Sonia Khan, Partner at H/Advisors Cicero and former special adviser to the Treasury chats to James van der Graaf, Senior Consultant, about the outcomes of the UK local elections last week.
They review what they mean for the Conservative Government, Keir Starmer’s Labour Opposition, as well as the smaller parties and independents who did unexpectedly well.
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So, James, we’ve had a really interesting set of local election results in the last few days. Why don’t we recap what the biggest and most impactful results were and what your key takeaways were? I mean, clearly it’s a it’s a pretty bruising weekend for the Government. Just looking at some of the key numbers as well. Losing around 500 of the local council elections, losing nine out of the ten mayoralties which they competed in. A couple of those quite symbolic, I think, looking at Andy Street in the West Midlands, which was, neck and neck. I mean that one hurts for me. Yes. but but Andy Street, who ran pretty much as a, as an independent and very, very well respected as well. That will be a loss, I think losing in Sunak’s own patch, looking at York and North Yorkshire that will that will also worry Sunak I’m sure looking at the election result as well. One of the kind of record swings, we had 26% towards Labour. And some of the third parties as well, performing very well. I think Lib Dems and the Greens both had both had very, very good night as well. I think, were the Liberal Democrats kind of the second biggest winners of these local elections? I mean, yeah, if you look at their projected national vote share, they’re on about 17%, which they’d be absolutely delighted with. and I think picking up some of those, some of those kind of key target areas for them in the Southwest, in the Southeast. So I think they’ll be certainly positive about that. As a former special adviser who’s worked in the Conservative Government, what do you think will be Sunak’s key takeaways? And do you think there’s a threat he could be ousted? Yeah, it’s a good question. And I certainly don’t envy those who are doing that job for now. I think they’ll be slightly pleased that the expectation management landed so well but won’t be pleased with the results. But, you know, we’ll be happy that it’s under 500, not 500 or more than 500. Yeah. And that, whilst our losses that hurt like Andy Street in the West Midlands actually the losses weren’t by significant margins. And if you take the West Midlands as a whole Places like Dudley, which were very strong Labour holds under Tony Blair and became key marginals in 2010 under David Cameron, still aren’t voting Labour in the same way that they have done. So I think there’s some work to be done. So, Dudley, for example, has gone from Conservative to no overall control but councils like Solihull still Conservative. so I think there is still more work to be done in the Brexit voting seats. Yes. I think where there will be a threat is on the threat of the left and right. So, obviously Reform and the impact of kind of Reform on the political agenda, we all know. But the one that was really interesting was the independent candidate that stood in the West Midlands, who turned up to his count in a Lamborghini. And polled around 10% instead of, you know, 3% and was backed by George Galloway. So these are candidates who are sort of sweeping up, I guess a lot of the Muslim vote post-Gaza But I think that that threat is really unknown. We haven’t seen successful independents on such a scale before. So what that will mean for General Elections I don’t know. And on whether he’s gone well, Suella Braverman doesn’t think he needs to go. So hopefully that will be the vote of conf He might just hold on. but I guess what were your takeaways for for Labour, James? I mean, clearly Starmer’s going to be happy. I think it was a it was a good weekend for him where we are, in the electoral cycle. he’ll be very pleased where Labour are currently stood. I think there was a couple of key ones for him as well. I think picking up, picking up the council in Hartlepool will be quite a cathartic experience for, for Starmer, given they lost the by-election there in 2021. Picking up kind of seats dotted throughout the country and in the areas where they need to be as well. I think one area which may concern them a little bit is there has been a drop off in some of the metropolitan areas. We saw the Greens take control of Bristol Council. in some of the kind of heavily kind of Muslim regions of the UK as well. Clearly, as you said, the stance on Israel-Gaza has impacted them. And that’s something which Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator acknowledged himself. Yeah. and I think that also you have people looking at the projected national vote share. this is something the Government were keen to stress over the weekend, only nine points, which puts us in in hung Parliament territory. So I think just as a reminder, so the Conservatives were polling around 25% according to psephologists Yeah. and Labour were on about 34, about 34%. I mean, as we always do with this, we’d urge a little bit of caution about reading too much into this. The gap isn’t as big as it could be. It’s not. No. And I think, yeah, as you said, it’s local elections. People tend to vote differently. There weren’t elections in Scotland. Yeah, absolutely. But I think in Labour HQ had that number being closer to 12, 13% they’d be a little bit more comfortable. So I think positive, but yet to quite seal the deal. Very good. I think I think this might be to come.
1 Comment
Good job