2022 UK Local Elections

[telstarbox]

Yes - the three Westminster seats covered by the newly Labour Cumberland Council are all Tory but marginal. Electoral Calculus currently predicts those would all go back to Labour;

Vulnerable Seats

 

[nw1]

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.

This, I think. Remember that it's warm now and light until well after 8pm, so we're not using much energy. This coming winter is going to be where we see the worst of the price rises. I suspect if Johnson is still in power in Feb 2023, his popularity will have gone through the floor.

 

[brad465]

At the end of the day, the main power-brokers in this country are still in the charge, the mainstream media. Most of what happens now is dictated by them, ever since they stopped reporting the news and started making it.

If we really want change in this country I suggest getting out on the streets in droves and shutting the country down until the whole system comes crashing down.

 

[nw1]

At the end of the day, the main power-brokers in this country are still in the charge, the mainstream media. Most of what happens now is dictated by them, ever since they stopped reporting the news and started making it.

If we really want change in this country I suggest getting out on the streets in droves and shutting the country down until the whole system comes crashing down.

Certainly it does not seem fair or reasonable that the majority of newspapers are right-wing to varying degrees. There is a marked bias in the printed media. The question is, are the two most notorious, i.e. the Mail and the Express, effective at 'converting' people to the right-wing cause, or are their readers 'converted' already?

 

[brad465]

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 tactical voting and electoral pacts played a large part in this, which is why Lib Dems and Greens did very well, and why the Tories lost nearly 500 seats but Labour didn't pick many of them up. In my ward there was no Labour candidate on offer, and the Lib Dem candidate was the winner.

 

[nw1]

I think tactical voting and electoral pacts played a large part in this, which is why Lib Dems and Greens did very well, and why the Tories lost nearly 500 seats but Labour didn't pick many of them up. In my ward there was no Labour candidate on offer, and the Lib Dem candidate was the winner.

Indeed, and if repeated in a general election, the Tories could be in trouble.

 

[jfollows]

Certainly it does not seem fair or reasonable that the majority of newspapers are right-wing to varying degrees. There is a marked bias in the printed media. The question is, are the two most notorious, i.e. the Mail and the Express, effective at 'converting' people to the right-wing cause, or are their readers 'converted' already?

I think they're converted already, which is why I laugh at them, of course they're always going to pick up occasional converts, but in reality I don't think many people read these papers who aren't already of much the same opinion as they trot out.
I could be wrong.
But, in general, I don't mind what our press puts out because of this. I agree with some of it, disagree with some of it, and occasionally some of it makes me think again.

 

[Gloster]

The question is, are the two most notorious, i.e. the Mail and the Express, effective at 'converting' people to the right-wing cause, or are their readers 'converted' already?

I think that those two are more negative than anything else: they will, particularly the Express, produce ‘Boris is wonderful, he can solve any problem from nuclear war to baldness‘ type stories, but mostly they are into bashing. As long as there is a possibility of an election in the near future, something that is quite likely to go on until there actually is an election, the front pages will be full of mile-high headlines demanding that the police execute Keir Starmer for going round tearing the heads off kittens with his friends Jimmy Saville and Meghan Markle. It is an insidious policy of continuously pushing negative headlines that will sink into peoples’ subconscious and eventually affect their voting.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If we really want change in this country I suggest getting out on the streets in droves and shutting the country down until the whole system comes crashing down.

Will the RMT ballot asking for a national rail strike if actually happens be one of the aids to what you ask for above?

 

[DarloRich]

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.

Tories popping the champagne? By losing 490 seats? I think you might need to give your head a wobble!

And if the swing were repeated in a general election labour would be in power in a coalition. If the swing repeats at the forthcoming wakefield by election that seats returns to labour.

That seems like a solid first step by starmer. I maintain his job is to bleach out the Corbyn infection and make labour a serious party again so the next person can win a majority. He is doing that.

In any event getting Johnson and his gang out is what matters. Vote for the colour best placed to do that

 

[Typhoon]

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.

Unfortunately, in some of the southern constituencies a town which may elect a Labour council this time is lumped in with a true-blue rural area (maybe in another council area) to make the numbers up.
What has encouraged me is that when I saw an interview with the new leader of Worthing council (a doctor) who came across as a normal member of the public, casually dressed, someone who lives down the road. Looking at the biogs and pictures of other Labour candidates/ councillors, most were much the same. One thing that the election of Starmer may have down is encouraged moderate Labour supporters to get involved (?again). They seem approachable, normal, far from the shouty Momentum members presented in the media. Later, there was a Conservative leader, full of bluster, almost blaming the electorate, his council was getting things right (it didn't help that it looked like he spent his time at the top table). This may be where Labour in some of the northern councils have not moved on, we are past the time where most of the electorate will vote the same way election after election - even if they don't change their vote, they stay at home.

I think tactical voting and electoral pacts played a large part in this, which is why Lib Dems and Greens did very well, and why the Tories lost nearly 500 seats but Labour didn't pick many of them up. In my ward there was no Labour candidate on offer, and the Lib Dem candidate was the winner.

There seems to have been more than one or two wards in Maidstone where either only one of Labour or Lib Dem did not stand, or obtained very few votes (?minimal canvassing).

With two elections still to come through, Labour had more candidates elected than the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens, Independent and 'RA' (EDIT: ?rate payers Residents Associations) combined.

 

[DarloRich]

Will the RMT ballot asking for a national rail strike if actually happens be one of the aids to what you ask for above?

We can but hope that this will be the spark that lights the gunpowder that blasts asunder the corrupt capitalist oppressors and thier perverted system that keeps the working man under the yoke of thier fiscal domination preventing the proletariat from achieving thier rightful reward for honest labour.

Or not. What do you think?

 

[Bantamzen]

Tories popping the champagne? By losing 490 seats? I think you might need to give your head a wobble!

And if the swing were repeated in a general election labour would be in power in a coalition. If the swing repeats at the forthcoming wakefield by election that seats returns to labour.

That seems like a solid first step by starmer. I maintain his job is to bleach out the Corbyn infection and make labour a serious party again so the next person can win a majority. He is doing that.

In any event getting Johnson and his gang out is what matters. Vote for the colour best placed to do that

And here is the perfect example why Labour will not win the next general election. Labour should have desimated the Tories, yet here we are talking about as possible collation.

I'm sorry to say it but Labour as it stands will not win a general election on it's own. And a coalition with the real winners of the local elections, the Lib Dems will be a disaster so long as the ego on a stick that is Starmer is in charge. We should today have been talking how Labour became the dominant force, not how they might scrape over the line with the help of another party.

Its not me that needs to give my head a wobble...

 

[Busaholic]

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.

The Tories lost nearly 500 seats in all over the three GB countries. A Tory backbencher was opining the day before polling that if they lost 300 to 350 seats Johnson's position would become difficult: even if he was only talking about English seats, they were deposed from 341. Given that in the 2018 local elections which were, on the whole, the main comparator, Labour had done quite well and the Tories less so, the Tories would have expected to do significantly better. Of course, so many areas had no elections at all, including places like Cornwall which would almost certainly have yielded many Tory losses to the Lib Dems. That's not to say Labour did well: they didn't, but of course they're up against the right wing press, and some TV channels, which peddle falsehoods and insinuations all day long. and unfortunately there are sufficient people who get fooled by this rubbish. I'm not a Labour member or even supporter, by the way, just an observer.

P.S. Returning to an old hobby horse of mine, Labour should never have chosen a leader with a knighthood: how's that going to get the Redwall seats back?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

We can but hope that this will be the spark that lights the gunpowder that blasts asunder the corrupt capitalist oppressors and their perverted system that keeps the working man under the yoke of thier fiscal domination preventing the proletariat from achieving thier rightful reward for honest labour.

Or not. What do you think?

Indeed I will ask my neighbour, Mr G. Fawkes to see if he can guide my thoughts on the matter.

 

[Magdalia]

I couldn't find any comments on the local election results in this part of the world.

In South Cambridgeshire the Liberal Democrats made further gains and now hold 37 of 45 seats. The district council and parliamentary constituency boundaries are not the same, but the Conservative MP for Cambridgeshire South, with a majority of less than 3000 over the Liberal Democrats, is likely to be very worried!

In Huntingdonshire the Conservatives lost control of the council, but it is in an area with lots of "independent" councillors. The Huntingdon parliamentary constituency is very safe, with the Conservatives taking more than 50% of the vote in 2019 and with no clear challenger, so the local election result is unlikely to be replicated in a general election.

In Cambridge Labour have a big majority, and won 10 of the 14 seats contested on Thursday. The Cambridge MP is already Labour, and with a comfortable majority. The most interesting aspect of the Cambridge City council elections, in both 2021 and 2022, is that the Greens won in Abbey Ward, which is literally "the wrong side of the tracks" and probably the poorest ward in the City.

In the local campaigns there was lots of noise about transport issues, notable East West Rail and the proposed busways from Cambourne and Haverhill. But I'm not convinced that transport issues make a big difference to the results.

 

[Gloster]

The failure of Labour to do as well as it hoped is being portrayed in parts of the press as proof that everybody hates Starmer and the Westminster-based Labour Party, but the Conservatives’ only fairly poor results are claimed to show that everybody loves Boris and the various problems besetting the Cabinet and the Conservative Party are of absolutely no interest to the voters. One or both could be wrong. It might be that the papers, being so London-centric, have failed to realise that the national party is not everything: for many voters local issues will dominate. If your local Labour council is making a mess of things, you may vote against them, whatever you think of the Westminster party. Similarly, you may loathe the government, but vote for a Conservative council if they seem to be doing well. Much of the press, and not just the national one, is deeply contemptuous of voters who have their own opinions.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If your local Labour council is making a mess of things, you may vote against them, whatever you think of the Westminster party. Similarly, you may loathe the government, but vote for a Conservative council if they seem to be doing well.

This is what Local Elections are all about.

Someone told me that Hull had seen a change. Is this true and has anyone with local knowledge got any information about it?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The failure of Labour to do as well as it hoped is being portrayed in parts of the press as proof that everybody hates Starmer and the Westminster-based Labour Party, but the Conservatives’ only fairly poor results are claimed to show that everybody loves Boris and the various problems besetting the Cabinet and the Conservative Party are of absolutely no interest to the voters.

I've read around a variety of newspapers' websites and I can't find any story that presents the election results in the way you've claimed. As far as I can tell, just about every newspaper is reporting that people don't like either Keir Starmer or Boris Johnson very much. A couple of examples:

The Telegraph online is leading on ‘We can’t heat our food anymore’: Voters reveal why they turned against the Tories link

Over at the Mail, their headline summary of the results reads 'Tories lose more than THREE HUNDRED seats in local election humbling but Labour FAILS to beat Corbyn's record or dent Boris Johnson's Red Wall - as poll shows result would mean a hung parliament at general election' link

On the other hand, the Times has a number of articles assessing the results. On eyeballing them, none of them are particularly complimentary towards Boris, and the headline of one of them stands out as particularly critical: 'Did Boris Johnson cost his party two London strongholds?' link

So I reckon you just made up the bit of your post that I bolded.

I get that you don't evidently like much of the mainstream media, but if you just make up stuff about them without checking, then you're making yourself at least as bad, and possibly worse, than the media that you're criticising.

 

[jon0844]

P.S. Returning to an old hobby horse of mine, Labour should never have chosen a leader with a knighthood: how's that going to get the Redwall seats back?

He's better than Corbyn, but that's not saying much.

I must say I'm amazed the Liberal Democrats did so well when I didn't even get anything through the door from my councillor - and can't really say I can remember when they last said anything much about anything.

I think they're probably just finding themselves becoming very popular as an alternative vote for upset Tory voters. It might be a step too far to vote Labour, and that will be partly what the problem facing Labour is - and a bigger issue in that the votes are going to be split.

 

[GusB]

This is what Local Elections are all about.

Someone told me that Hull had seen a change. Is this true and has anyone with local knowledge got any information about it?

It has been fairly well covered in the news over the last couple of days - choose your favourite news website and it'll be there.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It has been fairly well covered in the news over the last couple of days - choose your favourite news website and it'll be there.

I was hoping to hear the views of website members local to Hull, as I would rather hear what they had to say from a local perspective rather than any media outlet these days.

 

[Typhoon]

I must say I'm amazed the Liberal Democrats did so well when I didn't even get anything through the door from my councillor - and can't really say I can remember when they last said anything much about anything.

It is rather hit and miss. Where you have a group of young(ish) activists, they can get an impetus going and that is where they do well.
We used to have enthusiastic Lib Dems - newsletter even when there was no election, placards at election time, a stall in the market from time to time. We had two or three local councillors. No more, I don't think we even got an election leaflet in 2019. The constituency is split between two council areas, the website for the Lib Dems for one of the council areas still includes the candidates for the 2021 at the top of the news page. In other parts of the county, the members are active in drumming up support. It is how the party in the time of Steel, Kennedy, Ashdown did comparatively well - they concentrated on areas where they thought they could win. Not a bad strategy for a party with limited resources.

 

[Gloster]

I was hoping to hear the views of website members local to Hull, as I would rather hear what they had to say from a local perspective rather than any media outlet these days.

It looks like Labour and the LibDems were almost level pegging beforehand: 29 Labour and 26 LibDem. Labour lost two and the LibDems gained three out nineteen seats contested. The only Conservative went and an Independent appeared.

 

[johncrossley]

He's better than Corbyn, but that's not saying much.

I must say I'm amazed the Liberal Democrats did so well when I didn't even get anything through the door from my councillor - and can't really say I can remember when they last said anything much about anything.

I think they're probably just finding themselves becoming very popular as an alternative vote for upset Tory voters. It might be a step too far to vote Labour, and that will be partly what the problem facing Labour is - and a bigger issue in that the votes are going to be split.

The voting system is not suitable for more than two parties. They split the anti-Tory vote so they should withdraw where Labour are the main threat to the Tories.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The voting system is not suitable for more than two parties. They split the anti-Tory vote so they should withdraw where Labour are the main threat to the Tories.

Not very democratic to say that. People should have the freedom to vote for the party of their choice.

 

[duncanp]

Not very democratic to say that. People should have the freedom to vote for the party of their choice.

A similar situation exists in Scotland where the unionist vote is split amongst three parties, whereas the SNP get nearly all the pro independence votes.

This could also explain the rise of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. Despite Sinn Fein being the largest party in the assembly now, unionist parties (DUP, UUP + TUV) received slightly more votes than nationalist parties (SDLP + Sinn Fein)

 

[johncrossley]

Not very democratic to say that. People should have the freedom to vote for the party of their choice.

In safe seats there is no freedom anyway. The same party wins every time, so your vote is irrelevant. The system also means that it is uneconomic for more than a handful parties to contest each seat. So if you support one of the parties without a candidate, then you literally cannot vote for that party.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 May 2022 ==

A similar situation exists in Scotland where the unionist vote is split amongst three parties, whereas the SNP get nearly all the pro independence votes.

This could also explain the rise of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. Despite Sinn Fein being the largest party in the assembly now, unionist parties (DUP, UUP + TUV) received slightly more votes than nationalist parties (SDLP + Sinn Fein)

At least in those places the system doesn't lead to an overwhelming majority for one party as they use different systems to that in England.

 

[duncanp]

At least in those places the system doesn't lead to an overwhelming majority for one party as they use different systems to that in England.

You can't interpret the results in Northern Ireland as meaning that there is now majority support for a united Ireland, any more than you can interpret the results in Scotland as meaning that there is majority support for a second independence referendum or independence itself. (A fact which Nicola Sturgeon convneniently seems to ignore.

In Northern Ireland the rise of the cross community Alliance Party is worth noting. People there are beginning to reject the old sectarian parties, and vote for parties that put the day to day interests of the people first.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In safe seats there is no freedom anyway. The same party wins every time, so your vote is irrelevant. The system also means that it is uneconomic for more than a handful parties to contest each seat. So if you support one of the parties without a candidate, then you literally cannot vote for that party.

You may very well believe in what you say above, but I believe in the "one person, one vote" ethos, so destroying that right just for the sake of political ease smacks of something "from the dark side". It is the right of all parties to put forward candidates, so for a party to deliberately not put a candidate forward is to show a somewhat lack of political awareness of the rights of those members of the electorate who want to vote for the party of their choice.