2022 UK Local Elections

[TheBigD]

Sometimes I think that London should be a separate country from England - its so different and "skews" any political discussion about England.

Singapore on Thames?

 

[DanNCL]

Speaking to family ( one of whom lives in this ward) the Lib Dems fielded a genuinely good candidate who seems popular with all voters, and one who worked the shoe leather very hard to become "known" in the area.

Indeed they did, I’ve met the candidate (now councillor) for that ward a few times and he has made himself very popular with local residents. I expected the Lib Dems to win that seat, but didn’t expect them to get quite as much of a majority as what they got!

 

[Cloud Strife]

A big result in Scotland: the SNP and Greens have a majority in Clackmannanshire. It might not sound like much, but this was one of the places where the independence referendum was lost.

Apart from that, it seems like we're going to see plenty of SNP/Labour councils.

 

[TXMISTA]

Richmond (London) interested me, again the Conservative vote appears to have crashed, going from 11 to 1 councillor, whereas Lib Dem went from 39 to 48.
Details from https://www.theguardian.com/politic...lts-live-local-council-england-scotland-wales

View attachment 114151

It's to be expected really. Richmond voted remain by almost 70% and the Lib Dems unseated Zac Goldsmith at the last GE by 11.9 percentage points. Richmond Park is my home constituency and I can attest to the fact that the Tories have not been popular here since the party shifted to a pro-Brexit, 'anti-London/SE' stance under Johnson.

 

[nw1]

Londinium

I'm aware that's the Latin name for London, but was trying to turn it into something which resembles a country name.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 May 2022 ==

According to the BBC, Worthing council has gone Labour. That must count for something, surely.

 

[GusB]

The Tories have won the largest number of seats on my council, although that's not a huge surprise. No party has enough seats for a majority, so it will be interesting to see who teams up with who

Moray Council Election Results 2022

Council and Government, Elections, Previous Election Results, Moray Council Election Results 2022

www.moray.gov.uk

Date:06 May 2022

Independent: 2
Scottish Conservative and Unionist: 11
Scottish Family Party 0
Scottish Green Party 1
Scottish Labour Party: 3
Scottish Liberal Democrats 1
Scottish National Party (SNP): 8
Sovereignty 0

26 Elected Members

It's good to see the Greens gaining a seat, although it's disappointing that there was no candidate standing in my ward.

 

[gnolife]

The Tories have won the largest number of seats on my council, although that's not a huge surprise. No party has enough seats for a majority, so it will be interesting to see who teams up with who

Moray Council Election Results 2022

Council and Government, Elections, Previous Election Results, Moray Council Election Results 2022

www.moray.gov.uk

It's good to see the Greens gaining a seat, although it's disappointing that there was no candidate standing in my ward.

Wasn't Moray Conservative/Lib Dem/Independents last time around?

 

[northwichcat]

What annoys me most is the assumption by the right-wing press that the "rest of England" are all Brexit-supporting, xenophobic small-c conservatives and that liberal, left-of-centre, or pro-EU views are dismissed by some on the right, notably the Mail, Express etc, as "London only, so don't matter".

Not all of "middle England" are right-wing Brexiters, time for the right-wing press to stop assuming this and belittling other views.

Indeed. If in Cheshire you look at county-wide election results for Brexit and the Police & Crime Commissioner elections, it's very similar to London. The Police & Crime Commissioner position has been held by both the Conservatives and Labour, while there are pro-Brexit areas and pro-EU areas.

 

[GusB]

Wasn't Moray Conservative/Lib Dem/Independents last time around?

It was Conservative/independents to begin with, but the SNP gained control.

New Moray Council minority SNP administration approved

The authority was run by a coalition of Conservatives and independents until all but one Tory walked away.

www.bbc.co.uk

Moray councillors have unanimously approved a new SNP minority administration.

The authority was run by a coalition of Conservatives and independents until all but one of the Tories walked away from the administration.

Uncertainty has surrounded the leadership of the authority for more than two weeks.

Graham Leadbitter is the authority's new leader, with SNP colleague Shona Morrison the authority's convenor.

The Conservatives had offered talks with independent and Labour councillors, but said the offer came to nothing.

Seven of eight Conservatives had previously withdrawn, with convener James Allan remaining.

It left an administration group of five independents plus the convener.

The Conservatives said the initial decision followed years of Scottish government cuts to the council's budget which had brought the council to the brink of bankruptcy.

 

[northwichcat]

The Tories have won the largest number of seats on my council, although that's not a huge surprise. No party has enough seats for a majority, so it will be interesting to see who teams up with who

We had a similar situation in Cheshire East at the last election. The Conservatives lost their majority but were the biggest party. Because there had been a lot of financial mismanagement under the previous Conservative majority, most of the independents agreed to work with Labour to reform the council. As part of the arrangement the Conservatives were allowed the seats on the scrutiny committee, with the other positions shared between Labour and independent councillors. This has led to Conservative MPs, especially Esther McVey, attempting to blame Labour for the mess the council was left in and budget cuts by the government in Westminster.

 

[Typhoon]

On a number of local councils (particularly in shire counties) there are localist or independent groups of councillors who hold the balance of power, as in Tunbridge Wells and Thanet for example. Some of these councillors previously defected from the mainstream parties so it will be interesting to see if they are voted back in.

Tunbridge Wells - Conservatives defending 11 seats, lost 9; 4 to Lib Dem, 3 to TW Alliance, 2 to Labour. The mayor was beaten into third place. I suspect that part of the issue is that Johnson's agenda does not chime with some of the traditional Conservative vote who have lent their vote to, here; the TW Alliance or elsewhere Ratepayers, Residents groups or independents.
Elsewhere, I note the Greens have done alright.

EDIT: Worthing has gone Labour (23 out of 37 seats). They didn't have a councillor before 2017.

 

[Kite159]

So the big winners seem to be the Lib Dems & Greens, with the main losers being Labour (gaining only 54 councillors) and the Tories (who was expected to do terrible).

Hopefully those councils which have decided to trust Labour won't be hit too badly with council tax hikes in the next few years and cuts in service provisions

 

[birchesgreen]

So the big winners seem to be the Lib Dems & Greens, with the main losers being Labour (gaining only 54 councillors) and the Tories (who was expected to do terrible).

Labour have gained 252 so far.

 

[oxfordray1]

The BBC shows a gain of 52 councillors for Labour, whereas the Guardian shows a gain of 252 councillors. The Telegraph shows a similar gain of 245 councillors for Labour. Can anyone explain the discrepancy?

So the big winners seem to be the Lib Dems & Greens, with the main losers being Labour (gaining only 54 councillors) and the Tories (who was expected to do terrible).

Hopefully those councils which have decided to trust Labour won't be hit too badly with council tax hikes in the next few years and cuts in service provisions

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The BBC shows a gain of 52 councillors for Labour, whereas the Guardian shows a gain of 252 councillors. The Telegraph shows a similar gain of 245 councillors for Labour. Can anyone explain the discrepancy?

The BBC's +52 refers to England. I would imagine (without looking at the figures in detail) that the Telegraph and Guardian figures relate to the whole of the UK. It's possible that the figures may have been last updated at different times as well. And there will be discrepancies according to how you deal with edge cases - things like boundary changes and new seats created, where you can't therefore say with certainty whether a particular seat was a gain or a hold. Not only that, but in seats where there have been by-elections, do you compare with the last by-election result or with the previous full election result? Different media sources will have probably adopted different procedures for things like that.

 

[telstarbox]

What happened in the London Borough of Harrow - one of very few Conservative gains?

 

[GS250]

What happened in the London Borough of Harrow - one of very few Conservative gains?

Many voters simply felt that council services had become so utterly hopeless (in spite of huge tax raises) that they crossed political lines to get Labour out.

There was also a multi million pound fraud case involving Harrow councillors too.

 

[Railsigns]

Wait, surely (if it came down to it) - the Tory vote would still be counted as a Tory vote if the count needed it? Whereas if you completely ignore the Tories and don't rank them, they can never receive your vote?

I had the same thought. I ranked all nine candidates except for the Tory, who got nothing.

 

[brad465]

Sinn Fein clearly ahead in first preference voting in Northern Ireland, and 7 seats ahead of the DUP almost halfway through (although neither of these two have gained or lost seats based on previous result yet):

Northern Ireland Assembly Election Results 2022

Get the latest news and election results in the 2022 election from BBC News

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Bantamzen]

I'd say that the Tories will be relieved at this point. It's proof that Labour has nothing much to offer, and even in Scotland, it looks like their gains are coming as a result of tactical voting by Tories (such as in West Dumbartonshire) rather than as a result of anything genuine to offer. We'll see what happens elsewhere, but I'd expect Labour to gain in the cities as a result of the Tory vote collapsing.

The Tories will be quietly popping open the good Champagne. Given their terrible performance as a government, a good opposition party should have wiped the floor with them. But Starmer's smug army have shown just how ineffective they can be. I will wager now that with him in charge, Labour won't be walking through the doors of No.10 this decade, and this is coming from someone who has voted Labour all his life until now.

 

[GS250]

The Tories will be quietly popping open the good Champagne. Given their terrible performance as a government, a good opposition party should have wiped the floor with them. But Starmer's smug army have shown just how ineffective they can be. I will wager now that with him in charge, Labour won't be walking through the doors of No.10 this decade, and this is coming from someone who has voted Labour all his life until now.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the term 'smug army'. Yet what have they to really be smug about?

Every country needs a strong and unified opposition and sadly we still don't have one......

 

[jon0844]

The Tories will be quietly popping open the good Champagne. Given their terrible performance as a government, a good opposition party should have wiped the floor with them. But Starmer's smug army have shown just how ineffective they can be. I will wager now that with him in charge, Labour won't be walking through the doors of No.10 this decade, and this is coming from someone who has voted Labour all his life until now.

The problem is the votes are split between Labour, Lib Dems and other parties - and that's what the Tories will rely on come the general election.

It's clear that many Labour voters were pro-Brexit, and many Tory voters who weren't may have gone to Lib Dems rather than Labour. The lack of PR gives the Tories a chance to still form a government, even if they get a reduced majority.

However, if the votes are split such that there's no overall majority then it could come down to Labour and Lib Dems forming a coalition. Sadly there's a good chance they'd not be willing to work with each other and the whole mess will continue.

At the end of the day, the Tories did terribly this week - but if you want to cherry pick stats then, yes, Labour did badly too. As in they did better than the Tories, but not good enough to seriously threaten them. Remove the Lib Dems from the equation and they'd have likely done a lot better (or vice versa). Obviously that isn't going to happen and so we are where we are.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

At the end of the day, the Tories did terribly this week - but if you want to cherry pick stats then, yes, Labour did badly too.

It's not cherry-picking statistics to point out that neither Labour nor the Tories did particularly well on Thursday - it's simply pointing out the reality of what happened.

 

[cactustwirly]

The problem is the votes are split between Labour, Lib Dems and other parties - and that's what the Tories will rely on come the general election.

It's clear that many Labour voters were pro-Brexit, and many Tory voters who weren't may have gone to Lib Dems rather than Labour. The lack of PR gives the Tories a chance to still form a government, even if they get a reduced majority.

However, if the votes are split such that there's no overall majority then it could come down to Labour and Lib Dems forming a coalition. Sadly there's a good chance they'd not be willing to work with each other and the whole mess will continue.

At the end of the day, the Tories did terribly this week - but if you want to cherry pick stats then, yes, Labour did badly too. As in they did better than the Tories, but not good enough to seriously threaten them. Remove the Lib Dems from the equation and they'd have likely done a lot better (or vice versa). Obviously that isn't going to happen and so we are where we are.

Labour had a wide open goal (opposition party has just had a major scandal) and didn't capitalise on it. Losing vote share outside of London.

That is a failure in my eyes, even though they managed to claw back a councillors.

I think the winners are the Tories, despite being very unpopular after partygate and the cost of living crisis. And having bumbling Boris at the helm, they didn't lose as many councillors as they could have done.

 

[jon0844]

It's not cherry-picking statistics to point out that neither Labour nor the Tories did particularly well on Thursday - it's simply pointing out the reality of what happened.

I know, but some sections of the media seemed to focus on Labour doing badly, which doesn't mean the Tories did well - but for those who only read headlines or the first sentence of a Tweet might imply the Tories didn't do badly.

The Lib Dems did very well, but nobody talks about them.. and it's that party that did Labour the most harm. Labour gained may Tory seats, but Labour also lost seats to Lib Dems too.

I think a lot of people would find it hard to vote Labour even if they are disillusioned with the Tories, after all.

 

[nw1]

So the big winners seem to be the Lib Dems & Greens, with the main losers being Labour (gaining only 54 councillors) and the Tories (who was expected to do terrible).

I don't think you can call Labour losers if they have gained Worthing and regained various other councils in the south and London - as well as holding on to Sunderland, somewhere which appears to have had a significant swing against them recently. They may not have done spectacularly but they have done reasonably well.

Looking at the councils up for election this year, could Labour have actually realistically gained many more? It's funny that it's mostly the right "bigging up" Labour's apparent "disaster", which shows that Labour themselves are probably quite happy. Given that many of these councils were solid Labour heartlands anyway, was a "red tide" really a realistic outcome? In terms of a GE I suspect Labour are aiming for being the largest party in a hung parliament, rather than a Blair-style result. And in a GE, maybe these election results show that Labour need to be targetting slightly different seats than they have done traditionally.

I would agree it's been particularly good for the Lib Dems and pretty poor for the Tories though.

 

[jon0844]

I think the winners are the Tories, despite being very unpopular after partygate and the cost of living crisis. And having bumbling Boris at the helm, they didn't lose as many councillors as they could have done.

Energy bills only went up a month ago. There have now been 3 (or is it 4) interest rate hikes, and likely more to come - perhaps more than 0.25% next time, so let's see what happens when things really begin to bite. If people opt to go on a nice summer holiday because they've not travelled for two years and do so on credit, that might also cause big issues in the autumn.

It might seem like a terrible time to consider a general election, but Boris might think now is the best time compared to holding on. Maybe the local election results show he'd be wise to.

 

[nw1]

The Tories will be quietly popping open the good Champagne. Given their terrible performance as a government, a good opposition party should have wiped the floor with them. But Starmer's smug army have shown just how ineffective they can be. I will wager now that with him in charge, Labour won't be walking through the doors of No.10 this decade, and this is coming from someone who has voted Labour all his life until now.

Remember though that Labour don't need a majority to "walk through the doors of no.10". They just need to be the largest party in a hung parliament. And Labour really didn't do that terribly. Being in charge of Worthing, Crawley and Barnet? Which councils could realistically have gone Labour this time? Looking at the map of councils which were up for election, it appears to have been a mix of solid Labour heartlands and provincial councils with little chance of Labour winning anyway - so no overall control at best.

Also note the Lib Dem swing in the south. A tactical approach in the next election, and without the worries of a Corbyn government (meaning, for example, that the electorate of Esher would have less worries about kicking out Raab and replacing him with a Lib Dem), could easily put paid to the Tories and make a Lab-Lib coalition a realistic possibility.

It seems that the first half of the 2020s is going to be a miserable period of post-lockdown austerity. So a government made up of rich, privileged people like Johnson and Sunak is scarcely going to be popular - Johnson and Sunak will never have to worry about money again, so why should they give a damn about us? The austerity is going to peak in the next year or two I suspect, just in time for 2024. Across the world too, so I suspect that incumbent governments of all colours will get a bloody nose in the coming years. The only exceptions to this, I suspect, will be where the alternative is even worse (e.g. Macron vs Le Pen in France). Starmer is no Le Pen, so that will not apply here.

I certainly think it's incredibly pessimistic to dismiss the possibility of Labour being the largest party not only in 2024 but also in 2029. That means it'll be 2034 before we're rid of the Tories. Will people really want 24 years of the same party - the Conservatives - continuously in government? I really hope we have not become so right-wing a country that we can tolerate almost a quarter-century of the Tories continuously in power. Also there's changing demographics to consider - I get the impression that Gen-Xers (which includes myself) and millennials are less favourable to the Tories than earlier generations - and post-millennials (who will increasingly become eligible for voting) even more so.

It's not a binary choice between a Tory majority and a Labour majority. There are all sorts of other outcomes involving coalitions which I do think will lead to a change of some sort as soon as 2024.

 

[GS250]

I think a lot of people would find it hard to vote Labour even if they are disillusioned with the Tories, after all.

I think we're probably looking at 'Workington Man' and his Worldly views here. Those who may on paper benefit from Labour policies but look at the likes of Corbyn and now Starmer as being part of the 'took the knee' brigade. No doubt other parts of the country are very keen to comply with such social narrative or were strong believers of remaining in the EU. Hence affluent Putney voted for Corbyn's Labour in spite of the risk of higher taxes and second homes being walloped.

 

[nw1]

I think we're probably looking at 'Workington Man' and his Worldly views here. Those who may on paper benefit from Labour policies but look at the likes of Corbyn and now Starmer as being part of the 'took the knee' brigade. No doubt other parts of the country are very keen to comply with such social narrative or were strong believers of remaining in the EU. Hence affluent Putney voted for Corbyn's Labour in spite of the risk of higher taxes and second homes being walloped.

Workington Man appeared to vote Labour this time, or at least north-west Cumbria as a whole did.