Local Election Resuts

[SueEllen]

(I live in London so didn't vote as no elections)

It appears lots of people were tactically voting.


Results - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-65147839

Analysis - https://news.sky.com/story/local-ele...watch-12872028

Understanding the context of four years ago, when most of these seats were last contested, should help us to follow the council results as they are declared.

The Conservatives were unpopular and lost a number of councils and more than 1,300 seats.

It wasn't Labour that inflicted such terrible losses - in fact, Labour lost seats and councils too.

It was the Liberal Democrats, Greens and different flavours of independents who came off best.

Our estimate of the national equivalent vote saw the two main parties on just 31% apiece, the Lib Dems on 17% and assorted others taking the remaining share.

These are the baseline figures that will shape the 2023 elections - parties more unpopular now than then will lose ground - those whose popularity has grown will improve.

But these are local elections in England where candidates, parties and issues can and do matter. Expect the unexpected.

[SueEllen]

Which councils have changed hands so far?

With just under half of the local election results declared, here's a list of the councils that have changed hands so far:

• Brentwood - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• Tamworth - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• Plymouth - Labour gain from no overall control
• North West Leicestershire - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• Hertsmere - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• East Lindsay - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• Stoke-on-Trent - Labour gain from no overall control
• Boston - Independent gain from no overall control
• Windsor & Maidenhead - Lib Dem gain from Conservatives
• Medway - Labour gain from Conservatives
• South Kesteven - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• East Hertfordshire - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• South Gloucestershire - Conservatives loss to no overall control
• Welwyn Hatfield - Conservatives loss to no overall control

[WTFH]

Voter ID has been introduced to reduce electoral fraud, which we have been told is rife.
Conservatives and UKIP have lost seats.

It must mean that the 40,000,000* cases of electoral fraud in the UK have been carried out by illegal immigrants with fake British passports, or what is the new explanation?


*Of the 1,386 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2018 and 2022, 9 led to convictions and the police issued 6 cautions. Over half of the cases relate to campaigning, not voting. But don't let that affect what you want to believe. Source: https://www.electoralcommission.org....ral-fraud-data )

[vetran]

Apparently SirKeir is already writing his acceptance speech.

Seems a protest vote against the Conservatives, nice to see the Lib Dems prospering, maybe we will have a credible third party.

[vetran]

Voter ID has been introduced to reduce electoral fraud, which we have been told is rife.
Conservatives and UKIP have lost seats.

It must mean that the 40,000,000* cases of electoral fraud in the UK have been carried out by illegal immigrants with fake British passports, or what is the new explanation?


*Of the 1,386 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2018 and 2022, 9 led to convictions and the police issued 6 cautions. Over half of the cases relate to campaigning, not voting. But don't let that affect what you want to believe. Source: https://www.electoralcommission.org....ral-fraud-data )

Will be interesting to see how it has affected the number of voters. Also postal voting is an easy thing to exploit.

Does seem odd that one of our most basic functions of democracy is run on British fair play and good behaviour.

[TheDude]

Tories ceded six seats to independents in my area.

Problem is the independents are far to the right of the Tories.

[dsc]

I'm not British (well I am, but not lived here all my life), so maybe someone "local" can explain, what's the beef with Lib Dems? on the cover they seem fairly reasonable, but for some reason they seem to get loads of hate from both left / right. I know they were in a collation with the conservatives, and it seems that since then they've been pretty much banished from politics.

[malvolio]

It's clear there is a strong anti-Tory feeling across the country (can't imagine why...), but from these numbers so far it's equally clear that Labour aren't really much liked either. Perhaps Sir Keir has been found out a last.

Locally - while we don't have an election in Somerset - the Lib Dems are seen as good constituency people, better then the other two at solving local issues, but paradoxically are blamed for poor management of the wards and spending scarce money when there are better things for it to be spent on. Go figure...

I suppose we also need to be mindful of turnout. Only those with some sort of grievance will make the effort and that skews results quite considerably.

But Rishi has a real fight on his hands.

[WTFH]

Will be interesting to see how it has affected the number of voters. Also postal voting is an easy thing to exploit.

Does seem odd that one of our most basic functions of democracy is run on British fair play and good behaviour.

And it seems to work very well, contrary to the spin being pushed by the far right, there isn't massive electoral fraud being found.
Did you look at the stats? Most of the electoral fraud is around campaigning. Can't spin it to blame postal votes now, or whatever the next thing is to blame. If there's 1 or 2 cases of voting fraud out of 46,000,000 registered voters, that's not a high percentage is it? Police would be better spending time catching speeders than trying to find the hundreds of thousands of fake voters.

[northernladuk]

Where is the far right protest vote? Are local elections different and people don't tend to voice their frustration by voting the far right parties in these elections?