First, we considered the Metropolitan Boroughs. Last week it was the Unitary Authorities. This week we conclude the series that previews the local elections, by considering the District Councils.
I’m afraid the fundamental point still applies with the District Councils, as with the other categories, that Labour can expect to make significant gains from the Conservatives. The last time the seats were contested, in 2019, there was a tie on “national equivalent vote share”, with Labour and the Conservatives on 31 per cent each. Now, the opinion polls have been bobbing around a bit but they show a large Labour lead. It may be diminishing as an overall trend. Rishi Sunak’s ratings as the best person to be Prime Minister are pretty level with those for Keir Starmer. Lord Hayward, the polling expert and Conservative peer, observes that these leadership ratings are significant, that the party ratings are a “lagging indicator”, an improvement in Sunak’s favourability ratings now will prompt an improvement in Conservative poll share later.
Perhaps. But if Labour is ten per cent ahead of the Conservatives in the real votes in this year’s local elections that would indicate the Conservatives losing over a thousand seats. May 4th is not far away and many will vote by post before that. That does not leave much time for Labour’s opinion poll lead to fall to single figures. So if the Conservatives can keep overall losses below a thousand that would be a relative success – with Labour underperforming.
Dartford Council has all its seats up for election this year. The Conservatives have a big majority but that is the sort of place where Labour will be looking to make gains. Gravesham is “all up” and already has a Labour minority administration. It would be surprising if Labour doesn’t gain overall control; the issue is how dramatically it does so. Harlow is another one to look out for. It’s a Conservative Council but only a third of the seats are being contested so it would be very difficult for Labour to gain the Council. But how many seats will it gain?
One piece of solid information we now have is the number of candidates standing in different places, as nominations closed last week. Conservatives will be relieved that Reform UK are only contesting a small minority of seats. The Green Party, by contrast, often have a full slate. For some years the Green Party has performed less well in local elections than its opinion poll ratings would suggest, while the Lib Dems have tended to do much better. Will the Green Party seek to scoop up Corbynista defectors from Labour? Its policies are pro-woke and anti-capitalist. So it could claim territory vacated by Keir Starmer. Yet often at a local level, its candidates are opportunistic. They can be anti-development – even when the proposal is for a solar farm. Or a hydrogen village. So they have council representation in some strongly Conservative areas – Braintree, for example. Mid Suffolk could easily fall to the Green Party: at present the Conservatives run it with the support of an independent.
A change in the rules makes it easier to field candidates as only two signatures are required for nomination. With that factor and their poll ratings, you would expect Labour to be running more candidates than before. That is not the case overall. In many districts, there are still big gaps, often with far fewer Labour candidates than previously. That may be an indication of Labour activists feeling disillusioned and becoming rather less active.
But in Waverley District Council and in Bracknell Forest (which is a unitary authority) it is clear that Labour is standing down in some wards as part of a pact with the Green Party and the Lib Dems. All seats are up for election in both councils. This will be interesting. First of all to see if Starmer, who has said that Labour will not engage in electoral pacts, does anything about it. Secondly, to see if it works. Will the voters fall into line? If Conservative losses are particularly high, will that inspire more anti-Conservative pacts?
To finish with a couple of upbeat observations. Firstly, there had been suggestions that the Conservatives would have difficulty finding candidates. I have not found much evidence of this among nomination lists I have seen. Election Maps has done a tally and found that 93 per cent of seats are being contested by the Conservatives, which they calculate is slightly down on last time. That compares with Labour contesting 77 per cent of seats, the same as last time but a pretty dismal effort.
Secondly, last time around in 2019 a big factor was gains by independents and assorted residents groups. Usually these were from the Conservatives, often in “safe” Conservative wards. Often they were elected to protest a planning development they promised to stop. Then it might turn out there were no legally valid grounds for stopping the development and it would go through on appeal. Or a residents group might take control of a Council and do a poor job of running the services. It may well be that the Conservatives win some of these back – for instance in Uttlesford (or Saffron Walden to you and me). That could help offset significant losses to Labour and modest losses to the Lib Dems and the Green Party – allowing the total of net losses to be below a thousand.
Conclusion
The District Councils are mostly Conservative – which means the Conservatives have the most to lose. Yet Labour may do less well than its opinion poll ratings suggest, while the Conservatives may offset losses by recovering some seats lost to independents last time.