British Local Elections, May 2024

[Alcibiades]

First poll for London mayor since Feb:
https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1771103272201331148

This will be the first London mayoral election held via First Past the Post.

Why though?  It seems like such a huge step backward to go to FPTP.

Because the Tories think it will benefit them.

[Alcibiades]

First poll for London mayor since Feb:
https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1771103272201331148

This will be the first London mayoral election held via First Past the Post.

Why though?  It seems like such a huge step backward to go to FPTP.

Because the Tories think it will benefit them.

I didn't realize until now that the change was made by Westminster, instead of the London Assembly.

Yes; and it applies to all mayoral and PCC elections in England and Wales that previously used the supplementary vote.

[Alcibiades]

They currently have 20 councillors, but there are two vacant seats which were both theirs, so effectively they need three gains to get to 25 out of 48. Oxford elects by halves, so there are 24 seats up, plus a second seat in Blackbird Leys because of the vacancy. (The other vacant seat would have been up anyway.)

Labour seat up (12 wards, 13 seats): Blackbird Leys (2), Carfax & Jericho, Churchill, Headington Hill & Northway, Hinksey Park, Littlemore, Lye Valley, Marston, Osney & St Thomas, St Clement's, Temple Cowley, Walton Manor.

Formerly Labour seat held by defector up (5): Barton & Sandhills, Cowley, Holywell, Northfield Brook, Rose Hill & Iffley.

Lib Dem seat up (5): Cutteslowe & Sunnymead, Headington, Quarry & Risinghurst, Summertown, Wolvercote.

Green seat up (2): Donnington, St Mary's.

So it looks like the answer is yes, as long as the defectors don't get much electoral traction and Labour take most of their seats back. There is, however, another point: two of those Labour defences (Marston and Osney & St Thomas) were won by Greens in 2022, so those seats are vulnerable, and the Greens will also fancy their chances at the ex-Labour seat in the very studenty Holywell ward. Independents have also got some respectable vote shares in Oxford recently (indeed one of the Independents not up this year was elected as such) so I don't think it's a done deal.

As an update on this now that the nominations for Oxford have been released: only one of the Labour defectors out of the five whose seats are up this year is running for re-election, in the peripheral, working-class ward of Barton and Sandhills. So, as you said, inasmuch as Labour have anything to worry about, it will likely be the Greens.

NB the registered political party called the Oxford Independent Alliance do not appear to be connected to the existing Independent councillors, including the "Oxford Socialist Independents" and the "Independent Group".

This is correct: rather, they very much seem like a classic ‘local party for local people’-style outfit; many of their candidates are small business owners, and their most distinctive policy stance seems to be opposition to the LTNs.

[Alcibiades]

Of course I knew it was coming, but I nonetheless found it somewhat jarring to be asked for my ID, like I was a kid trying to get served in a pub (although in this case the specific polling worker’s manner did enhance the effect).

[Alcibiades]

Labour fails to regain Oxford.

loses five seats. Four to independents and one to Greens., Wonder why this happened in Oxford and not Cambridge.

Probably because the Oxford LTN scheme was more ambitious, and because Oxford is also demographically more primed for a backlash to it.

[Alcibiades]

Labour fails to regain Oxford.

loses five seats. Four to independents and one to Greens., Wonder why this happened in Oxford and not Cambridge.

Probably because the Oxford LTN scheme was more ambitious, and because Oxford is also demographically more primed for a backlash to it.

How so? Cambridge is a college town too.

It didn’t have anything to do with that. Labour narrowly lost one student ward to the Greens, but the rest were all to anti-LTN independents in the quite working-class south and east of the city. My point was that Oxford is more working-class than Cambridge.

[Alcibiades]

Labour fails to regain Oxford.

loses five seats. Four to independents and one to Greens., Wonder why this happened in Oxford and not Cambridge.

Probably because the Oxford LTN scheme was more ambitious, and because Oxford is also demographically more primed for a backlash to it.

I was waiting for the results to be posted on the council site (https://www.oxford.gov.uk/elections-voting/oxford-city-council-election-results-2-may-2024) to answer this cause its a little complicated. A good chunk of the defectors who left Labour seem to have lost. Only 1 candidate with a Muslim background got elected under and Indie ticket. Rather, all the Indies are under a local label and carried wards in the south of the council, none seem Muslim.

The Independent Oxford Alliance in that won are basically a Anti-LTN party. To the point googling them finds some kooky 'beyond-the-pale' statements outside that lane. And when comparing to Cambridge, that council scrapped a similar such plan, but the beneficiaries of backlash was the Tories last year.

Well, only one of the defectors even stood for re-election (she came a distant third place). The rest of the post is correct; these gains are clearly fuelled by opposition to the LTNs.

[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.

[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)!

[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%.

[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%…

[Alcibiades]

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.

The Assembly result will be interesting; usually a Lib Dem-Tory fight and I assume SK won because a lot of Lib Dems voted Sadiq for Mayor and LD in the two assembly ballots.

The Lib Dems have won it, which is actually their first ever single-member Assembly constituency win (the Tories had always previously won South West).

[Alcibiades]

The Tories actually finished third in South West!

https://twitter.com/conrad_aml/status/1786784144892035157?s=46&t=fiWOCdxjhyq...

[Alcibiades]

There is a full recount underway in Coventry.

[Alcibiades]

There is a full recount underway in Coventry.

Hopefully it's not based upon Coventry being really close, because that would be stupid. This isn't an Assembly or Parliamentary election and there aren't seats up for grabs in Coventry in this case. Assuming it isn't then it might indicate a really close overall result (closer than what is being reported), which would surely mean a full recount in all of the other boroughs too.

Yeah, it's unclear to me why it would only be in Coventry.

[Alcibiades]

Labour have gained the West Central Assembly constituency by a margin of just over 3%.