This year’s local elections saw the Liberal Democrats winning more council seats than the Conservatives for the first time since 1996 when I oversaw the party’s election campaigns. The results that year presaged an overwhelming defeat for the Conservatives in the 1997 General Election, helped by 28 Lib Dem gains.
Much attention has focused on Lib Dem successes in places like Woking and Tunbridge Wells. But North West constituencies such as Cheadle and Hazel Grove in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport also saw very comfortable wins for the Lib Dems. There were major advances for my party in places like Preston where five gains will put Nigel Evans under more pressure in Ribble Valley than at any time since I helped the Lib Dems’ spectacular by-election victory there in 1991.
The pattern in elections before the Conservative defeat in 1997 and the elections this year is remarkably similar. Overall, the Lib Dem vote share was up 6% in the wards where we started in second place to the Conservatives. People whose overwhelming desire is to oust the Conservatives will vote for the Lib Dems where we have been campaigning hard with local communities.
Too much noise for Reform
It was also clear from the results that the BBC has given far more profile to Richard Tice and the Reform UK party than their electoral strength deserves. Before 2016, we saw the BBC lend undeserved credence to the evidently bogus arguments of Nigel Farage prior to the EU referendum. Reform won just two seats in the local elections compared to 522 for the Lib Dems and 515 for the Conservatives.
The only consolation for those of us angry with the BBC’s promotion of Reform, is that their 12% of the vote in the local elections in wards where they stood is a sign that they will split the right-wing vote with Rishi Sunak’s increasingly beleaguered party.
Competition on the Left
On the other hand, the 12% vote for the Greens in wards where they stood indicates a direct threat to Labour and the Lib Dems making gains from the Conservatives. I never liked tactical voting, but have often argued for it because our electoral system forces people to vote against what they dislike the most.
There was clearly a plot by many Conservative MPs to ditch Rishi Sunak after the local elections. Press reports suggested that the plotters gave up and retired to the pub when Tory Ben Houchen retained his position as Mayor of Tees Valley. A clever Conservative spin operation on Social media was suggesting that their party was safe in the West Midlands Mayoral election and that the result in London could be close.
Time for a General Election
The plotters went to the pub too soon. The Conservatives’ Andy Street lost the West Midlands mayoral election, Labour’s Sadiq Khan increased his majority in London, and the Lib Dems pushed the Conservatives into third place in terms of councillors newly elected. The Conservatives may have succeeded in keeping Rishi Sunak in office. But all the evidence seems to suggest that the spin operations and plotting will not help them when they dare to call a general election.
Analysis by John Curtice of BBC Sample of Key Wards
