English Local Elections 2006

[Filuwaúrdjan]

These haven't had as much coverage as the London ones, partially because the media is London-centrict to the core, and partially because most observers don't think much will change. A few wards here, a few wards there, the odd power change there, and there... and up to a point they're kinda overshadowed by the looming and LONG overdue reforms of local government to be announced this autumn.

As always a third of seats in the Metropolitan Boroughs are up, and the same is true of many District Councils, Unitary Authories, and Parish/Town councils (which are largely "Non-Partisan" and as such attract no media coverage whatsoever). Some of the DC's and UA's are up half up, some are (I think, although could be wrong) all up, and the patterns for Parish and Town councils is too confusing to repeat.

More will be put up here in the morning.

Please do not discuss the London borough elections or local by-elections in this thread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The real breakthrough for the Conservatives came in 2000 when they hit (unbelievably in my opinion) Bedworth, Bulkington (which had been Labour for decades). Since then they have gained other unbelieveably strong Labour areas including Nuneaton, Galley Common and Bedworth, Slough.

In 2004 it was mainly due to that nasty row over Gypsies (which also resulted in an extremely high Tory turnout in the Nuneaton constituency last year) which I *think* has cooled down somewhat, although I'm not entirely sure about that.

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Random fact: In 1976 Labour held 18, the Tories 14 and the Liberals 3.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All figures from BBCi

Shrewsbury and Atcham

Con 20
Lab 10
LDm 6
Others 4

No Overall Control (1 Con gain needed for gain)

In practice they have a majority at the moment (there are a couple of Condependents on the council). There's about a 50/50 chance of the current administration (with or without the Condependents; one of which is retiring) staying, and the same chance of a return of the Lab/Lib coalition (for either party to deal with the Tories in Shropshire is close to being electoral suicide). Under the old ward boundaries the Tories wouldn't have a majority or even be close to it.
I've been hearing rumours that the LibDems think they have a very good chance to take out the leader of the council (Copthorne ward; middle class residential area in the southwest of Town). They've beaten him before (in the mid '90's) and came close to beating his collegue in 2004.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Latest 'Sky is falling' poll, just thought i'd slot it in this thread:

LAB 30
CON 30
LIB 25
OTH 15

That looks to be one of Mori's "special" polls; it's certain to vote only and the sample size is actually under 600. To be honest it's probably best to ignore polls at the moment...

...the ICM one the other day though did ask a question on voting intentions in the local elections. Which none of you has posted. Which doesn't suprise me.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Does Labour usually come in third in local elections?

In some local authorities yes, in others no. Which ones are you interested in (and this may be a bit "last chance to see"; a big local government shakeup is long overdue and is to be announced this autumn)?

===

The only interesting part of the ICM poll (until King Tony calls it quits, just ignore any and all national polls) was the seperate question asking people how they would vote in the local elections. The results were:

Lab 22%, Con 22%, Lib 16%, SNP 3%, PC 1%, Grn 4%, BNP 3%, Other 5%, Won't Vote 7%, Refused 7%, Undecided 11%

If we igore the Nats, the Refused, the Won'ts and the Undecideds, we get...

Lab 30.2%, Con 30.1%, Lib 22%, Grn 5.5%, BNP 4.4%, Other Party 7.6%

Even this poll (ie; sans nats, etc) had more people interviewed than Mori's new poll, btw.

However, even these numbers aren't quite right; Labour have been doing well in Welsh local by-elections and Wales isn't up this year. Knocking 1pt off Labour and giving it to the Tories would probably make up for that.

Whether the poll is accurate or not is something we won't find out for quite a while after the elections are finished (it takes a long time to add up the popular vote for local elections) and is o/c entirely academic.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wife of a LibDem candidate has been arrested in Brum over postal vote fraud

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It gets worse; it was in Bordesley Green ward.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Although I her husband is a candidate in Nechells ward. Ex-PJP IIRC.

===

Oh and David Miliband "Get's It"

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The English locals aren't getting much media coverage (London is getting more than it's usual share), beyond the Brum fraud thing, much to my irritation.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maybe, but to me he just seemed lightweight and desperate on the radio this morning.

He always sounds like that (even though he isn't). Comes across as a bit of a geek as well, which is unfortunate.

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He's clever and not in an airy-fairy way. Basically.

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There's more to politics than being P.M. Joe Chamberlain and Nye Bevan never became Prime Minister (both wanted to, but it was never very likely) and thinking of more influential politicians over the past few centuries is quite hard.

Besides a lot of past P.M's weren't exactly regarded as being potential P.M's for most of their careers. And the reverse is true. There was never a Prime Minister Gaitskell, a Prime Minister Butler, a Prime Minister Brown, a Prime Minister Healey or a Prime Minister Heseltine.

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Similer things can be said of all political parties. Politicians mature anyway.

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Just because there will always be exceptions, doesn't mean that the parties shouldn't encourage people to vote on local issues (and all three parties have been as bad as each other in not doing that over the past few decades. The peabrained local government disorganisation of the early '70's made things a hell of a lot worse o/c). And by local issues I don't mean dog sh*t or various scare stories. Miliband understands the latter point, most other politicians (of all parties) don't seem to.
What gets me angry every local election is when a good administration goes down to defeat because of a manipulation of either national issues or dog sh*t issues, results in a small minority (for low turnouts are the enemy of effective local government...) of voters getting in a hissy fit over 'em.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, but national factors do play apart - though i agree that its a shame where good local councils are turfed out because of the incompetance and unpopularity of the incumbent government.

It's mainly about perception. Sort of. The real problem is the low turnouts and the fact that local government boundaries do not reflect local ties (and in London it's even worse, with many wards not even being close to doing so. The boundary committee broke far too many old borough boundaries last time). I'm hoping that the latter will be dealt with, partially at least, come autumn.

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It'll be close. The Tories have certainly put a lot of work into it (too much perhaps?) and it's [almost] unique in Manchester as it's a ward where the LibDems haven't managed to displace the Tories as the centre-right party of record.
One thing to note; it's actually a suburban ward.

A lot of seats in Manchester are up in the air this year (local politics realigns a lot there. It's not that long since the LibDems won the Bradford ward and Labour were winning in Didsbury) although in the end the overall balance *probably* won't change much (and as Manchester is one of very few big cities with competent local leadership, I certainly hope that's the case...).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We have a new local elections poll! Sadly it's by BPIX (not a member of the British Polling Council... eek...) but I'll take anything right now.

The following figures are for people who live in areas holding local elections this week and who said that they were certain that they will vote in said elections:

Con 35%, Lab 26%, Lib 23%, Oth 16% (inc. 5% for BNP).

These figures are very similer to the ICM poll, with a couple of exceptions that can be explained away by MoE and the presence of a Welsh vote in the ICM poll.

If these polls be accurate (or close to it) we can expect little net change outside London.

BPIX also asked a GE question (C 35%, Lab 32%, Lib 19%) which is practically a carbon copy of another YouGov poll (C 35%, Lab 32%, Lib 18%).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Another local poll... this time by ICM, again, and published in (um...) the Sunday Express. No data on number of people asked etc. or MoE etc.

Con 29%, Lab 27%, Lib 22%, 6% Grn, 4% BNP, 3% UKIP

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Another local poll... this time by ICM, again, and published in (um...) the Sunday Express. No data on number of people asked etc. or MoE etc.

Con 29%, Lab 27%, Lib 22%, 6% Grn, 4% BNP, 3% UKIP

Change on Locals 2002 (as that's when these seats were last contested). Data from Local Government Chronicle

Conservatives 29% (-3%)
Labour 27% (-8%)
Liberal Democrats 22% (-2%)
Green 6% (+3%)
Others 16% (+10%)

Actually, outside London, all wards up have been contested since then. And in the case of the Mets, all seats as well. I wouldn't expect many district results to be very different to 2003 or 2004.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well the day is here. Not much media coverage is likely of these elections (for several reasons already mentioned) and the overall pattern is unlikely to be as clear cut as in London (if there's a pattern at all).
All the same, I hope we'll able to cover them well. I will delete most posts going on about national net seat loss/gain or the BBC's absurd little poll of wards. First and foremost, these are local elections after all.

A note about control; in practice losing a majority often doesn't mean losing control of a council.

Prediction contest time. Predict the largest party (NOT overall control etc) on all the Metropolitan District councils, the following District councils [Norwich, Oxford, Winchester, Amber Valley] and the following Unitary Authorities [Milton Keynes, Bristol, Plymouth, Thurrock, Portsmouth, Southampton and N.E. Lincs].

Please remember that only a third of seats are up in most of those councils.

Have fun

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Been some "fun" goings on in Bradford... Labour have accused the LibDems of "treating" in one of the Keighley wards (and the police are actually looking into it as well), the LibDems are complaining about the Tories getting up to dodgy stuff in Bowling & Barkerend (three-way marginal ward where the LibDems and Tories are battling out for the Asian vote; the white vote will go to the white Labour candidate. This is the ward in which the BNP are running a suspected Asian) and there are allegations that the Tories are trying to hang onto via theft, a seat in Great Horton were a vacancy has been caused by the conviction of a dodgy Asian Tory counciller for killing someone in a hit-and-run accident. He only won in the first place because of probable fraud.

Meanwhile the CPS has yet to decide on whether or not to bring charges against the two Tories (since thrown out of the Tory group) who tried to rig Bradford West in the General Election. They are Jamshed Khan (City) and Reis Khan (Manningham) and IMO they are as guilty as hell.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll refrain from commenting on their..ethnic/religious background

Why? It happens to be very important; were it not for the Biridari system, this sort of thing would not be possible. The influence of the Biridaris has been declining over time though; young Muslims want nothing to do with it.

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Five (one guy was cleared) although plenty more people in Brum, from all parties, got up to much dodgyness in 2004.

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This has little to do with parties.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Prediction Competition... I expect to be wrong about a few, but there you go.

*Remember: this is for largest party NOT control. Control is politics, not elections*

Oh and do please note that local authorities do not match town or city boundaries as they [L.A. boundaries, not towns etc] were drawn by power-crazed idiots in 1973.

Edited after checking which seats are up.

Barnsley: Labour
Birmingham: ooh... Labour I think. Could be close though.
Bolton: Not sure.
Bradford: Uncertain. The Tories are likely to lose seats in inner Bradford gained via Biradaris, but the question is who to? Manningham is tipped to revert to type and go red, but no one is entirely sure about the others.
Bury: Labour
Calderdale: Tories... I think
Coventry: Tories
Doncaster: Labour
Dudley: Tories
Gateshead: Labour
Kirklees: No idea. Kirklees local politics is insane even by West Riding standards.
Knowsley: Labour
Leeds: Labour
Liverpool: "LibDems"
Manchester: Labour
Newcastle upon Tyne : LibDems
North Tyneside: Not sure, but doesn't matter as it's a Mayoral authority now. Mayor is Labour.
Oldham: Labour
Rochdale: LibDems
Rotherham: Labour
Salford: Labour
Sandwell: Labour
Sefton: LibDems
Sheffield: Labour
Solihull: Tories
South Tyneside: Labour
St. Helens: Labour
Stockport: LibDems
Sunderland: Labour
Tameside: Labour
Trafford: Tories
Wakefield: Labour
Walsall: Tories
Wigan: Labour
Wirral: God knows... I certainly don't...
Wolverhampton: Labour

Norwich: Probably LibDems
Oxford: LibDems
Winchester: Tories
Amber Valley: Tories (checked which seats are up)

Milton Keynes: LibDems
Bristol: LibDems
Plymouth: Labour
Thurrock: Don't know
Portsmouth: Tories
Southampton: Tories
North East Lincolnshire: Labour... although if the Conlibs count as one party (and they might as well here)... sad to say this but...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Nice map, but innaccurate in places; Coventry is already under Tory control (technically a majority of 0, but it int a minority administration), Portsmouth isn't, Stoke has a Labour Mayor and there's a Labour majority on the council (as of 2004 at least), Hartlepool isn't NOC; it has an Indie (well... Ind Lab really...) Mayor and a Labour majority on the council (perhaps they should have tried stripes?)... and the boundaries for Herefordshire and Worcestershire are those seen before the big shakeup there almost a decade ago.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Turnout is quite good apparently

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BBC have a list of "key declarations"...

Rochdale, Camden, Birmingham, Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham, Hull, Hammersmith & Fulham

I'm suprised that Lambeth has been ignored, and at the inclusion of Rochdale... actually... the latter is worrying...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's turned 5 o'clock. You all know why that be important...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Polls have closed.

I feel pessimistic. This isn't based on accurate information, gut feeling or anything. Bah.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

First BBC RESULTS!:

Labour: 5
Conservative: 4
Liberal Democrat: 1

166 councils to go!

Not results as such; just councils with majorities so large that they cannot fall, even if all defended seats are lost!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Early district results show a mixed picture

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shrewsbury results mixed. We didn't take back Monkmoor, but we held Sutton & Reabrook by a big margin.
BNP pushed Liberals into fourth in Harlescott (the ancient Tory with a huge personal vote won as always).