Labour
“The local election results were worse for the Conservatives than their own spun figure of a thousand lost council seats – designed to allow them to boast of having lost fewer when the actual results came in.
“They are down by at least 1061 councillors and lost some 50 councils. Labour won in seats as geographically and electorally different as Amber Valley, Dover, Erewash, East Staffordshire, Medway and Swindon.”
Conservatives
“Thrasher and Rallings’ National Equivalent Vote Share gives Labour a national lead of seven points. John Curtice’s Projected National Share gives them a lead of nine points.
Both estimates would leave Labour short of a majority in a general election. Its performance was also patchy: note its poor performance, for example, in parts of the West Midlands, Bassetlaw, Harlow, Wyre Forest, Peterborough and Teesside.”
Labour
“Local elections this year didn’t take place in Scotland, Wales, London and other major cities – all areas in which we are very strong. Take those places into account and our lead over the Conservatives would have been much bigger.
Pollsters are saying that the local elections were in line with their current assessment of a Labour poll lead of about 15 points – enough if all else is equal to give us a majority if repeated in a general election.”
Conservatives
“The calculation that matters is comparing local election results in the past with the general election result that followed in the same Parliament. From that point of view the absence of Scotland, London etc in one cycle is irrelevant.
Only twice recently has the government changed after a general election – from us to Labour in 1997 and from Labour to the Coalition in 2010. The opposition local election leads in the Parliament before both were 14 and 15 per cent respectively.”
Labour
“But in order to form a government, the more anti-Conservative tactical voting there is, the fewer seats we will need to win outright and the smaller a swing we will need. And the local elections suggest that anti-Tory tactical voting is bedding in.
The Liberal Democrats won six councils from the Conservatives and six from No Overall Control – all in blue areas. The Greens took mid-Suffolk. And consider Bracknell Forest – won by Labour in the wake of a Lab/Lib pact.”
Conservatives
“Tactical voting can wind up and it can wind down. What may matter more is electoral tightening – in other words, the usual process of Opposition leads falling away as polling day approaches and the party concerned comes under scutiny.
When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, Labour led us in Politico’s poll of polls by 51 per cent to 25 per cent – a 26 point lead. Today, that gap is 15 points. In other words, electoral tightening’s already happening and tactical voting is likely to unwind.”
Labour
“Come the general election, the Conservatives won’t be able to scare voters as they did in 2015 with claims of a “coalition of chaos”: after all, under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak they are the coalition of chaos.
Nor if the SNP continues to decline in Scotland, with our party picking up the lion’s share of its lost votes, will the Tories be able to spook voters with scare stories: Humza Yousaf is no Nicola Sturgeon.”
Conservatives
“The election in all likelihood is more than a year away. The Johnson-and-Truss led rebellion over the Northern Ireland Protocol was crushed. There will be no leadership challenge this summer. Yousaf may not be leading the SNP when the election comes.
Furthermore, Jeremy Corbyn may be poised to win as an independent, with the far left holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament. The LibDems are already demanding concessions from Labour. Don’t be too sure how all this plays out with voters.”
Labour
“Finally and above all, parliamentary geography is on our side. Come a hung Parliament, the Conservatives have no partner for coalition or confidence and supply (save the DUP). There is no big Reform vote for them to squeeze.
“We believe that we will win outright – but even if we don’t, Rishi Sunak has to come close to an outright majority to be certain of forming a government. Keir Starmer is far more likely to be able to form a government without one.”
Conservatives
“It’s true that electoral unwind didn’t happen between 1992 and 1997. But Starmer is no Tony Blair – so some degree of unwind can be expected. Labour raise you parliamentary geography – and what some pollsters say about their present poll lead.
We raise you electoral tightening – and what some pollsters suggests about last week’s results and recent history. Namely, a Government poll lead come the election, perhaps one large enough to keep our Commons majority.”
–
And that’s as fair an assessment as this Conservative editor can manage of what the two main parties are saying this morning about last week’s local election results.
There seem to me to be three main possibilities as the next election approaches in the wake of last week’s results.
First, more voters are convinced by Starmer’s offer and Labour’s poll lead rises again. If tactical voting eased off, that might not be as helpul to the party as the headline figures suggest. If it didn’t, Labour’s position would strengthen further.
Second, general election day finds us more or less where we are today. Again, much would depend on tactical voting, regional and national variation, boundary changes and so on, but these circumstances would be likely to deliver either a small Labour majority or a Starmer minority government.
Third, electoral tightening kicks in, tactical voting eases off to some degree – and the Conservatives inch their way up what Isaac Levido, the Tory strategist calls “the narrow path to victory”.
Putting my money where my pen is, I believe that the third outcome is the most likely, and that Sunak will walk that path. But how far he gets down it is another matter. Is it likely that he will breast the triumphal tape at the end of that long road?
Today, for whatever good it does me (or anyone else), I am somewhere between a Conservative majority of 15 and a Labour one of 45. Much of the ground between the two is hung Parliament territory.
Footnote: Beware of known unknowns and unknown unknowns: bank collapses, Ukraine war spin-offs, new pandemics – the entire range of Dominic Cummings disaster scenarios. And I looked, and behold a pale horse.