it all turned out to be untrue, but the fact that those rumours even existed in the first place says a lot about Labour's great weakness.

The Tories are definitely on the path to victory in the general election and the only way for Labour to make the race somewhat competitive is for Stramer to resign and hand over the reigns to someone more electable such as Richard Burgon or Rebecca Long-Bailey. 

[GoTfan]

Khan is not massively popular, but he is not hated - most people think him as a genial guy. Therefore the really personal attacks from tory partisans (who do loathe him beyond normal partisanship) has limited effects on median voters.

I can't imagine why right-wing partisans despise a centre-left, openly Muslim, pro-EU Mayor.

[DL]

What is it about the southwest corner of London that makes it vote LibDem unlike any other part of the city?

[Joe Republic]

Who is the 'People's Independent Party’ who just won control in Castle Point?

And how much should we be reading into Reform winning only 2 councillors across the entire country?

[adma]

What is it about the southwest corner of London that makes it vote LibDem unlike any other part of the city?

I suppose that by the time we came to the critical 1997 moment of Tory rejection, it fit the perfect profile of "too posh for Labour, too un-Thatcherite to stay Tory".

[LAKISYLVANIA]

To finally put the nail in the coffin of that "projected national share" the Conservative Party leadership is using it's modeled seat totals  to convince their MPs, in reaction to the West Midlands, to stay the course. But nobody is buying it cause everyone knows the model is a BS exercise.

Also buried below the mayoral declarations Reform ended up with a London Council seat in the city-wide PR allocation.

Don't interrupt the enemy when it makes a mistake, this is one of those cases.

If they believe they are fine and should hold course, let them believe so.

[Oryxslayer]

Who is the 'People's Independent Party’ who just won control in Castle Point?

Prior to this election there was a three-party dynamic in Castle Point. Before reading below, remember that the council is divided geographically, and the mainland has more seats than the island.

First is the Long-governing Conservatives who had built up a lot of dissatisfaction federally and locally among even their loyal voters. Even though this is very Blue territory.

Next grouping is the Cavaney Island Independence Party: a localist grouping confined to the southern part of the council covering the aforementioned Island. Beyond just general localism they want the island to have it's own council. They gradually built themselves into a machine over two decades that wins every seat there - they are the 15 Indies on BBC's tracker.

The third grouping is the PIP. They are a localist ticket who sprung up in the past few years, uniting various council Independents and slowly making gains on the larger mainland side of the council.

In 2023 the CIIP and PIP almost completely swept their respective sides of the council. They then formed an administration. With all wards now up for reelection after boundary changes, The two localist groups completed the sweep of their sections. Since the mainland is larger, the PIP gets a majority, and BBC therefore has to create their own group separate from Resident's Associations to the distinguish the two.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So apparently the reform party London Assembly member that got elected is a voteuk forum regular member. I predict a hilarious scandal within the next 6 months.

[LAB-LIB]

https://twitter.com/liambyrnemp/status/1786825391606276290?4

I'm afraid there are no Tories left.

Guys I've seen enough! A Conservative politician, that was elected with 72,8% of the vote three years ago, only lost 20 percentage points and managed to get re-elected. The Conservatives almost won a second mayoral race. And there were quite persistent rumours that the Conservatives would win in solidly red London of all places, sure it all turned out to be untrue, but the fact that those rumours even existed in the first place says a lot about Labour's great weakness.

The Tories are definitely on the path to victory in the general election and the only way for Labour to make the race somewhat competitive is for Stramer to resign and hand over the reigns to someone more electable such as Richard Burgon or Rebecca Long-Bailey.  

Or Diane Abbott

[CumbrianLefty]

So apparently the reform party London Assembly member that got elected is a voteuk forum regular member. I predict a hilarious scandal within the next 6 months.

He isn't such a bad sort as his type go

[TheTide]

Most of the polls for the three Mayoral elections (Tees Valley, London and West Midlands) that got the most attention were pretty accurate. Regarding the general election that can't be good for the Tories.

[CumbrianLefty]

Khan's win in London was at the low end of polling expectations, but they still didn't do that bad.

Only one poll on the new East Midlands post, but it was almost spot on in all respects. Perhaps their main miss was suggesting the independent Jamie Driscoll might win in the North East - this was put down to oversampling "highly engaged" and mostly online voters, but the opposite was true in the West Midlands where the top poll score for the not dissimilar independent was 5% -  he got over 11%.

So not a bad record overall, but there were a few glitches.

[GoTfan]

To reiterate what just happened in London, apart from Khan winning a deserved victory against a British Trumpist.

Britain First lost to Count Binface.

The fascist. Lost. To. A. Bin.

[CumbrianLefty]

Britain First lost to Count Binface.

The fascist. Lost. To. A. Bin.

Hilarious in itself, but the cherry on top was the BF candidate taking to Twitter to pompously proclaim "no he didn't, ACTUALLY" (because BF stood for the list and Binface didn't) to near universal ridicule - and going on to proclaim this was all proof of the system conspiring against the truth

[Cassius]

Kudos to tories, London and West Midlands combined have got to be the worst election night messaging in political history. The epitome of wanting a quick sugar high from some positive buzz on twitter that immediately leaves you hungover.

Yes, the Guardian have been laying it on thick this morning, which I presume would not have been the case without this ridiculous Tory spinning:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/stunning-labour-triumphs-in-london-and-west-midlands-leave-sunak-reeling