State of play: Local elections 2011
Will Liberal Democrat fears become reality in this year’s local elections in England?
This is the beauty of local elections: virtually every scenario is being played out, somewhere. You thought the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are in government against Labour? Well, so they are, in Birmingham, for example. Elsewhere you can find Labour in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, or minority administrations propped up by independents, or Labour still in control after many, many years in power.
Some criticise those who try and draw too much meaning from these results. They ask: how can they possibly add up to a coherent national picture? The key is in the swings, the changes of power, which help us build up a picture of who are the overall winners and losers on the night. It might not mean much if one Conservative council loses its outright majority and is forced to limp on as a minority government, or perhaps look for support from other council groupings. But if that happens multiple times across the country, you can’t blame Tory activists for starting to grumble. All politics is local, former US House speaker Tip O’Neill once said. He’s right. So why should a general election be treated so differently from a set of local ones?
There are complicating factors, of course. Not all of England is voting: there are 381 local authorities holding elections, 121 of which are only electing a third of their total seats. We’ve chosen to focus on the single-tier councils – the unitary authorities and metropolitan district councils which control our biggest cities, like Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, but also chunks of the country like North Lincolnshire or Northumberland. Mostly, though, these single-tier councils cover the middle-sized towns and small-scale cities where the bulk of people in England live their lives. From Bath to Bolton, from Southampton to Salford: these are the great political battlegrounds of 2011.
They are also the first major electoral test of the coalition government and – if things go horribly awry – could contribute towards undermining the stability of the Tory-Lib Dem tie-up in Whitehall. The first 12 months of David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s partnership has seen the junior party suffer the most. The decision to abandon their tuition fees pledge, their failure over control orders and their complicity in the spending cuts enshrined in last October’s comprehensive spending review have helped push their opinion poll rating down from the giddy heights of the 2010 general election campaign. An Ipsos Mori poll published yesterday put the Lib Dems on just nine per cent. So, as the local election results come in, the Lib Dems will now be asking themselves whether their fears will be realised on May 5th.
The obvious vulnerability for Clegg’s party comes in councils where their main opponent is Labour, of course. The north-east has the pick of these fights in prospect, in Kingston upon Hull and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In the latter, the Lib Dems have 42 seats and Labour 34. Only a third of seats are up for election this time round, but Ed Miliband will be hoping his campaign trip to the city – where he told supporters that the Lib Dems had “broken their promises” – will make a difference.
If Labour is disappointed here the party’s members will fall back on hopes of making progress against the Lib Dems in a number of councils in the north of England where the balance of power is even more finely poised. Places like Oldham, where the Lib Dems and Labour both have 27 seats, for example. Here the Lib Dems have kept Labour out thanks to the support of a handful of Tory councillors. The most critical ‘advantage Lib Dem’ local authority could be Sheffield, though, and not just because this is the city where Clegg is a local MP. The Lib Dems have got used to championing Sheffield as a prime example of their governing abilities. But Labour are just one seat behind the Lib Dems’ 41, and the Sheffield Forgemasters row has had a huge local impact. If the Lib Dems hold on here their relief will be immense.
Embarrassing thought it would be for Clegg to lose places like Sheffield – or, for that matter, similar fights like Rochdale, Northumberland and Sefton – a potentially greater impact in terms of fallout could come from Milton Keynes. This council is in no overall control at present, but the Lib Dems are the largest party on 22 seats. The Conservatives have 17 councillors and are hoping to leapfrog above their rivals. Bedford, where David Cameron has campaigned, offers a similar scenario. This is no overall control too, but here the Lib Dems on 13 seats are even more closely pressed by the Tories on nine. Labour, with six seats, will be hoping to make gains.
Local elections are full of surprises and upsets. The best way for the Lib Dems to deny the link between national and local politics might be to make some progress against Tory-held councils. Can they do so? It seems unlikely. Among the single-tier councils controlled by the Conservatives where the Lib Dems are second, only Poole stands out as a viable possibility. Here the Lib Dems have 16 seats and the Tories 23. That perpetual Tory-Lib Dem battleground, Solihull, will be interesting to watch. Lib Dem MP Lorely Burt scraped home last year with a majority of just 175. The council currently stands at 23 Tories and 19 Lib Dems, making it a key barometer for sentiment about who’s doing best out of the coalition.
The real test for the Conservatives will come in councils where Labour, having endured years of successive disappointments, are finally bouncing back. Labour firmly expect to become the largest party in Birmingham, although a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is expected to hold firm. Places like Trafford, Brighton and Hove and Telford all offer decent prospects for the national opposition. The Tories will find it hardest to cling on in Bury and Wirral, where narrow advantages on the council have helped them cling on in a minority administration. Only a third of seats are up for election this year, though.
Finally, there are two intriguing three-way ties which will be fascinating to watch. On Derby council the Tories have been running a minority administration with 18 seats, despite the fact Labour have 17 and the Lib Dems 15. North East Lincolnshire is another close-run thing: here the Tories and the Lib Dems both have 15 seats, while Labour have ten.
It’s places like these, where local issues intermingle with national ones, that politics is at its most indicative of the national mood. The Lib Dems will hope to avoid the kind of local punishment which was handed out as a protest vote against the national Labour government for so many years. Given the public mood against spending cuts, this could be a tough night for Britain’s third party.
