Sean Fear’s local election commentary
May 26th, 2006-
HOW BADLY ARE LABOUR DOING AT LOCAL LEVEL?
My initial reaction to the local election results was that while they were bad for Labour, they weren’t terrible. Having thought more about this, I think the results were indeed terrible for Labour.
Labour now has almost as few councillors (in percentage terms) as it had in 1978, and far fewer than it had in the 1980s. Labour’s local government base has eroded far more rapidly than that of the Conservatives in the 1980s. In 1979, the Conservatives held 48% of council seats in Great Britain. After nine years, that share had fallen to 39%. Labour, by contrast, held 46% of council seats in 1997; that share has now fallen to 28%
Almost certainly, Labour will suffer further losses of seats in the next two rounds of local elections, possibly taking its share of seats down to the same level, 20%, as the Conservatives in 1997.
Things are equally grim in terms of vote share, which was projected at 26%. Although that was no worse than in 2004, it is the worst score that any governing party has ever recorded, one year into a Parliament. By contrast, the hugely unpopular Conservatives still managed to take 31% of the vote in May 1993. In all likelihood, Labour’s vote share will fall below 25% in the next two rounds of local elections, worse than John Major’s government ever achieved.
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This matters, because political parties are so dependent on local councillors to keep themselves before the electorate, now that the days of mass membership are over. If Labour are not seen to be active in a particular area, and if people get out of the habit of voting Labour in that area, then its support at Parliamentary level is likely to decline sharply as well.
The Conservatives discovered this to their cost in the mid 1990s. If, as is likely, the general popularity of the Labour Party recovers as the next election approaches, the party may still underperform in many constituencies if it has withered away at local level.
Last night’s by-elections continue the bad news for Labour:-
Caradon DC - Saltash Pill: Lib Dem 474, Ind 334, C 280. Lib Dem gain from Ind.
North Kesteven DC - Branston and Mere: C 570, Ind 440, Lab 150.
Con gain from Lab.
Tynedale DC - Wylam: Lib Dem 364, C 247, Lab 206. Lib Dem hold.
Sean Fear is a Tory activist in London
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I agree. While the Tories managed to spin a gullible media the line ‘Phew it’s only a disaster’ (as the London Evening Standard headline said the day after), this overlooked how the Tories were left with no councillors in marginals such as Stevenage.
Councillors can also often get good results if/when they stand as parliamentary candidates (with obvious exceptions such as David Bookbinder, Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant at the 87 GE). In 92, seats where the Labour PPC was a councillor saw an average extra swing to Labour of 2%.
On a related theme, the level of support for Labour in non-parliamentary elections could have a significant impact on the timing of the next General Election. For reasons mentioned on the other string, the Others score in YouGov may be high due to the inability of people in many places to vote for minor parties. The exception is the European elections, when Greens, UKIP and BNP are available, and can be elected because of PR. Add in the chance for a free kick at the government and the major parties in general because no-one really cares who gets in the the European Parliament, and the chances of Labour polling as low as 20% in June 2009 are far from remote, with the Tories in the low 30s (if Labour has a decent lead by then, they won’t need to ‘go long’).
It would surely be intolerable for Gordon Brown (or whoever) to call an election after such a dismal performance, so unless the position for Labour is truly dire (a la Tories in 1997) - and there’s no reason at the moment to expect it to be that bad - the election must be by June 2009.
2. My hunch is that all things being equal Labour will call the next general election to coincide with the Euro’s in 2009. Lots of publicity for UKIP to hurt the Tories.
I’m not sure that comparing the shares of councillors between Labour and Conservative is entirely valid. There is a significant difference in the number of electors per councillor in urban areas where Labour are relatively strong and rural areas where the Conservatives predominate. If County Council seats are included in the totals this bias is further exaggerated, especially since most of the cities have been excised into unitary authorities.
Also, there is no certainty that Labour will follow the pattern of the last two terms and do worse at the local elections in 2007 and 2008. There was a lot of talk on here of the striking correlation between Labour’s projected national vote shares at local elections and the preceding month’s Guardian/ICM poll, with Labour consistently 10-12% lower at the local elections. That didn’t happen this year, the difference was only 6%. This may suggest an absolute floor to the Labour vote at local level, although I am sure this theory will be severely tested next year. In 2008, with quite possibly a new leader and Labour defending a very low base, the picture could be different.
3 - Would UKIP get any real publicity in those circumstances though? Surely with a General Election on, nobody will give a flying fox about the European Elections and the only effect would probably be to cull a few UKIP MEPs (which is all very well but a tedious sideshow really).
RE 4, Yes as the base becomes smaller it may be easier to defend. The counter argument is that you have less troops.
As for mass party membership, the Conservative party is still a mass party with circa 300,000 members, which I believe is more than Labour and the Lib Dems put together.
If Sean would email me, we can talk about ways of using our superior numbers to best effect.
5. I suppose the same thing could affect other “little” parties like the Greens. With all talks about Cameron, Ming and all, who would hear about Caroline Lucas and Jane Lambert? Probably just the ones interested in Euro-elections, but with the problem that the turnout will be high for a Euro-election and people not interested will probably vote too.
I tried e-mailing without success. You could try e-mailing me on sean@grahamfear.co.uk.
Kevin L, there’s a degree of truth in your first paragraph. However, the fact remains that Labour’s current councillor base is now much smaller than in the 1980s, and I think that’s likely to be a real problem for them. Next year sees more than half of all seats come up for election, and Labour are likely to poll well below their vote of 30% in 2003. That should mean big losses, even if they do have a change of leader later in the year.
Re-posted from previous thread. These details come from ALDC: http://www.aldc.org - in case you’re wondering why only LibDem candidates get name-checked.
BY-ELECTION RESULTS: THURSDAY 25TH MAY 2006.
Caradon DC, Saltash-Pill
LD Graham Syass 474 (43.6 +15.8)
Ind 334 (30.7 –23.5)
Con 280 (25.7 +7.7)
Majority 140. Turnout 31.97. LD gain Ind. Last fought 2003.
North Kesteven DC, Branston & Mere
Con 570 (49.1)
Ind 440 (37.9)
Lab 150 (13.0)
Majority 130. Con gain Lab. Last fought 2003 Con and Lab elected unopposed.
Tynedale DC, Wylam
LD Tom Appleby 364 (44.5 +13.8)
Con 247 (30.2 +21.1)
Lab 206 (25.2 +13.2)
Ind [0.0 –48.1]
Majority 117. Turnout 52.29.LD hold. Last fought 2003.
Haywards Heath TC, Bentswood
LD T Fisher 550 (38.5)
Con 506 (35.4)
Lab 371 (26.0)
Majority 44. Turnout 37.4. LD gain Lab.
Please note:
The figures for percentage change are based on the details of the results from the last time that there was an election in the ward by statute in the May (or sometimes June) elections, rather than by any by-election. We use the figures in The Local Elections Handbook by Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher.
The Party-defending seat is the party that the former Councillor (who has died, resigned or been disqualified) belonged to when she or he was elected not the one that she or he may have subsequently belonged to as a result of any defection.
5. I just think it would bring the subject of Europe back on the agenda. I know there have been discussions on this site before about where UKIP votes come from - my theory is that most come from the Tories. An increased UKIP vote would therefore be bad for them, but lets not go back to that discussion.
The Tories did well to avoid talking about Europe at the last election. Would be difficult to avoid it in those circumstances. Anyway - time will tell.
We have managed to get way off topic already!
7. OTOH, it does give people who are unsure how to vote the opportunity to split their ticket e.g. Labour or Lib Dem in the general election and Green in the Euros or Conservative/UKIP (and all other possible permutations of course).
8. Sean, yes 2007 will almost certainly mean more seat losses for Labour. I think they will be defending about 2,700 next year compared with under 1,800 earlier this month. STV in Scotland probably means 100 notional losses before a vote is cast.
10. Yeah, apologies for going (slightly) off-topic, but it does tie in with Sean’s main point - how badly is Labour doing based on real votes cast in real elections? The answer as we know is badly. Further, as has been pointed out, Labour should do even worse next year, but a little better in 2008. My post was that 2009 - should Labour be forced past the spring campaigning seans - will be the worst of the lot.
FWIW, if the General Election is in June 2009, I wouldn’t expect the simultaneous Europeans to get a look in in the media, and Europe to be no more of an issue than if the election is in October 2008 or May 2010.
Sean you say If, as is likely, the general popularity of the Labour Party recovers as the next election
Surely it could go either way. Nulab have been remarkably resilient in the past but then they have not had to fend off a resurgent opposition and their luck seems to have turned. And we all know what that Corsican bandit said about his generals.
We shall see, but Labour have passed a key milestone in the last few weeks and their Houdini ability may have gone the way of other weapons of mass destruction Tony has identified.
12. That typo should be ‘campaigning season’. Reminder to self to proof-read!!
Staging two major elections on the same day might well fall foul of the electoral commission, I would have thought.
15. The Electoral Commission could advise against it, but they have no real powers in this matter and the government will ignore their advice if they decide it is in their interest to do so.
11. Kevin L, yes, I thought about it. it would give the chance to do the protest vote in the same time of the “establishment” vote.
Re 15 etc… The local elections and general elections have been staged on the same day before in 1979,1997 and 2001. This report looks at split-ticket voting in 1997 and 1979 http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9248.00441?cookieSet=1 .
It would be interesting to see whether splitting increased if the European were held on the same day. My gut feeling would suggest that UKIP would suffer in the European elections rather than the Tories suffering in the GE as suggested at 10.
18. Anna, it’s a subsciption site.
19 Apologies… Oxford uni is obviously a subscriber… Shame! It’s a very interesting report!
Having looked at the local election results in detail, I have come to a different conclusion from Sean. IMO the results were very bad for Labour but not disastrous. In terms of vote share I think Labour held up slightly better than expected, but they did worse on net seat losses, especially in London.
In London the last two weeks of the campaign with the revelations about Prezza and the foreign prisoners debacle were more than unhelpful. In most boroughs Labour thought they were defending wards with majorities under 15%, and where they put the resources in they did relatively well, but they went on to lose many seats in wards they considered safe.
For example, in Croydon Labour put all their effort into three wards where they had eight seats. They held five of the eight, with below average swings in two wards and a strong positive swing in Norbury. However, they then went on to lose seven out of nine seats in three wards with majorities over 15% which they hadn’t really defended.
In Ealing, Labour didn’t realise until the last week of the campaign that they were going to get stuffed. In two of the three wards where they campaigned seriously the swing against Labour was below average and they retained one seat, but they never expected to lose seats in West Ealing and Hanwell. Apparently the look on the face of Labour group leader Leo Thompson when she lost her Greenford Broadway seat was something to behold.
A similar pattern in Camden where Labour held two out of three in Bloomsbury (majority 6%) but lost all three in Gospel Oak (majority 15% - the Evening Standard had a full page puff for the lead Conservative candidate in this ward which may have helped).
There are other examples (I won’t go into the contrary swings in Brent), the lesson for Labour is that they will be defending on a much broader front at subsequent local elections and the next general election than a common misinterpretation of Uniform Swing Theory would suggest.
21 - I’m not sure how that helps Labour. If resources are scarce you can only spread them effectively across a limited number of areas.
21. 22. Indeed, it rather supports Sean’s view that Labour risks decaying from the bottom upwards - after each rash of local council losses, campaigning resources get thinner and more stretched.
Alex, my impression is that if Labour had made a greater effort in wards with majorities of 15-30% they would have lost fewer seats. It is a difficult equation, and everything can turn on external events in the last few weeks of the campaign.
24. You are assuming they had the resources available to do that, though.
25. No, resources are limited, just that a wider spread would have been more effective than a narrower concentraton of effort.
What I think you are saying, Kevin, is that, instead of putting all their forces into one highly marginal ward, Labour ought to have spit them up and defended three moderately safe wards. That way they would have lost fewer seats (maybe), even though the highly margianl ward would have been certainly lost.
Have I understood you correctly? If so, I think you are quite right, and this does indeed have implications for the next elections.
Losing your local council seats to opponents gives them huge and sometimes unstoppable momentum when it comes to GE’s. Look how the LD’s capitalised on council success at the Tories’ expense in Surrey and Hampshire in GE’s the late 1990’s/early 2000’s. Even now the Tories are struggling in much of Hampshire to regain anything like their former supremecy.
John13, yes, that’s more or less the size of it. If Labour had written off some of their highly marginal wards and defended moderately safe wards they would have done somewhat better in seat terms.
The ward I live in, 2002:
Lab 1851, 1731, 1584
Con 844, 731, 713
Green: 820
LD: 465, 451, 336
2006: Con 1551, 1445, 1307
Lib Dem 1193, 1053, 989
Lab 994, 943, 894
Green: 454, 418, 419
Labour didn’t have a clue that they were in danger in this ward, the councillors were campaigning in a neighnouring ward.
excellent article again sean. obviously wit no public face like the Tories in the cities of manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle when you have lost your councillors you soon notice the loss of support in the general election results has your main base has been destroyed
29 - where was that?
31. somehere in West London. A prize for the first person who identifies the ward.
32. Walpole in Ealing Borough
Andrea, your prize is the estimation of your peers
34. maybe I can get rid of the “uninformed” etiquette!
28. Ummm . . I think you ought to check your facts, at least for Hampshire.
Hampshire County Council is Tory controlled
At district level Winchester, Fareham, New Forest, Test Valley, Rushmore, East Hants and Havant ar all Conservative controlled (Winchester for the firtst time in 20 years).
That leaves Basingstoke as NOC but with Con. as the biggest party, Hart as NOC but with Con. biggest party & Eastleigh as LD.
Best lurk if you’re going to get the facts wrong.
27. That’s fine in theory, but party workers aren’t like pieces of plastic on a Risk board which can be pushed about at will; they’re volunteers who might be open to persuasion to help out somewhere else, but might not. One of the bains of campaigning life is volunteers who look at you as if you’re slightly mad when you try to persuade them to help out in someone else’s marginal rather than their safe seat.
37. True enough David, but if you have your own ward councillors losing their seats when they were directed to work in a neighbouring ward, a better allocation of resources may have been possible.
Shy & Retiring (is that a nom-de-plume of Rik’s?) at 36….
Kevin was talking about the Lib Dems in the late 1990s and early 2000s, for a start.
Then, of the councils that you mention, which are currently under Tory control, what sort of margin of control do the Tories have? I suspect most of them are pretty vulnerable to a renewed Lib Dem attack.
And somehow you seem to have left out Southampton and Portsmouth, and has Gosport been abolished since I last looked at it?
If I may be allowed to quote: “Best lurk if you’re going to get the facts wrong” (Shy & Retiring, 2006).
Returning to the subject of the article; Labour’s decline.
With Councillors down to 28% and further declines to follow, their ability to bounce back is undermined. The other factor is the continuing decline in Membership and a major drop in funding from Business.
Activists are finding it harder to canvass and deliver as long as Blair remains.
29- Kevin. That’s arrogance for you. I find some within Labour think they just cannot lose.
Ironic that I attended an Annual Council Meeting in Crawley tonight where power was formally transferred to the Conservatives after 35 years of a Labour Council…
39 - John13 - I don’t think you can deny that there has been a swing away from the LDs and to the Tories in Hampshire in the last year or two.
And can you really see a ‘renewed Lib Dem attack’? Most LDs I know are pretty deflated. The tide is now going out.
42 - Andy G - Funny thing about tides, they always seem to come back in, no matter how much you might not want them too.
43 - agreed. It went out along way in the 1990s, and now its on its way back!
44 - for us Tories!!!
43-Big Mak. Deckchairs and the Titanic spring to mind…
At very least,David Cameron will get the Tories to the 260-270 seat mark next time;at which point surely he will remain the Tory leader ready for ‘the one more heave’
41. DC, I don’t think Labour were particularly arrogant, just that their strategy was wrong, and the events of the last two weeks exaggerated this. I haven’t looked at the results in Crawley. Did you win your target three seats with smallest Labour majorities, or did you miss some of these and gain other seats on higher swings?
Kevin- the 3 seats the Conservatives gained to win the Council in Crawley were in order of swing needed. One was a 10% swing from 2004 which was a very good year for them anyway.
Labour spent time trying to win back seats they had lost in 2004 to the Conservatives rather than hold a line lower down in expectations.
Results are at
http://www.crawley.gov.uk http://www.crawley.gov.uk/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=437
49. DC, well fair play to you, and well done to the Conservatives in Crawley. But I think your second paragraph supports the general point I am trying to make - that Labour lost out on number of seats because their expectaions were too high and their resources could have been allocated more effectively.
Looking at the extropolation of this morning’s You Gov poll,which,adjusted for boundary reviews,would (just)take the Tories to an overall majority;I draw some points;
(a)Comparisons with the 3rd Conseravtive term of 1987-1992 do draw parallels
(b)The incumbent Lab govt of today have fallen ,roughly speaking as far as Mrs.T did around her 10th anniversary (i.e around spring 1989
(c)If,as is very possible,a chunk of the unusually large ‘4th party/don’t knows coalescence with DC,it is very possible by this autumn that the Conservative Party ar steadily polling in the mid/high 40s,with the Labour govt stuck in the low 30s-at this point I would perk up my ears,and think ,Something is happening’-it should be an interesting few months!
Well, the seat I stood in, needed a 0.5% to go from Labour to Conservative, it was very well worked, yet we lost by 47 votes….
Labour seem to have had a good run of luck up here (carlisle), where it seems the natural law of Labour decline is working in reverse…
Labour where booted out big style in 1999, but they are within inches of regaining control.
52 - Patrick - I don’t think the Conservatives or indeed any other party will poll consistantly over 40% in the polls - I think the effect of “others” is here to stay - it’s where they stand and who they take votes from that counts.
Kevin- I agree. Had they a crystal ball they would have written off some seats and defended lower down. However no one likes to admit defeat before an election.
Gaz- must be local factors going against national ones in Carlisle is all I can guess at.
Very interesting article Sean, with an interesting reply from Kevin L.
My tuppence worth, from Mid Sussex, our association along with Horshams having provided some of the foot soldiers for DC’s most welcome victory in crawley, not for 35 years so much as since the formation of the borough (Crawley council has always been Labour) is that it will all boil down to foot soldiers.
Labour is demoralised. The Lib Dems are small. The Conservatives have more members than Labour and Lib Dems pu together.If we are organised we will win.
I take Kevins targting point well, fact is though that Labour are facing an onslaught, and my estimation is that it will be in terms of public sentiment as big as 1997. It won;t be as bad because the Conservatives are still damaged goods in many minds from that time. But Labour just does not have the troops on the ground to defend what it needs to hold to keep a majority, for two reasons, as Sean has indicated the loss of councilors is a loss of activist and also the loss of morale.
DC fancy a beer sometime?
Kevin, that’s interesting. Here in Brent North, I fought the more marginal ward, Fryent. Labour held it by c.300 on average. Yet the “safe” Labour ward of Queensbury went Conservative, on a swing of c.17%. I thought Labour’s campaign in Fryent was very effective.
Possibly Labour did concentrate on the more marginal wards in London (which was the right thing to do from their POV) and found their supposedly safe wards were left undefended and were lost.
53 - Gaz - you obviously have a middle name Michael and I claim my 5 pounds!!
And as others have pointed out, no one wants to write off seats from the outset. Labour guessed they could win Lambeth, but fought defensively almost everywhere else. That meant throwing everything at marginal wards, but Labour misjudged how their support was dropping in wards they didn’t consider marginal.
Does anyone know how Labour’s membership is holding up these days? Up here DC seems to be having a positive effect on the number of members for the Tories with one Scottish constituency approaching 1000 members (not something we’ve had since around 1992). I’m not sure if membership makes a huge difference in terms of total seats gained or lost but it may help to swing those handful of key marginals.
In general I agree with Sean’s point that in these days of lower membership it helps greatly to have a good councillor base to help work the consituency.
Vino-
£5 on its way to you, i’l pay you out of my first allowances next year
RE 61, It is my understanding our membership is climbing whilst Labours is failing, I am unsure of the Lib Dems.
What effect does it have? That depends on how well it is led and directed. Ultimatley your party now has 1000 envelope stuffers, door knockers, leaflet droppers etc. Could make a huge difference if they could be mobilised.
Labour won 684 seats in London on 28% of the vote (compared to the Tories winning 520 on 31% in 1994). That implies that Labour’s targetting was pretty good (and it was obviously good in 2002, when they won 15 councils to 8 for the Tories despite equal vote shares). But good targetting couldn’t make up for a sharp decline in support.
62 - gaz - best of luck! - the turnout in the Carlisle election results caught my eye - seemed high in the Conservative holds while low in the Labour & Lib Dem holds which I would have thought would have favoured the Conservatives.
54,I take your point on board;I do fully understand British psephology of the last 25-30 years,and I am loking for similarities between;
(a)Mrs.T’s final term,1987-1990
(b)Mr.Callaghan’s administration,from April 1976-May 1979..and(before I was born),Harold Wilson’s second term,from March 1966 to June 1970-if anything,I am thinking of the point that these are the last three examples of a government going on to lose-in each instance,they fell at leats 20 points behind,for a fair few months-so what I am sayingis,that if DC goes 8-10 % ahead,I( as a Labour voter) would be reasonably calm-were the lead to stretch to 15,20,25 %,I would start feeling queasy!:lol:
Sean, I didn’t want to mention Brent but the contrast between Queensbury and Welsh Harp/Fryent is quite striking, likewise the swings to Labour in Wembley and Alperton compared with their utter capitulation in Brondesbury etc.
1,000 party members can be completely inert. Or they can be truly formidable. Far fewer numbers though (like the Poplar Tories) can be extremely formidable .
Kevin, Brent produced some very odd results. Perhaps it was that the sitting councillors in Fryent/Welsh Harp were very staunch fighters, but then, I would have said the same of their councillors in Queensbury - no one could call them ineffectual.
My gut feeling is that Labour (rightly) regarded Welsh Harp/Fryent as very tough contests, and threw everything they had into them, and ignored the safe Tory wards in Brent North. They thought (wrongly) that Queensbury was safe, and didn’t have a clue how the Lib Dems would fare in Brent East (but no one did)
44,45 & 46 - “Jumping the gun” springs to mind or “taking for granted” or maybe even “policy, you don’t need that just have a chocolate ornage, oh sorry not allowed that”……
63 - There was a good swing in the constituency in 2005 so it definately had a positive effect - although as Sean points out above that isn’t always the case. I note for instance that Castle Point is pretty safe these days despite having a pretty small membership.
66 - Patrick - sorry but I don’t think you can compare 2006 with the Thatcher/Major years - the world has turned and it’s a totally different ball game now.
69. Sean, I agree with all of that. If political parties start to realise that their ’safe’ wards/constituencies are not necessarily so, it can only be a good thing.
57- Benedict. Yeah why not. It’s possible we know each other.
I believe that many Councils all around Crawley are pleased not to have a red neighbour anymore.
72,I feel my comparison with years 1987-1990,whilst not perfect,does have some weight:what are your specific critiques,please?
69 - Sean - there was one party who knew what was happening in Brent East - the Lib Dems.
All the reports I heard was that that we would pick up the vast majority of the seats there and combined with the Lib Dems existing seats in South meant that it was almost certain that the Lib Dems would be the largest party (but short of a majority). Hence my prediction competition.
I could have told you about Brondesbury too. But sadly not Fryent
Dan, you also predicted that the Lib Dems would gain Haringey and Southwark. What happened there?
76- Problem is Dan that the Libdems always tell us that they are ‘winning here’ so they may not always be believed even when they are actually correct!
I see Ming-ids Campbell is trying to sound like a Conservative with a tough statement on violence.
A lurch to the right? Now where have I heard that before?…
75 - Patrick - I’m not saying the rational behind your post is wrong - but I think the whole political climate over the last 25 years has changed so much that comparisons cannot be made, for example turnout is way down, the 2/3 party system no longer exists,voters generally think MPs are out of touch with the public etc etc.Who would have thought a UKIP party would have existed in 1979? or indeed Respect,the Greens, the BNP hence I’m very dubious when comparisons are made.
Dan, I would also be intersted to hear your views on Islington which nobody on this site predicted, even though Nik Cohen gave us a steer.
In reference to the London results, Labour’s number of councilors isn’t good when you consider the fact that London locally is a Labour bastion - since 1970s. In context, if the Lib Dems hadn’t shifted to the left under Kennedy, Labour would have had control of Lewisham, Southwark, Islington & Camden - so around the 11 mark. It’s perhaps easy to think that with boroughs like Barnet, Harrow, Richmond, Sutton and so forth that Labour wouldn’t be so strong in London but in the east, Labour is totally dominant - proven by the final results, most of their remaining councils are there.
What happened in Brent was very weird and I live here! I expected Labour to lose the council, but I wasn’t sure how well the Lib Dems would do, as the results showed, every single ward in Brent East elected at least one Lib Dem councilor (I think) so Labour got well and truely trounced but despite the Lib Dems looking good on paper, in hard %, the Lib Dem’s only won something like 30% of the vote in Brent, so simply it was effective targetting, I think Labour took the Conservatives more seriously so concentrated a lot on Fryent and Welsh Harp, which would explain how they retained these wards but lost so many others.
The shift in Queensbury actually followed a pattern seen in Harrow -wards with high (well off) asian populations seem to have swung heavily against Labour, why this happened I’m not really sure, might have been because of Prescott? Sleaze (along with the emphasis on education) was what delivered both Harrow seats to Labour in 1997.
What you say about councilors in the thread is also what Toynebee has said in the Guardian, the erosion of the council base will be damaging to Labour.
I don’t think London is really a Labour bastion - in fact, Labour is probably on a long-term decline here, as gentrification undermines their safer areas and low-income voters become less likely to vote. In bad years, they can only rely on wards with a large amount of social housing or those which possess a non-white minority that they haven’t alienated in the same way that they have Muslim voters.
Patrick at 75,
As well as the growth of third/4th parties, bear in mind that the polls then could well have been “broken” - the next time that they were tested was 1992, the famous “failure of the polls”, when the error was 9.5% in favour of Labour.
If this error was in place before, Labour leads of 15-20% could have been 6%-10% in reality
77. Labour’s survival in Haringey was down to 2 candidates getting in in 2 split wards in Featherston’s part of the borough. Some Libdem were assuming here that all seats in Featherstone’s part were going yellow.
If the LDs had got those 2 seats, they would be in control now.
re. 39 John13. Just in case anyone’s still reading this (which I doubt), I wonder when John13 will take off his orange blindfold.
Southampton & Portsmouth are not in Hampshire.
Sorry, yes, I missed out Gosport. NOC with Conservatives at 50% of the members.
Wake up and smell the bitter coffee. LDs are on their way out in this part of the world.
Strength in local elections must also reflect the strength in Membership. Anyone know how many Members each (Main 3) Party has?
I have heard Tories 280,000 (Leader election + 20k growth), Labour 200,000 and Lib Dem 70,000.
The Tory figure uses official statements and they have boasted about the 20,000 newbies. This does seem to match the increase in Councillors. I could not find any official statement for the other two parties within past 6 months. Anyone seen it?
To what extent is the Labour Membership overall still in decline (from 9 yrs ago) and nearer 150,000 than the quoted 200,000? Any inflation in this through union figures?
Is the Lib Dem 70,000 really nearer 60,000?
RE 74, Yes DC we are pleased to have lost our red neighbour. Is Crawley still a nuclear free zone?
Email me at benedict at ourhobbies daht co daht uk
(The address is a bit munged to stop spammers)
87 Labour membership probably is now below 200,000.
The Conservatives’ problem, in terms of membership, is they need to recruit about 30,000 a year just to make up for natural wastage.
82 “what Toynebee has said”
Is this a corruption of slang abbreviation for Toyney Blair? Can TB be corrupted any more?
Kevin L, I must tell you that I was at the count for the Local elections in Ealing that night, in which I have to say, the look on the ousted leader of the councils face (leo thomson) when she lost her seat in Greenford Broadway is a picture I will cherish for many years to come!
88- thanks, noted email and will contact.
I think they dropped the nuclear nonsense a few years ago but worth checking!
RE 92, Yes it was nonsense. Its not like there were going to be any nukes there any way and if they were, the bourough could do nothing about it!
Kevin - on Haringey - Andrea has made the point that two split wards decided the election.
I knew the lIb Dems were going for overall control and had targetted (just) enough seats to do so. Bearing in mind everyone’s assumption of a really rotten night for Labour in London I think the fact their vote held up in certain key marginals (as you have mentioned) was not forseen and was the difference. Southwark the Lib Dems would have gained an overall majority if they hadn’t lost five seats in Hughes’ backyard (so to speak). I think Hughes has to watch out as his majority tightened and losing council seats suggests Labour is getting more organised.
Islington - no-one on the site predicted a Lib Dem loss. I certainly didn’t expect the Labour wipe out the more bullish Lib Dems were talking about, but the scale of Labour’s comeback I suspect surprised them too. To a certain extent it reflects the GE when the Lib Dems targeted both north and south seats - thereby letting Labour scrape in in the south when they shouldn’t. And we all know the effect of first term incumbancy don’t we?
In Southwark, Surrey Docks looks as though it will be a marginal next time. That will make it still harder for the Lib Dems to win an overall majority.
94.”I certainly didn’t expect the Labour wipe out the more bullish Lib Dems were talking about, but the scale of Labour’s comeback I suspect surprised them too”
IIRC the Isligton Gazette quited some newly elected Labour councillor saying they were hoping to be elected, but they weren’t expecting it.
Considering Bridget Fox reaction when her ward was declared, I suppose the Libdems weren’t expecting it either.