2023 UK Local Elections

[EastAnglianLefty]

Though with the caveat that the Tories had an average result in 1991 and so were defending a lot of seats, whereas they had a terrible one in 2019 and shed a lot of seats they had no business losing.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It happens every year but the coverage seems very underwhelming- I guess a function of local papers getting hollowed out & a lack of quality regional news sources, along with the depressing fact most people in Westminster don't really understand local politics outside of London, or other big cities.

Most people in Westminster don't really understand local politics in London either.

[EastAnglianLefty]

At the moment, maybe hard to beat Plymouth which has descended into chaos after some especially vicious internal Tory warfare.

Also trees. Cause it's always trees when the council is collapsing.  

Also on the wider point, liverpool are still under oversight from the appointed managers. Heck,  the new ward map that's going to be used this year was imposed by them,  and since it's basically all SMDs and 2MDs things could get interesting if voters want a change from local labour.

Most people still seem to be expecting a Labour majority, though. This is one place where memories of the LibDem coalition years are likely to last longer than average - and thus a drag on their support.

And, of course, those councils which have little prospect of kicking out the incumbents due to national factors are often the very worst. At the moment that has tended to mean some of the big Labour Mets or London Boroughs (Sunderland, Barnsley, Enfield spring to mind). Liverpool is probably hard to beat at the moment though (and has had issues with pretty shameless corruption, such as Labour councillors having parking fines 'let go').

A similar example on the other side of the aisle would have been Cotswold, though that did eventually catch up with the Tories in 2019 when they lost it to the Lib Dems. Shropshire (not up this year) may be another example on the Conservative side?

Croydon seems to have transitioned seamlessly from being an incredibly unpopular Labour council to an incredibly unpopular Conservative council.

There's also Thurrock, whose implosion is large even by the standards of UK council financial implosions.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Though it was in Town Close ward, which is in Norwich South and is one of the Tories' weakest wards in the city.

[EastAnglianLefty]

To be fair, the issue last time wasn't that the early results were deceptively good for the Tories - they were rubbish, and their actual good results mostly trickled in late on Friday. The issue was that the media fell for very obvious lies.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Where did you get the idea we might win a clean sweep in Harlow? If we win Church Langley, then that means two things:

1. Nobody has told them Liz Truss isn't PM any more and
2. We have stuffed a lot of ballot boxes.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's a bit surprising that nobody is really taking about the raw number of councils changing hands as a metric, as that is actually somewhat meaningful. It's also one that might see reasonably large changes, because whilst it's hard for Labour to win control in a lot of places that elect by thirds, an awful lot of Tory-controlled councils could go NOC.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The local elections show what I suspected - talks of a Labour MAJORITY were greatly exaggerated. A good night for Labour? Yes. But the night they needed for a majority? Unlikely. And the night they needed for a landslide? Surely not.

Too bad couldn’t have been an election after Truss was PM.

Congratulations, you are clueless enough to get a job as a UK political journalist.

[EastAnglianLefty]

These results look very bad for the SDLP - the only thing saving them from obliteration in much of the west is SF under-nomination. Not bad for the Alliance but some way short of expectations, and whilst they'll make gains around Belfast they might actually lose seats in the west. The DUP have in many places held up fairly well, whilst the UUP are getting a shellacking.

[EastAnglianLefty]

These results look very bad for the SDLP - the only thing saving them from obliteration in much of the west is SF under-nomination. Not bad for the Alliance but some way short of expectations, and whilst they'll make gains around Belfast they might actually lose seats in the west. The DUP have in many places held up fairly well, whilst the UUP are getting a shellacking.

I wonder whether Alliance have been hit a little bit themselves by the SF surge in a few places (e.g. Waterside and Faughan in Derry)?

The SDLP, like the UUP, need to come up with new answers to the question of what they are for if they want to avert the decline.

The Alliance's gains in Derry last time were basically flukes, where they came through the middle because nobody else was strong enough. Where they've done that near Belfast previously they've been strong enough next time to hold on, but they haven't been able to replicate that here.

The DUP have in many places held up fairly well, whilst the UUP are getting a shellacking.

Anecdotally know a number of UUP —> Alliance voters, will be interesting if that ends up being part of the story here. Wasn’t sure if that was a local phenomenon, or if it would be replicated more broadly.

One of the problems for the UUP is that Doug Beattie has the right strategy, it's just the right strategy for the UUP in 2013. The voters they've lost to the Alliance since have no reason to come back.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The SDLP has never really been a party, it's more of a collection of personal votes and legacy electoral machines crudely taped together and more bits fall off every year.

The UUP's problem is that if your reason for supporting the union is ethnic identity and distrust of Catholics then the DUP are the obvious port of call, whereas if your reason is that you think things work better as part of the union than they would in a united Ireland, then the DUP are trying to change your mind.

[EastAnglianLefty]

They have three in Ballyarnett in Derry, and two in each of four DEAs: Waterside (though as you will be aware there is some doubt about the count there)

What's the story? Shenanigans at the count centre?

They didn’t distribute the DUP surplus despite it being theoretically possible to change who was elected. The DUP surplus was 160, and there were 3 candidates left in the count. 1 SDLP candidate was 10 votes short of a quota along with another SDLP candidate and an Alliance candidate who were much further off. The difference between the latter 2 was 49 votes, so theoretically (but not practically) possible for the Alliance to catch the 2nd SDLP candidate on DUP transfers.

I'm less certain it's an academic question. Much of the DUP surplus was voters who originally first preferenced the UUP, who transfer rather better to the Alliance than first-preference DUP voters do. Moreover, in the neighbouring DEA the terminal DEA transfers had a choice between Alliance and SF. About 1% went to SF, 30% went to the Alliance and 70% didn't transfer. 30% is about what the Alliance needed in Waterside.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Yes, the petition isn't sour grapes, it's a consequence of the returning officer possibly having declared the wrong candidates elected.