Local elections could give Labour the spark it needs

April 23rd, 2011 Sienna Muriel Leave a comment Go to comments

Chris Game, honorary senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Local Government Studies, says the forthcoming local elections could see the continued recovery of the Labour Party after last years General Election disaster.

Local elections should be primarily about our choosing which councillors should represent us and which policies our councils should, or should not, pursue.

They should not be diminished by treating them, as Prime Ministers regularly do, as mock parliamentary elections or, this time, as our first chance to give an electoral verdict on the national coalition.

This year, though, is a bit different. First, there is the near-impossibility of unravelling who really is to blame for the local service cuts that dominate all election debate: the councils implementing them, the national government whose grant cuts necessitated them, previous governments economic mismanagement, or even the uncontrollable evils of global capitalism.

Second, there is the Alternative Vote referendum for all voters, including those with no local elections: in the West Midlands mainly those in the new unitary Shropshire, plus Nuneaton & Bedworth, who just like being different.

The referendum, concerned solely with parliamentary elections, means that this time we have to think national as well as local.

Third, while this articles focus on councils party control emphasises the elections local importance, all local elections throw up themes and patterns in their aggregated results, and this years key theme will surely be the scale of Labours local recovery and its chief victims: the Tories or Lib Dems.

All national governments do badly in local elections, but Labour took it to extremes. By 2009-10, well over a third of shire districts had no Labour councillors at all. Conservatives dominated most town halls, though many onetime Labour heartlands were run wholly or in partnership by the Lib Dems: Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Bristol, Wolverhampton.

Then last May something odd happened. Just as Labours national unpopularity plumbed such depths that it was voted out, it simultaneously started winning back seats and councils.

Five additional seats in Birmingham; six in Coventry and majority control regained; seven in Sandwell; two in Solihull and the Conservatives displaced by a Lib Dem/Labour administration; two in Nuneaton & Bedworth and Labour back in minority control.

Labours local recovery was already under way, and all parties expect it to accelerate, because this year almost all English local authorities have elections some electing a third of their councillors, others their whole council.

In both cases the actual seats being contested are those won and lost in 2007. It was a great year for the Conservatives, who gained more than 900 seats which they must now defend but awful for Labour.

The parties 2007 performances form one basis for this years predictions, together with a comparison of the respective opinion polls, which suggest a pro-Labour swing in voter support of around five per cent from the Conservatives since April 2007, and ten per cent from the Lib Dems.

METROPOLITAN BOROUGHS (one-third of council only)For councils electing by thirds, there are also last years results, which the Birmingham Posts Paul Dale incorporated in his recent overview of Birmingham prospects.

My reading of Pauls observations is that he expects Labour to take at least six Conservative and three Lib Dem seats, making them again comfortably the largest party, but still well short of the 61 needed for an overall majority.

* Having regained Coventry, Labour will be aiming to re-establish their former dominance. A repeat of 2010 would double their overall majority to 12, but 437 extra votes in the right marginal wards last year could have gained four more seats, and with that performance this year the majority would reach 20.

Coventry is not Liberal-friendly territory, but, as elsewhere, the Lib Dems are fielding noticeably fewer candidates: nine, compared to last years 17. Meanwhile, the Greens have 16, the BNP (British National Party) 13, and the fiercely anti-cuts Socialist Alternative a full slate of 18.

* Dudley last year was an exception, the Conservatives increasing their overall majority to 16 by taking Kingswinford North & Wall Heath from the Lib Dems. The latter have had a presence on the council for nearly 20 years, but a rerun of 2010 would end that, while also helping the Conservatives to maintain majority control, despite facing several tight contests with both Labour and the UK Independence Party.

* In Sandwell we see most clearly the decline of the BNP. In 2007, hoping to add to their existing four councillors, the party ran 15 candidates. Today they have no councillors and just two candidates. The Conservatives are better placed, but their diminishing group of currently 11 councillors have also had a torrid year.

They ousted their leader, who sat as an Independent before forming a rival Traditional Conservative Party. Their deputy leader, Elaine Costigan, defected to Labour, in protest at Government cuts to particularly the school building programme.

Then Bill Archer, her father and Sandwells longest-serving councillor, left the party, and in the ensuing by-election his Wednesbury North seat fell with a massive swing to Labour. Costigan, who represents the same ward, will fight it this time for Labour, who, whatever this result, will continue to run the borough.

* In Solihull, by contrast, every seat indeed, every vote is vital. The Lib Dems and their coalition with Labour survived by just nine votes in Januarys Olton by-election, but they too have suffered defections.

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