The ballots are open, campaigns are at their final push, and everyone is anticipating what results await us. Best of luck to all the candidates who have put themselves forward, and to the campaigners who have supported them. It is a democratic service no matter individual results.
Within the Conservative Party proper, amid grim predictions, the hope is that people are thinking locally. It might seem like a tautology given these are local elections – or devolved elections in the cases of Scotland and Wales – but it is not a given.
The argument from CCHQ to local associations and beyond has been practical: this is not about choosing the next prime minister, but about who runs your council – who fixes potholes, manages planning and organises bin collections. The campaign to refocus on what councils can actually do seems laudable.
It is why Conservative candidates have been stressing competence and delivery. Whatever people think about Westminster, councils themselves are often better managed by Conservatives than by unstable coalitions or failing Labour, and now Reform, administrations.
Electorally too, the logic is understandable. Tory strategists know that this message could help them retain support even where the national brand has deteriorated. But privately, some Conservatives worry the strategy contains its own warning signal.
As one Tory MP put it to me: “I understand the strategy, obviously, and I get what it’s trying to do, but I get nervous about what it means for the wider party if only a local message is getting through. We can’t rely on that for long.”
That anxiety hangs over today’s elections. Reform UK’s advance has been driven by almost the opposite instinct. Nigel Farage’s party is not fighting a hyper-local campaign. It is fighting an explicitly national one, attempting to turn local elections into a referendum on the direction of the country itself.
For some Conservatives, that creates an uncomfortable contrast. “Look at Reform,” the same MP added. “It’s their national campaign that is securing them these councils.”
The fear, they explained, is around the strength of its message nation by nation, and reliance now on ward by ward.
Today’s contests are not confined to England. That is what makes this electoral cycle particularly politically dangerous.
In Scotland and Wales, voters are not just choosing councillors but deciding the composition of devolved parliaments at a moment when the Union itself feels politically brittle.
The Scottish elections have exposed some of the Conservative tension: the push around the so-called “peach vote” – the regional list ballot paper used in Holyrood elections. Under Scotland’s Additional Member System, voters cast one constituency vote and one regional vote, printed on a peach-coloured ballot.
Scottish Conservatives have spent weeks urging pro-Union voters to “use the peach vote wisely”, arguing that the regional list is the mechanism through which the SNP can be denied a majority. Russell Findlay has even described it as a “secret weapon”.
But the recent emphasis reflects anxiety about a poor performance on the regional list – one that could even put the Scottish leader himself at risk. A senior Tory source fears that the party’s only real hope remains the local message landing, because a broader national one does not appear to be cutting through.
Meanwhile in Wales, the pressure looks different but equally uncomfortable. Labour’s dominance appears shakier than at any point since devolution began, but it is Plaid Cymru and Reform – not the Tories – that look best placed to benefit from voter frustration.
All of which leaves today’s elections feeling like a stress test for an increasingly fragmented British politics; one in which the Conservatives are still trying to work out their place.
The results may not answer that question conclusively, but they will provide some indication of whether the Tories can assuage the fears voiced by the MP earlier in this piece, and remain a genuinely national party.
In a previous interview, when asked what success in May would look like, Kemi Badenoch said: “I need to show that we are getting a hearing from the public, and that means making sure that we hold seats; that we win seats.”
Let’s wait and see.