2023 UK Local Elections

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This is the year in the four year cycle of English local elections when most unitary or second tier councils outside London have elections, as it's the year when most of those which have all-up elections have those.

Metropolitan boroughs All, except Doncaster, Rotherham and Birmingham, which have moved to all-up elections in a different year of the cycle.  In most cases a third of the councillors will be up, but in some cases there are ward boundary changes and so there are all-up elections.  Also Liverpool and Wirral (at least) are moving to all-up permanently.

Unitary authorities Most unitaries have elections, but some are on a different cycle; there are some (mostly former county councils) which have all-up elections in the county council year, and some like Bristol are on other cycles for various reasons.  The majority of these are all-up elections, but some have thirds elections like most of the Mets.

Second tier districts The great majority of these have elections, the main exceptions being the ones which elect by halves like Oxford and Nuneaton & Bedworth.  Again the majority are all-up but some are thirds.

A full list of councils with elections (may not be entirely up to date)

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In 2019, the SDLP managed to come back from a poor second place showing to tie SF for largest party in Derry (Derry City and Strabane District Council). Derry remains a heartland for the party, and they retook the Westminster constituency (tactfully named “Foyle” after the city’s river, to avoid the great naming debate) in 2019. So I imagine this will be a key target for them to improve on.

SF's result there in the Assembly election, where they outpolled the SDLP, suggested that they'd recovered from the malaise which caused the spectactular General Election result there.  Except in Foyle (and even there their vote was down a little) the SDLP had a pretty dreadful result in general in the Assembly election, so it might be worth watching whether they can improve on that.

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Some briefing that allies of Bojo will use a bad result for Sunak in May as a way of launching a leadership challenge.

I'm not really sure what a bad result would look like for the Tories?

This is the year in the cycle when a lot of districts in usually safe Tory areas have all up elections.  As it happens, so was 1995, and look what happened.

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Indeed when looking at changes in a set of local elections, it always makes sense to think about what happened in the year the seats were last up, and 2019 was pretty bad for the Tories in much of the country, though not so much in Lab/Con battlegrounds.  The thing which really stands out about 1995 is how little the Tories held, in terms of both council control and numbers of seats in many councils.

[YL]

Also Leicester might be an interesting test to see if there is some Sunak effect for Hindus, especially with the recent clashes.

My thought is that Leicester will actually be a rather poor test for this reason, since local issues will presumably outweigh any effect that Rishi Sunak might have.

I agree; problems for Labour in Leicester East constituency were apparent well before Sunak took over.  The Tories even won a by-election there (the one where the Labour candidate was supposedly a BJP supporter and their vote collapsed, with the Greens moving into second) when Truss was PM.

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And in fact their recent Sheffield performances haven't been terrible either - again quite a few close results that they were on the wrong side of.

This is indeed true of the last couple of years: some of the Lib Dem wins, including in some usually strong wards, have been narrow, and only a small swing would lose them several seats and potentially give Labour control.  But historically Labour not being in control is poor: remember they ran Sheffield continuously from the 1930s until 1999, except for a brief Tory interlude in 1968/69, which probably wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the timing of all-up elections in 1967.

I’m not sure, however, that we should particularly expect strong Labour results this year when they’re up against the Lib Dems or Greens as opposed to the Tories.  We’ll see.

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I notice that that New Statesman article does not discuss the prospects of the Labour candidates in Chester City & the Garden Quarter ward on Cheshire West & Chester council.

As someone who has always been a bit of a sceptic when it comes to formal "progressive alliance" pacts, it will be interesting to observe the results in Bracknell Forest.  As he says, there are no wards at all which have Lib Dem candidates and also either Labour or Green candidates.  (There are some with both Labour and Greens.)

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Here's my preview of the elections in Yorkshire.  I've claimed the councils entirely on the south bank of the Tees, but not those south of the Humber.

There are no elections this year in North Yorkshire (except for some parish level elections), Rotherham or Doncaster.  Of the remaining councils, lets start with those which have all-up elections.

East Riding of Yorkshire Currently Con 42, Lib Dem 13, Yorkshire Party 2, Ind 10.  A couple of the Independents and one of the Lib Dems were elected as Tories.  In spite of the general Toryish feel of this area, this could be interesting: there were three by-elections in 2022, and all saw Lib Dem gains on big surges in their vote share.  Labour failed to win a single seat four years ago, losing out to Independent candidates in Goole South.  The two Yorkshire Party seats are both in Bridlington South ward, and both are defending their seats.  Bridlington was once the stronghold of the continuing SDP, so has a history of minor party support.

York Currently Lib Dem 21, Lab 17, Green 3, Con 2, Ind 4, with a Lib Dem/Green administration.  One of the Independents was elected as a Green.  Unusually, York was substantially expanded when it became a unitary in the 1990s, and that has made it harder for Labour to control: they do well in the urban core (the York Central constituency) but the more outlying areas (the York Outer constituency) are dominated by Lib Dems locally, though York Outer now looks like a Labour target seat for Westminster.  Labour would need seven gains for control, and it's hard to see where they would come from.  The Lib Dems could make it, though: simply winning the two remaining Tory seats would get them within one seat.

Redcar & Cleveland Currently Lab 15, Lib Dem 14, Con 6, East Cleveland Ind 1, Ind 23.  Labour haven't had a very happy time in this part of the world in recent years, and had a very poor result here in 2019, though as can be seen the main beneficiaries were Independents rather than the other parties.  The Lib Dem strength is mostly in Redcar town, with the remaining Labour strength mostly in the parts of the Middlesbrough urban area in this council area.  This will be a council to watch regarding whether Labour can recover in areas of recent poor performance.

Middlesbrough Currently Lab 21, Con 3, Ind 22.  Elected Mayor is Independent, and also up for election.  The Independents are in three different groups, but none are registered parties.  The Mayoralty has been Independent except in 2015, when it was Labour, and this is very much a contest between Labour and various Independents.  Labour only need a handful of gains for control, and recent by-election results have been quite promising, but this sort of contest tends to be quite decoupled from national politics.

Then the thirds councils:

Sheffield Currently Lab 38, Lib Dem 29, Green 14, Con 1, Ind 1, vacant (Lab) 1.  The Ind was elected as Lab.  Up this year Lab 13, Lib Dem 11, Green 4 plus the Lab vacancy, giving a double election in Manor Castle (which has been, allowing for ward boundary changes, Labour since the 1920s).  After a couple of difficult years for Labour, it's more the Lib Dems playing defence this time, with the majority of those 11 defences being in wards which Labour won last year or which were close, and no obvious Lib Dem targets for gains.  The Greens have a chance of winning more seats, challenging Labour in Hillsborough and Walkley and the Lib Dems in Ecclesall (where Labour are in the hunt as well) but also have to defend four seats of their own.  The Lib Dems have been getting some criticism for their campaigning, including bar charts pretending that the Greens don't exist.  The Tories are only really in contention in one ward, Stocksbridge & Upper Don, which they won in 2021 but voted Labour in 2019 and 2022.

Barnsley Currently Lab 45, Lib Dem 9, Con 3, Reform UK 1, Barnsley Independent Group 1, Ind 3, vacant (Lab) 1.  One Ind and one Lab were elected as Democrats & Veterans, and the Reform UK was elected as Con.  Up this year Lab 12 plus the vacancy, Lib Dem 3, Con 1, BIG 1, Ind 3, including both councillors elected as Democrats & Veterans.  The Barnsley Independent Group are not defending their Stairfoot seat and have no candidates, and the Ind elected as D & V in Monk Bretton is also not defending, so those two wards are free for alls.  The Lib Dem breakthrough a few years ago seems to have stabilised, with them now dominating three wards but with no other obvious targets based on last year's results.  The Conservatives have all three seats in Penistone East, where the Labour candidate is having a go (and you can read his thoughts on letterboxes here); last year the Tories also won Rockingham ward (western Hoyland and Birdwell) for the first time ever, but their councillor there has since defected to Reform UK.

Wakefield Currently Lab 45, Con 10, Lib Dem 3, Ind 5.  All 5 Independents were elected as Con, and one Lab was elected as Independent.  Up this year Lab 16, Con 3, Lib Dem 1, Ind 1, with the Ind elected as Con and one Lab elected as Ind.  There's always some fun in Wakefield, and the Tory group has been providing this recently with a number of councillors leaving it.  One of those is defending his Wakefield South seat (traditionally the most Tory seat in the borough) for the new Wakefield District Independents party.  The Tories have in fact already lost one seat: their defending councillor in Ossett withdrew too late for them to find a new candidate, so that ward is up for grabs.  It's not impossible that they could fail to win a single seat.  Meanwhile the power behind the Lib Dem surge in Knottingley, Tom Gordon, is stepping down to try to become MP for Harrogate & Knaresborough, and so the Lib Dems have to defend that seat without him.

Kirklees Currently Lab 36, Con 18, Green 3, Ind 4 (1 elected as Lab, 1 as Heavy Woollen District Independent).  Up this year Lab 10, Con 5, Lib Dem 4, Green 1, Ind 3 (1 elected as Lab, 1 as HWDI).  Labour took control last year, and will hope to increase their margin this year; they can hope to recover the Colne Valley seat where the defending councillor became an Independent, and the Dewsbury East seat from the disbanded Heavy Woollen District Independents, and have some other possible gains from the Tories and Lib Dems.

Calderdale Currently Lab 28, Con 15, Lib Dem 6, Green 1, Ind 1.  The Ind was elected as Con.  Up this year Lab 10, Con 4, Lib Dem 2, Ind 1 (elected as Con).  Labour had a strong result in 2019 and took control then, but one question will be whether they can make a breakthrough in Brighouse, which they last won in 2012, or Ryburn, which is historically a Tory ward but where they were close last year.  On the other hand a bad year for Labour could see them lose seats to the Tories in Elland or Illingworth & Mixenden, both of which were blue in 2021.  The Tories lost a seat last year to the Greens in Northowram & Shelf; the Tory councillor there left the party and is not defending the seat, so it looks like a Con/Green contest.

Bradford Currently Lab 52, Con 20, Lib Dem 6, Green 6, Ind 6 (three elected as Con).  Up this year Lab 18, Con 8, Lib Dem 2, Green 1, Ind 1 (elected as Con).  This is always a bit unpredictable.  The Tory elected in Keighley Central is defending as an Independent, and presumably has a decent chance, as "Conservative" was basically a flag of convenience.  Labour will be targeting Bingley (Con) and Eccleshill (Lib Dem), while the Greens have a number of potential gains.  The Lib Dems seem to be in slow decline here.  

Leeds Currently Lab 58, Con 21, Lib Dem 7, Morley Borough Ind 6, Green 3, Garforth & Swillington Ind 3, SDP 1.  Up this year Lab 19, Con 7, Lib Dem 3, MBI 2, Green 1, GSI 1.  The Con/Lab contest might be most interesting in the west and north-west of the city, where Labour have targets in Horsforth and Pudsey and potentially Guiseley & Rawdon, and the Tories a target in Calverley & Farsley.  Labour will presumably also be targeting the Lib Dems in Weetwood and the Greens in Farnley & Wortley, but are defending seats in wards they lost last year to the Greens in Hunslet & Riverside and to the SDP in Middleton Park.

Hull Currently Lib Dem 29, Lab 27, Ind 1.  The Ind was elected as Lib Dem.  Up this year Lab 10, Lib Dem 8, Ind (elected as Lib Dem) 1.  The Lib Dems took control last year, and there aren't obvious Labour targets in wards the Lib Dems won in 2019, so no change or a small increase in the Lib Dem majority seems most likely.  There's no obvious way back for the Tories.

[YL]

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.

One thing about that new Liverpool ward map is that it was drawn based on an electorate forecast for 2027 which assumed massive electorate growth in the city centre.  So some of the new wards were drawn very small, and appear to still be so: the single member Waterfront North, in particular, appears to have an electorate under 1000, which with usual local election turnout in areas with a transient population might mean there's a chance that the winning candidate could get under 100 votes, and quite likely under 200.  (The typical electorate for a single member ward across the city is around 4000.)

[YL]

Speaking of Liverpool, a bit of unpleasantness in Garston.

(Cllr Gorst was elected as a Labour councillor in 2019, but is now standing for the Liverpool Community Independents, who describe themselves as "a new group of independent socialists".)

[YL]

To that end, do you have a timesheet of expected declarations already? Cause I do not.

Here's the Press Association's effort

Bad luck, voters of Cheshire East and York, if you want the media to take any notice of how you vote this year.

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Looks like Tories in Norwich weren't very careful with their election leafleting.

Indeed, though on this occasion I suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy.

Actually one of the more surprising things to me about this story was that the Tories delivered a local election leaflet in Norwich.  I suppose the fact they hold the Norwich North constituency (based, AIUI, largely on strength in bits of the constituency which are outside the city boundaries) might mean they bother a little more there than in most places where they're very weak locally.  (I never get anything from them.)

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Tories ought to take inspiration from the Lib Dems and stick to dodgy bar charts.

They do have form there:


(Source)

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The coverage this year seems very weak- I haven’t even seen many fabled vox pops with pensioners and butchers (the only people out at 10am)!

I assume because none of the cities are up the media are struggling to work out what to actually report on- other than the stupid ‘1,000 Tory losses’ which gets written up even when they tell you in the next breath it’s part of the spin…

Huh?  Most big English cities have elections, the main exceptions being London, Birmingham and Bristol.  Some are pretty dull TBH (Manchester, Nottingham) but there's plenty of potential for interest in many of the others.

I think a lot of the explanation is to do with how bad our media is, and how dead local journalism is in particular.

[YL]

Andrew Teale has a bumper preview: https://medium.com/britainelects/previewing-the-english-local-elections-of-4th-may-2023-d90f5831f1e7

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BBC1 is covering the results (or purporting to do so) from 11:40PM. Doesn't seem to be much coverage scheduled for the day after, as there sometimes is.

That's mildly annoying (not that I'll be in a position to watch TV much on Friday, and there are usually better ways of following the councils I'm most interested in) given how many councils aren't counting until Friday.

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I will make my usual tedious comment that I am not very fond of raw seat change figures as a measure of success.  Part of this is that the meaning of the numbers changes with the cycle (and with local government reform; even though it's the same cycle in some sense, Tory seat losses on the scale of 1995 would be even more disastrous now than they were then) and what happened in the baseline election(s); part of it is the thing about me living in a ward with an electorate of around 15000.

I do suspect that we might see a few places where the Lib Dems did well in 2019 where they fall back a bit, even against the Tories.  But we will see.

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Voted.  ID was checked.  It was fairly quiet but not unusual for that time in the morning.

The candidate I voted for will probably come third.

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Anecdotal evidence that at least a few people are being turned away for lack of voter ID in most areas - and also that these tend to be older voters.

I think that's more or less what I'd have expected.

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https://twitter.com/hoffman_noa/status/1654155961106419717?s=20

tl;dr it's bad for the Tories everywhere and the Lib Dems in particular seem to be doing well.  

Lincoln is a Labour stronghold. Doesn't sound great to be hearing news such as what she said  but i always take anecdotal reports like this with a massive grain of salt. It would take a seismic shift for Labour to do badly in that city.

On polling day they are probably trying to make sure people who have already said they'll vote for them actually do, so it doesn't mean much.

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It's worth pointing out that only about 20% of the seats up will be declared tonight; the rest are counting tomorrow.

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Tories failed to win any seats in Sefton: the Lib Dems won four wards in Southport and Labour won everything else.

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Lib Dem landslide in Bath & North East Somerset. They did very well here in 2019, taking control then, but have increased their majority. Tories went from 11 seats to 3.

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The Lib Dems, who took all three seats in Eton & Castle ward from the Tories, have been crowned in control of Windsor & Maidenhead council.

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Conservatives lose control of South Gloucestershire - now No Overall Control.

The math suggested this outcome, and unsurprisingly it's Labour making the gains, as suggested by the previous outcomes and lay of the battlegrounds. However, interestingly the opposition is tied 17-17 right now for control of the incoming coalition, and the last wards to declare might maintain that tie...

Con 23 (-10), Lib Dem 20 (+3), Lab 17 (+6), Ind 1 (+1)

This actually could have been quite a bit worse for the Tories.  A lot of wards were very close and ended up with split representation; just a small further swing would have lost them most of those councillors.