Local elections

[lpm]

There seems to be a few Residents/Nimby seats reverting to Conservative.

[Grumble]

Overly simple maths (230 councils/84 declared x 224 current Tory losses =) gives 613 Tory losses

Same sum after 101 councils declared gives 608 losses. I won’t keep updating this, don’t worry. But we’re nearly halfway now so I think the sample should be large enough, includes quite a few Tory councils as well.

[Grumble]

Why have West Devon got 2 Vacant? V strange.

[bagpuss]

Why have West Devon got 2 Vacant? V strange.

A candidate just died in one ward so if that ward elects 2 councillors, that would explain it.

ETA: so the election there is postponed

[Grumble]

Slough, Lab -17 Con +16
Seems somewhat contrary to the national picture. I assume local Labour Party have been caught up in some sort of scandal?

[lpm]

Are local candidates allowed to pay for Facebook posts?

The Tory here has packed the feed with several posts a day. They say "Sponsored - paid for by X". I assume I see them because the only thing I follow on Facebook is the local group.

I thought there was a spending limit of a few hundred quid for a couple of leaflets. No idea how much Facebook costs though.

It looks like it's not a simple number as it depends on things like the number of electors and also whether you are a joint candidate with someone else, but it's going to be more in the high hundreds, possibly over 1k.

The cost of Facebook ads is even harder to work out but apparently 2023 average is around $12 per 1000 impressions. So you can probably get a pretty hefty number of impressions and still have plenty left for other stuff.

Thanks, I did the maths, and the candidate could spend £811.

Which makes me wonder why more candidates don't use Facebook in this way. She definitely made you feel like she was a neighbour, getting across her personality with a photo of her daughter posting leaflets and a video of her dog staring at a local pothole. And she linked to longer blogs where she gave her views on litter and Nimbys and parking.

Unfortunately she might have got across her personality too well, because her personality is obnoxious Tory.

We now have the results of this Facebook blitz.

This ward has 2 votes to elect 2 councillors, so there were two Tories standing and we can compare directly. There were no incumbents.

LibDem: 24% (elected)
Anonymous Tory: 23% (elected)
Facebook Tory: 20%
LibDem: 19%
Green: 9%
Labour: 3%
Labour: 3%

So becoming better known appears to have hurt this smug Tory. In terms of vote the two Tories got 1,448 combined vs the two LibDems 1,431.

[bagpuss]

Blimey, Stratford has gone Lib Dem. That's a shock, even given the way things have been going. Having Nadhim Zahawi as the local MP may not have helped the Tories' cause there.

Slough, Lab -17 Con +16
Seems somewhat contrary to the national picture. I assume local Labour Party have been caught up in some sort of scandal?

Must be, surely, that's so against the trend.

[Aitch]

Blimey, Stratford has gone Lib Dem. That's a shock, even given the way things have been going. Having Nadhim Zahawi as the local MP may not have helped the Tories' cause there.

Slough, Lab -17 Con +16
Seems somewhat contrary to the national picture. I assume local Labour Party have been caught up in some sort of scandal?

Must be, surely, that's so against the trend.

According to the Beeb site, "Labour has lost its first council, after Slough in Berkshire switched to no overall control.

The Conservatives made a huge gain of 16 seats, with Labour losing 18 and the Liberal Democrats gaining three.

There are some local issues at play here - the council was effectively declared bankrupt in 2021, with government-appointed commissioners brought in after an independent review raised concerns about financial mismanagement and a "dysfunctional culture".

However, Labour previously had a big majority so the Tories have done well to become the largest party with 21 councillors - just one short of a majority."

[lpm]

Round our way (blue wall where LibDems are optimistic to win an MP) the Conservatives are gaining.

We mustn't forget that 2019 was a terrible result for the Conservatives. Particularly in Remainy blue wall lands down south. Doing worse than 2019 nationally is a spectacular failure for Sunak & Co, but in some places it's hard to do worse.

[Grumble]

East Hertfordshire lolz

[IvanV]

East Hertfordshire lolz

That's very funny, losing control of a council where they had 80% of the seats until yesterday. The largest party is now the Greens. You have to wonder whether that was a protest vote, because I don't really see Bishops Stortford as likely to be one of the most tolerant locations for greenery in general. Though maybe having Stansted Airport on your doorstep makes a difference to local perceptions of these things.

[jimbob]

East Hertfordshire lolz

That's very funny, losing control of a council where they had 80% of the seats until yesterday. The largest party is now the Greens. You have to wonder whether that was a protest vote, because I don't really see Bishops Stortford as likely to be one of the most tolerant locations for greenery in general. Though maybe having Stansted Airport on your doorstep makes a difference to local perceptions of these things.

I'm quite interested in where my dad lived, in Tonbridge and Malling, as this time I only saw Green Party posters. Previous times it was mostly Conservatives.

My constituency, High Peak has gone back to Labour - it seems a pretty good bellwether constituency, having turned Labour in 1997, Tory in 2010, Labour in 2017, Tory in 2019.

[FlammableFlower]

Well, as of now, they're down 674 seats. But, as has been noted, they deliberately went low and claimed a loss of 1,000 as a bad result...

[Brightonian]

Greens had been the largest party in Brighton and Hove, but it looks like they're losing to Labour. Not obvious why.

In Hanover & Elm Grove ward, which was my ward when I was living there, and had been Green for yonks, Labour have gained the three seats from the Greens.

[Gfamily]

Greens had been the largest party in Brighton and Hove, but it looks like they're losing to Labour. Not obvious why.

I saw a report that the tactical voting website set up for these local elections was promoting 'vote Labour' in a number of areas, even where the Greens were the more obvious party to ensure the Conservatives lost. It might even have been in Brighton

[lpm]

Well, as of now, they're down 674 seats. But, as has been noted, they deliberately went low and claimed a loss of 1,000 as a bad result...

Down 807 per BBC, with another -100 or so to go.

[monkey]

This has obviously been a good day for Labour and the other notTories. But is it because Labour have done well, or just because the Tories have done badly?

I could be wrong because of the various bubbles I'm in, but I'm not seeing much evidence of enthusiasm for Labour, just anti-Conservative sentiment. I'm not sure that's enough for Labour to get a decent Majority next year.

[dyqik]

This has obviously been a good day for Labour and the other notTories. But is it because Labour have done well, or just because the Tories have done badly?

I could be wrong because of the various bubbles I'm in, but I'm not seeing much evidence of enthusiasm for Labour, just anti-Conservative sentiment. I'm not sure that's enough for Labour to get a decent Majority next year.

I'm a little concerned that in the South most of the shift in votes is going to Labour, where there aren't many parliamentary constituencies that Labour can win.

I just have memories of 1997, when Eastbourne went Tory, because of a swing to Labour from both Tory and Lib Dem.

[Grumble]

This has obviously been a good day for Labour and the other notTories. But is it because Labour have done well, or just because the Tories have done badly?

I could be wrong because of the various bubbles I'm in, but I'm not seeing much evidence of enthusiasm for Labour, just anti-Conservative sentiment. I'm not sure that's enough for Labour to get a decent Majority next year.

It was good enough for Biden. Also a lot of the Tory vote last time was anti-Jeremy Corbyn so it cuts both ways.

[jimbob]

East Hertfordshire lolz

That's very funny, losing control of a council where they had 80% of the seats until yesterday. The largest party is now the Greens. You have to wonder whether that was a protest vote, because I don't really see Bishops Stortford as likely to be one of the most tolerant locations for greenery in general. Though maybe having Stansted Airport on your doorstep makes a difference to local perceptions of these things.

I'm quite interested in where my dad lived, in Tonbridge and Malling, as this time I only saw Green Party posters. Previous times it was mostly Conservatives.

My constituency, High Peak has gone back to Labour - it seems a pretty good bellwether constituency, having turned Labour in 1997, Tory in 2010, Labour in 2017, Tory in 2019.

Tonbridge and Malling - Con to NOC.

8 Green, 20 Tory

[Grumble]

You love to see it

Local election results screenshot showing -800 conservative

IMG_0192.jpeg (188.13 KiB) Viewed 1376 times

[Formerly AvP]

Just gone over 1000 tory losses on BBC news site. In my voting area, the Tory was a Pratt, but perhaps that should be in nominative determinism

[Grumble]

Just gone over 1000 tory losses on BBC news site. In my voting area, the Tory was a Pratt, but perhaps that should be in nominative determinism

Is that a prediction or are they looking at declared councillors where the whole council isn’t done yet?

[EACLucifer]

Just gone over 1000 tory losses on BBC news site. In my voting area, the Tory was a Pratt, but perhaps that should be in nominative determinism

Is that a prediction or are they looking at declared councillors where the whole council isn’t done yet?

It's an actual result, but there's still some results not counted and that number might increase or decrease still.

[lpm]

Round our way (blue wall where LibDems are optimistic to win an MP) the Conservatives are gaining.

We mustn't forget that 2019 was a terrible result for the Conservatives. Particularly in Remainy blue wall lands down south. Doing worse than 2019 nationally is a spectacular failure for Sunak & Co, but in some places it's hard to do worse.

Wasn't as bad as I feared, the Cons took from the "Residents" group, but lost to LibDems elsewhere. I can't stand these Nimby residents groups, their whole purpose is to stop new housing but they disguise it with a pretence they'll support brownfield development "where appropriate". They are basically Conservative voters at heart and will vote Tory in the General Election.

The shift from 2015 tells more of the story than the shift from 2019:

Results 2015 - 2019 - 2023

CONS: 35 - 9 - 10
LIBDEM: 9 - 17 - 25
NIMBY: 3 - 19 - 10
LAB: 1 - 2 - 3
GREEN: 0 - 1 - 0