freshwater Local election May 2017 results

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1 freshwater May 2017 Local election results

2 Introduction While the results of local elections do not directly transfer to the same results in a general election, the fact that the campaigns for next month s election are already in full swing, means that there is a certain amount we can take from last week s results. Politicians of both sides have attempted to play down the scale of their success in last Thursday s elections, but the more one looks at the results, the more significant their implications for the general election are. The Conservatives can celebrate striking victories in regions which would previously have never considered voting blue. The Tees Valley mayoral race would usually seem to be as much of a guaranteed win for Labour as Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester. But in these unpredictable times, it seems there is no such thing as a safe seat for the party. The Tories success can in part be put down to the collapse of the Ukip vote the party won just one seat, and lost all of the 145 it was defending with many of their voters choosing to now back the Conservatives. While Ukip has always struggled to gain seats in parliament, its 13% share of the national vote in 2015 is a significant slice of the electoral pie. At the last general election, Ukip came second in 120 constituencies in 2015, so there is a considerable reward for the Conservatives if this trend plays out in June. But Labour will also be underwhelmed with their results last week, despite resounding wins in Liverpool and Manchester s mayoral elections. In the past, the official opposition would be expected to be making serious progress in local elections - in the last equivalent round of local elections in 2013, Labour, under the much-derided Ed Miliband, managed to secure an increase in the number of Labour-controlled councils and Labour councillors. This time around however, Labour maintained control of only two councils and lost out on the Tees Valley and West Midlands mayors - both traditionally safe Labour regions. The Liberal Democrats appear to have had a mixed set of results. The party increased its vote share by 4%, 2% more than predicted in the polls, but lost seats overall. The party had been hoping for a boost in the south west, in particular. 2

3 Mayoral results Cambridgeshire and Jane Brophy (LIB), 6.1% Greater Manchester Other, 7.8% Sean Anstee (CON), 22.7% Andy Burnham (LAB), 63.4% 3

4 Chris Foote Wood (LIB), 12.3% Tees Valley Other, 9.3% Ben Houchen (CON), 39.5% Sue Jeffrey (LAB), 39.0% West of England Other, 30.3% Tim Bowles (CON), 27.3% Stephen Williams (LIB), 20.2% Lesley Mansell (LAB), 22.2% 4

5 Mayors were elected in six freshly minted authorities last week, paving the way for a small (average turnout was just 26%) but certain step in the devolution agenda pursued by successive governments. Former Labour MPs Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram were elected for Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region respectively. Neither candidate required second preference votes to be counted: Rotherham received 171,167 votes (59%), and Burnham 359,352 (63%). Burnham s result in particular bodes well for Labour who received 46% of the vote in the region in the 2015 general election. The Conservatives won four of the six mayoralties. In Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, Conservative James Palmer secured a comfortable 21,621 majority over the Lib Dems (15% more). In the Tees Valley election, Conservative Ben Houchen caused a huge shock by narrowly defeating Labour s Sue Jeffrey by less than half a percentage point. Time will tell whether Houchen follows through on his left-field campaign pledge to investigate opportunities to nationalise Durham Tees Valley airport. The West Midlands was even closer, with Andy Street actually winning fewer votes in the second round than Labour s Siôn Simon - 24,603 to Street s 22,348. The Conservatives won the mayoralty however on voters second preferences, with a majority of 3,766. Street hailed his victory as the rebirth of a new urban Conservative agenda. The Conservative s most unexpected coup was in the West of England, where the Liberal Democrats had chosen ex Bristol West MP, Stephen Williams. Although traditionally a Lib Dem area, Williams finished in third place, leaving Labour and Conservative to go through to the second round. Conservative Tim Bowles, previously a South Gloucestershire councillor, defeated Labour s Lesley Mansell by 4,377 votes, despite the 5,792 more votes cast for her in the second round of voting. 5

6 Local elections Councils controlled (+/-) UKIP, 0 Green, 0 SNP, -1 Lib Dem, 0 Labour, -7 Plaid Cymru, 0 Conservative, Seats (+/-) UKIP, -145 Green, 6 SNP, -7 Lib Dem, -42 Plaid Cymru, 33 Labour, -382 Conservative, The most important stories of the local council elections are the demise of Ukip - every single councillor facing re-election was defeated - and the lack of resurgence of the Lib Dems, who lost 42 seats overall. In Scotland, Labour continues to haemorrhage ground. It lost 112 councillors and overall control of Glasgow City Council - for the first time since Conservative gains in Scotland make it the second biggest party, after the SNP. 6

7 Conclusion For very different reasons, both Conservatives and Labour have attempted to give the same message since Friday s results too much should not be read into the results and there is still a long way to go before the general election. For the Conservatives, complacency ahead of the general election is their enemy. There will be a much higher turnout and hyper-local dynamics will be less of a factor. Theresa May doesn t just want to win, she wants to win with a landslide and neuter Labour as a serious opposition force in Westminster. Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, is working desperately hard to convince the national electorate that he can be a prime minister and that Labour is a legitimate party of government. He must learn what he can from the local results and seek to put that understanding into practice with immediate effect if he is to see decent general election results. While the local and mayoral election results are highly significant, it is worth remembering that there were large areas of the country which didn t vote. Cities like Manchester, Liverpool and London have large populations and are traditionally Labour, but did not hold council elections, so there is latent Labour vote which will be represented at the general election. However, pollsters are united in their belief that the Conservative party will win an increased majority in the general election. Analysis by the BBC and Sky s psephologist of choice, Michael Thrasher, suggests that Theresa May could achieve a 45 seat majority if the local election results were repeated across the UK. Electoral Calculus, based on a number of recent polls and last week s local results, puts the Conservatives on 419 seats, 261 seats ahead of Labour. If the last few years have taught us anything, it is to be wary of polls and expect the unexpected. Even so it is difficult to see the kind of change of fortunes required for Labour to seize victory from the large, gaping jaws of defeat. 7

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