As the Guardian has reorted this morning:
Jonathan Carr-West, CEO of the Local Government Information Unit, said: “At present it looks like a better night for the Conservatives than many would have anticipated, while Labour results have not quite lived up to expectations. The Lib Dems made big strides in terms of numbers of councillors and swept away the Conservatives in Richmond, presumably benefiting from being the only major party opposed to Brexit in the borough that recorded one of the highest remain votes in the country.
“Overall though, we seem to be seeing an entrenchment of the status quo: a divided Britain in which big cities vote Labour and everywhere else votes Conservative,” said Carr-West.
Well said that man: I can't precis it better than that.
So what, then? That's the more important question. I stress, this is an initial reaction.
First, the Tories will be delighted. Given just how bad they are this is a good result for them.
Second, it follows what this was a bad night for Labour. It was. It was dire. If they can't make progress against a government this bad things are grim for them.
Third, anti-Semitism matters. Labour take note.
Fourth, to far too many the Windrush revelations don't matter. Shame on them.
Fifth, our democracy is in trouble. This is the biggest issue. The prospect in this is that no party can win in first part the post, and that this is unlikely to change. So, first part the post fails in its own terms then. The case for electoral reform is overwhelming.
Sixth, given that I cannot see us getting electoral reform expect a continuing big role for the Lords: the unelected will have to save us from ourselves.
Seventh, there will be weak government. We have it. We might want an alternative. We are not going to get it. We are going to get what we deserve, which is chaos.
Eighth, Brexit will be bad then because no one will have the time to really direct it, whatever happens.
Ninth, this is Britain in decline.
Tenth, expect a brain drain. Who will want to come here if we're in a mess?
Eleventh, so much for taking back control.
Twelfth, in this mess anything could happen. The most likely is the end of the Union.
Sure all that's an extrapolation. Caveat emptor. But it's logical.
Discuss.
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Fifth, our democracy is in trouble. This is the biggest issue.
100% correct.
I had 3 candidates to choose from Tory, UKIP or Labour.
So if I was inclind to vote for a centralist party where would I go? Disinfranchised much?
Extrapolating a national trend from these results is very spurious.
The only straw I’m clutching at is maybe we will get more backbencher cooporation like Mitchell and Hodge last week…
We need straws right now
Mind boggling! How bad do the Tories have to be before people stop voting for them?
Jim Green says:
“Mind boggling! How bad do the Tories have to be before people stop voting for them?”
The people who vote for them have been immensely well served since 2008. Why would they stop voting in their own interests.
The mystery is why the people who have been systematically screwed can’t be arsed to walk as far as a polling station every now and again.
Here you are asking the question that needs to be asked. What is it that holds back people from voting? In my town, it is disillusionment with a Labour council that appears not to grasp the idea that in the face of austerity, it has to be seen to be doing something. Other Labour authorities are following initiatives to great acclaim, for example Preston, and Nottingham, but here, nothing.
Local election results are always ambiguous because some people persist in voting on local issues rather than accept the media narrative that this is an opinion poll on a large scale.
Granted, voters do tend to punish sitting governments, particularly mid term when they aren’t suited, and on this reading Labour should have been making major gains which they have signally failed to realise.
Opinion polls of course will have done their usual dirty work. There’s nothing like a prediction of a big victory to bring out the opposition and lull the would be victors to not bother turning out. I really do think there should be a total ban on publishing opinion polls in the period prior to an election. Opinion polls are not neutral like a weather forecast; they contribute to making the weather. (If it didn’t influence the BofE wouldn’t give ‘forward guidance’. Same issue, for good or ill in that case.
What next for Labour? Further craven shuffling to the right, I expect, leading to annihilation in the next GE because why accept a substitute when you can have real Tories. With real Tories you know where you are and approximately how deep it is.
No PR, no democracy. We have a two party establishment stitch-up. Buggins’ turn reigns supreme.
The simple reason why the Tories are not less popular in areas beyond their natural core constituencies is because Labour under Corbyn is not offering a suitably attractive alternative to a sufficient number of voters. Labour is not trusted enough by ‘middle England’. Yes, a hostile media is a large contributory factor which isn’t going to change. So we’re probably stuck with a Tory agenda until the next major crisis on its watch.
Local elections are not General Elections and often there are strictly local issues which determine outcomes. However, I’d guess that, generally speaking, voters are more influenced by the national party profiles.
Everything you say strikes me as being a dismally fair assessment of the situation. England is a country in terminal decline; an increasingly divided, acrimonious society where neo-liberalism has taken its toll on a scale only matched by the USA. I’m as pessimistic as you about the foreseeable future.
If you have assets the tradition advice is to sell in May and go away.
I wouldn’t get far, so I’m ignoring that adage in favour of ‘Ne’er cast a clout ’til May is out’. Given that it’s baltic here again it seems sound advice.
“Labour under Corbyn is not offering a suitably attractive alternative” but the Tories are offering a suitably attractive alternative to UKIP it would appear.
Yes indeed, things are dire. Our only hope for the future at present seems to be Labour. So what can Labour do about it? It’s four years since the last local council elections and Labour have moved on very little since then. There just about where they were after the general election and no immediate sign of that breakthrough in the opinion polls. Momentum have got a considerable potential for helping the party but at present we are not really seeing that other than through the activism. Labour has much more significant problems about developing an image that can be projected in a way compatible with 21st-century voters and 21st-century media.
You can read more about it here: http://outsidethebubble.net/2018/05/04/a-truly-dreadful-night-for-labour/
I have yet to see the turnout figures – probably low & probably a reflection on many people believing that their vote does not count (in any electroal system it counts minimally) and secondly, even if they voted, local government has been emsculated to the point that is it the “wage slave” of central gov’ – it just follows orders.
The problem is elections… 1st past the post, proportional etc etc – makes not a ha’penny of difference because most people are politically uninvolved at any level of gov’ for a range of reasons. Furthermore, most citizens lack knowledge (needed to make any sort of informed choice) and the political system and media keep this going – because it suits both groups.
There is no quick fix/easy answer – however (stuck record commences) the book “Against Elections” (Van ReyBrouck) provides some pointers. Unless & until these are taken up, uniformed citizens will continues to elect “political paedophiles” – i.e. politicians that groom citizens aided & abetted by a media that is happy to help all it can with this grooming.
Elections, in the current situation, are part of the problem & always have been.
For those that have yet to read “Against Electtions” – I suggest you do so – it will open your eyes.
A good night for the Conservatives? Compared to what? And surprisingly they haven’t even picked up a majority of the collapsed UKip vote.
Like last time the Conservatives have done better compared to the story they fed to journalists before the poll. But did they actually make significant gains? Did they even pull back significant numbers of councilors they lost last time?
For the Conservatives this is a triumph of spin only. They have demonstrated again they know how to control the press. That’s all.
Other come on: you know they should have been slaughtered androgen weren’t
Stop being silly and deal with it rather than making excuses
One interpretation I’ve seen is that the Conservatives are able to stand still only because the collapsed UKIP vote has mainly transferred to the Conservatives.
In other words, the core Conservative vote (i.e. people who actually want to vote Conservative) is down, perhaps substantially. But, the Conservative vote looks like it has held up because they now have most of the former UKIP voters.
This is plausible, when you consider that there’s nowhere else for the UKIP vote to go. In several ways, the 2017 GE and 2016 referendum have been an attempted takeover of the Conservatives by UKIP. The process would reach its conclusion with Rees-Mogg as Conservative leader. But, there may not be much more electoral success forthcoming for the Conservatives in building popular support from this populist strategy. For example, they won’t get UKIP voters switching to them in the next GE — it’s already happened last year.
Anyway, it is possible to interpret the results as much worse for the Conservatives than the results appear at first glance.
This is, admittedly, thin gruel for Labour. About the best that could be said is that the Miliband era local support has held up under Corbyn.
After outperforming all expectations in 2014 it was always goinng to be difficult for labour to improve their local election performance but there were some bright points that the tory MSM media will overlook
Wandsworth
While Labour failed to take the council, Labour gained seven new councillors — a strong result
Trafford witnessed one of Labour’s biggest victories of the night, with the Tories losing control of Trafford council after 15 years — and Labour becoming the largest party.
westminster Although there were (perhaps over-ambitious) hopes for a Labour win, the party gained two seats
Kensington and Chelsea Labour failed to take Kensington and Chelsea, gaining only one seat.
Brent, Tories reduced to 3, Lib Dems wiped out
So there is hope it may not be th rampaging swings we saw at the general election but still there are positive signs
FYI – as of an hour or so ago:
Labour have had a net gain of 58 councilors on the 1,656 they held already.
The tories have lost 2 from 1,125.
This despite the complete collapse of the UKip vote.
Sorry, but I’m meant to call that a win?
Well, it is I suppose but its just not enough of a win to satisfy your expectations. Mine neither, I actually tend to agree with you but AdrianD still has a point, especially so with regard to the UKIP collapse being disguised as Tory resilience.
To the extent that ex-UKIP voters drifted back to the Tories, the Tories would be pleased about that as an end in itself (sort of). Labour’s Leave supporters have copped a bit of a slap with the stronger Lib Dem vote. Then again you’d be hard pressed to see any big revenge of the Remainers here as that trend was not big enough to be impressive either.
So what you have is an ambiguous result with a small numerical win for Labour which is not what any of us wanted. For Remainers, the UKIP collapse in and of itself is the main consolation.
All fair comment
It is Labour’s best result since 1971 – and the Conservative’s worst since the same year. As others have alluded to, measuring success on only the rate of change is often very misleading (the classic example of which has to be the SNP’s landslide win in the 2017 general election being classed as a ‘heavy defeat’, despite still having more Scottish MPs than the other parties put together – simply because it was coming from such an extraordinarily high base in the previous parliament where they had excluded all but one representative from each of the other parties. No-one of course is remembering that the 2104 local election results were considered so bad for the Tories that no less an organ of the deep state as The Telegraph called for Cameron’s resignation because of them.
dammit, 2014! Whilst it might feel like it, I’m really not suggesting that we’d have to wait another 86 years for a decent result…
I quietly feared that something like this might happen.
Council elections are different. The sort of unified campaign that brought out the youth vote in the GE is not appropriate or possible at the local level. Younger voters don’t much bother with Council elections. Not yet. I’m not sure how that could be changed. They are more motivated by big economic issues – precarious, insecure working conditions, housing etc.
A lot of council issues directly engage the interests of middle class property owners or older, more settled and established people. Getting the transient young involved in that is a whole separate challenge.
Some commenters came on to this website not long ago asserting the idea that council elections should be fought at the local level and not used as proxy for the national contest. In principle they must be right to some extent – but how much? Right now some of us may be inclined to disagree somewhat.
By the way did anyone else see this wonderful quote from UKIP:
..’its general secretary, Paul Oakley, compared UKIP to the Black Death and said the party “not all over at all”.
“Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. It comes along and it causes disruption and then it goes dormant, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Our time isn’t finished because Brexit is being betrayed.”‘
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43997872
And they probably wonder why they lost 121 seats.
“Discuss”? Forgive me, but candidly, I haven’t learned a great deal from this discussion.
I suspect that the politics of the contemporary British electorate are poorly understood; perhaps it is a little frightening to contemplate what confronts us. I am an unapologetic Remainer, but I have always believed that Britain’s membership of the EU was fundamentally insincere. The implicit political values underlying the insecurity, long suppressed, has finally ‘come out’ to express itself as freedom and liberation; it represents something frankly repugnant to many of us, but for me it is no surprise. It represents a political trait in our history, if you care to look carefully enough. I have dreaded the arrival of this day for a long time, and the glib British exceptionalism that goes with it.
The principal difference between ‘Remainer’ and ‘Brexiteer’ is not numbers (it may even be that Remain is now a majority; who knows?), or “democracy” (whatever people choose that to mean), but – I suspect – much more the outrage, the bullying, the political ruthlessness with which Brexiteers assert their determination to prevail; their indifference to the costs, whether moral or economic (and the scale of resources and support they can command; perhaps including ‘psyops’). Brexiteers are led by ideologues, and their convictions represent a faith that they cannot be wrong, whatever they do, or say, in order to win. Britain is now a very unattractive polity, but if you think Labour has the answer? I believe Labour is actually part of the problem.
John S Warren says:
” I believe Labour is actually part of the problem.”
I’m inclined to agree with that, John.
This is why I find it so irksome that the opportunity to introduce a PR voting system was thrown away a few years back.
There is so little chance of breaking into the two party system with FPTP with the result that we have two ‘broad church’ parties with huge overlap of political opinion.
Sure we would still have UKIP in all probability, which for me would be a downside, but preferable by far to having a Tory government which has had to accommodate it’s policy priorities. On the plus side (by my reckoning) we would have a much better established Green party by now. Neither UKIP nor Greens would plausibly be forming a government yet but they would be legitimately able to forcefully and coherently fight their corners for the people who share their views and preferences.
And we could vote for them. Instead we are repeatedly faced with the option to throw a vote away or use it to vote against whichever we don’t want of the only two shows in town.
We have become locked into a sclerotic system.
The Lib Dems are a waste of space, as far as I’m concerned, (though of course they have their supporters) because they have attempted to force a wedge into the centre which is already two deep in centrists from the main parties.
Instead of the prospect of coalition government which we are told we should dread, we are asked to choose between two parties, both of which are inherently coalitions.
It’s a shambles. I cannot imagine how it can change without a different voting system.
People not coming here is not a brain drain, a brain drain is people *going* *away*.
“Overall though, we seem to be seeing an entrenchment of the status quo: a divided Britain in which big cities vote Labour and everywhere else votes Conservative,” said Carr-West.”
So Labour needs to woo areas outside of the big cities. So how do they do that? The discrepancy between their vote share and the number of HoC seats (or councils) they control has become more than conspicuous. Blairism isn’t the answer. It was once a solution (?) to FPTP problems but it was on offer for the entire period between Brown and Corbyn and failed to succeed. It is (thankfully) passe and in any case it would sacrifice the new support emerging in the cities.
This question is one where we need to stop whingeing and come up with real ideas – new ones.
OK so, I will start by suggesting that Labour follow through on its acceptance of the Customs Union by crafting an agricultural policy that is too good for rural areas to resist. Technically, agriculture represents a small proportion of GDP and employment but the multiplier that flows from that into manufacturing and retail is big and it is psychologically central to regional identity in many places.
With Brexit an old system goes and the historic chance is there for a better one to replace it. There is a competing mix of considerations there for example see:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/20/frictionless-eu-trade-is-vital-post-brexit-for-uk-farming-to-survive
https://www.ft.com/content/e33d5f12-f462-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e
Politically, the opportunity here is to offer something helpful that Gove and the Tories with their burden of “free market” ideology will find hard to match. ‘Populism’ and good policy need not be at odds. Not always.
Flowing from the agricultural idea, a strong, good (and much needed) competition policy that openly favours small business (good competition policy usually does) is essential and arguably even more important. There is real conflict between the big corporate oligipolies (especially retail oligopolies) and small business even if it is understated in the UK media. The big UK retailers and wholesalers have effectively become a monopsony or oligopsony (if you don’t know, look it up) that crushes their less powerful suppliers. They also squeeze smaller competitors in the market place through abuse of market power. To that end there is an entire constituency that is unrepresented and begging for help.
Politically, This is not just about the small business-people, it is about their dependents and the regional areas that identify more closely with small business.
Moreover, this idea is really important for 4 reasons:
It is right and fair in principle.
It is pro-democratic (loosening the concentration of market power) and pro-consumer as well as being pro-small business.
It is essential to the effectivenes of Keynesian/MMT stimulus policy. In the absence of strong competition policy, economic stimulus (rising demand) will be largely captured in the form of price increases by rent-seekers with monopoly power.
It will open up a whole new constituency of both new and existing voters and broaden the party’s appeal – while the Tories being more captive to vested interests will find this hard to match (in the short term at least).
If these ideas alone were adopted, astutely pitched to the relevant constituents, ironed out and polished up over the next 2 years they would not only address important issues, they could re-shape the party’s restricted identity and position it well for the long-term. They might also be enough to turn a majority of votes into a majority of seats.
Well that’s that’s one idea (or two really) my next one was going to be about a progressive alliance. perhaps someone else can pick that up.
I have to say that works for me…
Are you happy for me to make this a blog post?
Yes, quite happy.
Thanks
Picking up on a couple of your points: re #5, I certainly agree (strongly!) that first past the post is at the heart of our current malaise, but I strongly differ in your interpretation of where the problem lies: Almost invariably, the UK administrations with the biggest majority have been amongst the worse. ‘Strong government’ a la FPTP is usually a really bad result in the long run. By contrast, the sort of policies that get through in coalitions (at least, ones of reasonably equal partners, and ideally far opposed on the political spectrum – thus discounting the Lib-Tory one of 2010, though subsequent events show that even that acted as a significant element of moderation for the Tories) tend to be genuinely ones that can attract majority support across the board.
Ian Gibson says:
” Almost invariably, the UK administrations with the biggest majority have been amongst the worse. ”
I agree with that point. A landslide government can do almost anything it likes, so legislation gets drafted sloppily and a weak opposition can not hope to have much impact arguing the case.
We then rely on the Lords to throw it back downstairs.
Re #3, I would argue that this election more than any has showed that in fact racism ad bigotry, of themselves, DON’T matter: only how they are treated (and, specifically, reported) does. There haven’t (as far as I’m aware) been any anti-semitic incidents by Labour Party officials or candidates during the campaign: there have been several by Conservatives, with 18 candidates suspended for offences including racism including some anti-semitic ones. The full list of Conservatives officials who have been suspended for crimes and bigotry is startlingly long – I reckon it would take me 10 minutes to read it out loud (and again, I emphasise that, unlike Labour, this is not just supposed supporters on social media: this is candidates, party officials and sitting councillors.) We now even have the prospect of one council being taken by a single seat by the Conservatives by dint of reinstating a councillor (in fact, the sitting mayor) who had been suspended for re-tweeting this ‘joke’ (and apologies for the offence, but I think it necessary to show how immune it’s possible to be on this): “I took my dog to the dole office to see what he was entitled to. The bloke behind the counter said “You idiot, we don’t give benefits to dogs”
I argued “Why not?” He’s brown, he stinks, he’s never worked a day in his life, and he can’t speak a f*cking word of English.
The man replied “the first payment will be Monday”
That, by any measure of a free and fair press, should have been a headline story.
The row about anti-semitism in the Labour Party is characterised by its anecdotal nature: he-said-she-said… What evidence there is (polling by YouGov on behalf of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, research by the Pew Centre and Institute of Jewish Policy Research) has shown that anti-Semitism is in fact considerably less common than hate against other groups (most notably Islam), that it’s less prevalent amongst members of the Labour Party than amongst the population at large (conversely, it’s MORE prevalent amongst members of the Conservative Party) and that it has reduced considerably since JC became labour leader.
Baroness Warsi (ex minister and chair of the Conservative party) reports that there are now weekly episodes of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. Media blackout. The Muslim Council of Britain calls for “inquiry into Islamophobia within the Conservative party” Media blackout
The fact that Labour did as well as they did in the face of this is truly remarkable.
Discuss….not really, as I agree with all of it, unfortunately.
The only way out in the medium term, if not manageable in the short term, is to change the electoral system.
FOTP is an aberration, it must change.
If people had the opportunity to express their real preferences (including for small parties) in a first round of elections, then deals could be made before a second round to ensure policies would be included in the major two parties left to fight the second round.
I’m describing the French election system here, which is not ideal either (is there such a thing?) but seems much fairer than what we have here.
In the second round, people can get disenfranchised if their own prefered candidate is not represented, but if decent deals are made, some policies are adopted which can at least be implemented.
This seems more democratic to me, even though at times, you may end up in a scary situation, with a second round including a nasty party…at least if the worst happened and it ended up elected, a proper uprising would take place, clearing the air… or it would be shown to be so disastrous that it would disappear forever…I’m not convinced of that, just hoping.
Politics is a messy business, but what choice do we have but to try and mess around with it in order to improve it.
First past the post- fptp, not Fo…whatever the autocorrect thinks this is.
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