English local elections, May 2014

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well they were basically a populist anti-local-Labour coalition. Liverpool Labour was a sad joke by the 1990s and not terribly hard to oust from power. As soon as some kind of order and credibility was restored - which took an embarrassingly long period of time, actually - normality was always likely to assert itself.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Generally speaking things party figures say about 'targets' in local elections is roughly 98% bullsh!t.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'd suggest Liverpool's too socially conservative for the Greens, except their pocket in St. Michael's.

Theoretically they could expand into other middle class and gentrified wards. Of course there aren't many of those in Liverpool, but the popular perception of the city as one giant slab of proletarian assertiveness isn't entirely accurate either (even if, sure, the majority of the city is like that. And that's why it's great).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In London it looks as though Havering and Harrow will be very 'fun' as both have been the site of the nastiest civil wars in the capital since Brent and Hackney in the 1990s. In Harrow a large group of (Indian mostly) councillors broke away from the Party and formed an alliance with the Tories, in Havering the Tories have been ripping themselves to pieces in a spectacularly nasty manner. A lot of blood on the municipal carpets.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Occasionally - very occasionally - national polls are done, but they're rubbish and attract no attention.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I might comment more later, but two things in particular need... correcting...

Hounslow is neither particularly old, nor particularly white (like, it's less white than London as a whole), and nothing like anywhere in the Home Counties... other than Slough.

And despite popular belief, only parts of Havering (notably the Harold Hill estate and South Hornchurch/Rainham) can be accurately described as working class. Most of the borough is solid (stolid?) lower middle class privately built suburbia.

There are also elections in the People's Republic of Newham, however much of a pointless formality that may be...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Time for some (very brief!) preview things. So, firstly, the so-called Metropolitan Boroughs. Unless otherwise noted a third of seats are up for election: this means that if there's a secure majority, control is very hard to lose in one go. Liverpool, Doncaster, Salford and North Tyneside have elected Mayors, so executive control isn't formally decided by council polls any more.

Tyne & Wear

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland

All five councils have secure-to-immense Labour majorities and will continue to do so after the election.

West Yorkshire

Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees, Calderdale

Leeds and Wakefield both have secure Labour majorities and Calderdale will surely remain hung, but much drama is expected in Bradford and Kirklees where minority Labour administrations are attempting to become majority ones. Both local authorities have, how shall we say, bats crazy local politics. Certainly anyone attempting to predict certain wards in Bradford - unless they live in them, naturally - is a fool.

South Yorkshire

Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster

All four councils have secure Labour majorities and there will be no change. There will, however, be some media attention on Rotherham where local scandals have given UKIP something of an opening of sorts, but they won't seriously threaten control.

Merseyside

Liverpool, Wirral, St Helens, Knowsley, Sefton

All five councils have Labour majorities and some are very large indeed (like, all seats in Knowsley). The majority in the absurdity that is Sefton (Bootle with Southport?!?!) is slim, but is more likely to expand than contract.

Greater Manchester

Manchester, Salford, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Stockport, Trafford, Bolton, Wigan

Secure Labour majorities on all councils but Stockport and Trafford, though the Labour majority in Bury is inflated by a scandal driven Tory meltdown in 2012. Stockport (which includes many of Manchester's most affluent suburbs) will remain hung, while Labour will attempt to gain Trafford, one of only two Metropolitan Boroughs to have a Conservative majority. They'll have done well if they manage it.

West Midlands

Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Solihull, Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall

There are secure Labour majorities on all councils but Solihull and Walsall (though that in Dudley rests entirely on a surprise Labour landslide in 2012). Local controversies might see Labour underperform in Birmingham, though its hard to be sure (and control is certainly not even vaguely threatened). Labour will attempt to gain a majority in Walsall and ought to... but given the incompetence of Walsall Labour, let us believe it only when and if it actually happens. The Conservative majority in Solihull looks pretty secure.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What, then, of London?

Labour is all but guaranteed victories in Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Hounslow, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark, and Waltham Forest. And, frankly, ought to win both the Mayoral and council elections in Tower Hamlets, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if matters were fycked up again.

The Tories are similarly secure in Bexley (although it must be noted that when that borough swings, it swings), Bromley, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth, and Westminster. They are also probably secure in Richmond upon Thames despite the narrow majority. Hillingdon also ought to be held, but the big majority might not be quite as secure as it looks.

Conservative control is seriously under threat in Barnet (something that is entirely their own doing: a less ideologically fanatical administration would likely be safe-ish), Croydon, Hammersmith & Fulham (see Barnet) and Havering (where the Conservative group has dissolved in a spate of vicious infighting and where there is a long tradition of fragmented local politics). It is possible that all will fall, it is (just about) possible that none will.

The LibDems currently have majorities on two suburban councils: Sutton and Kingston upon Thames. The latter looks extremely vulnerable to the Tories, the former ought to be held, although large majorities there have wobbled ominously in the past.

Harrow is impossible to predict due to a serious split in the local Labour Party. I have a fear that the Tories might scrape a win via the backdoor, but that's not really based on much.

Labour will be trying for a majority in hung Merton: the borough is ludicrously socially polarised, but it isn't an entirely impossible task. Labour will also be after also hung Redbridge, and have a reasonable chance of taking it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually Doncaster's all up elections are next year; for this year it's still thirds on the old boundaries.

Really? I was sure it was this year. Oh well.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Indeed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

UKIP will poll solid percentages in most places, as they did in the County Council elections last year.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes. And remember that it is still early days there, counting wise.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hetton is a relief; not the sort of place we should ever lose and after 2012 it was looking alarmingly plausible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Grauniad's election blog is hilariously sh!t.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Guardian were asking me for help with their election journalism last week.  (I've been off the internet all this week.)

By the look of it they could have done with you!

But what would they have paid? Probably very little, being that particular paper of news.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Like, they just fell for an obvious bit of trolling: someone suggesting that UKIP had gained a nonexistent ward in a council that is not counting tonight.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They were asking me rather strange questions which are rather outside my knowledge; "how many female councillors are running this year" was probably the weirdest.

lolgrauniad

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yorkshire Post reporter:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

UKIP have lost one of the seats they gained via defection in South Tyneside.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No Comment

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And probably also on the back of the garden waste fiasco which is hurting Labour across the 'burbs. Very narrow - again.

UKIP are polling very strongly in many suburban wards as well: but then this was expected as they did in 2009.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rotherham is a complete fiasco catastrophe disaster horror story and hopefully there will be An Intervention now in a big way.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rotherham wasn't far from being even worse for Labour: most of the wards they won were close and in particular they only held Holderness by three votes.

Yes; for a moment early on it looked as though there might have been something close to a UKIP sweep, which would have been... urgh.

Obviously we shouldn't ignore the significance of the Euro elections being on the same day (greatly boosting UKIP across the land), but all the same this is pathetically bad.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Elsewhere things seem patchy, with Birmingham disappointing.

But expected; a big farrago about waste disposal policies hurt Labour in the outer ring of suburban wards.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll be interested to see the vote shares in Rotherham.

44 UKIP, 40 Labour, apparently. Which, hilariously, means only a small percentage drop for Labour from 2010!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, this was much more of a Rotherham town centric horrible result (though UKIP did win wards elsewhere, of course), which explains much of the difference. Which reminds me of the occasional very, very bad result for Labour in some Valleys local authorities (i.e. RCT in 1999), which, when they happen, are often linked to local scandals.

Incidentally I do wonder whether there's a chance that UKIP might have led in the popular vote for the locals here and not the Euros? It seems counter intuitive and impossible, but there was obviously massive tactical and whatever voting for them...