The Conservative party should be worried by the effectiveness with which the other parties targeted their seats, write psephologists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher.
Our statement in March, that the Conservatives might conceivably suffer a loss of over a thousand seats given our reading of council by-elections alongside national polling, quickly became the focus of the campaign narrative.
More so when the Conservatives themselves gave it the oxygen of publicity. We assume this was done in their strong belief that actual losses would be much lower and ‘disaster’ would be avoided, with the so-called experts wrong again.
A quarter of the 230 councils counted overnight and it was not long before a pattern emerged.
The Conservatives were losing a third of their seats, a rate that if repeated among the councils counting during Friday would see them pass the critical thousand mark.
Labour was making gains, but so too were the Liberal Democrats and Greens.
Again, extrapolating from the early results it was apparent that while Labour would take the honours, making the most gains and destined to overtake the Conservatives as largest party of local government, the combined seat gains for Lib Dems and Greens would be larger.
Among the first declarations were three Conservative authorities, Harlow DC, Brentwood BC and Tamworth BC. Labour missed a difficult target in the first but the remaining two fell to no overall control. Later, Labour unsurprisingly gained Plymouth City Council, taking advantage of a 12-point collapse in the Conservative share.
Another city-based unitary, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, moved into the Labour column a short while later. This was a different story with a collapse in vote for Independents the principal explanation. A similar situation would later emerge as Labour gained control in Middlesbrough.
Labour featured Medway Council prominently during its campaign. The inaugural elections for the new authority were fought in 1997, simultaneously with Tony Blair’s landslide general election win. While Labour won the local vote that year it fell two seats short of an overall majority. The Conservatives had held the council for 20 years. By any measure an ambitious Labour target, but its performance in the previous two elections gave cause for optimism. New boundaries meant estimating seat distributions for the previous election. On that basis Labour improved by 11 seats with the Conservatives losing 13.
With almost all the overnight counting finished the Lib Dems took back control of Windsor & Maidenhead RBC after losing it to the Conservatives in 2007. A swing of 15 percentage points here was a clear demonstration of the party’s successful targeting strategy. Conservative councillors now number just seven, fewer than half its previous low point.
This and other notable victories throughout Friday meant Labour could not entirely control the post-election narrative. The Conservative party was forced to acknowledge this as one of its worst local election performances.
Labour would gain other councils directly from the Conservatives. Medway would be joined by Dover DC, a council it had won only once before, in 1995. There was an 11-point rise in vote as Labour successfully squeezed its competitors. Both Bracknell Forest Council and Swindon BC saw some spectacular changes of fortune. The former saw new boundary voting produce 27 Conservative losses, the majority of gains going to Labour.
Another Labour success – Swindon, where the party launched its local election campaign – was a further sign that its strategy was sharply focused. Labour lost control here at the beginning of the century and since then the area had largely elected Conservative administrations and MPs. This was a further marker that Labour wanted to be seen as following the trail blazed by New Labour in the mid-1990s. Some of the wards Labour required had healthy Conservative majorities but a 10-point swing proved sufficient.
Three remaining gains were all in the Midlands. Erewash BC, another council with Conservative administrations for the past 20 years, saw Labour win nine seats. Eleven gains gave the party East Staffordshire BC.
The path to victory in Amber Valley BC was rather more convoluted. Labour claimed control from the Conservatives in 2019 only to lose it two years later. In last year’s election, despite winning a larger vote share, it lost seats and was reduced to less than half its complement of councillors. This time, however, it was the Conservatives’ turn to collapse. The party was reduced to just eight seats, with Labour making 15 gains and the Greens a further three.
The Lib Dems added to their overnight score with the addition of five more council gains from the Conservatives. In the space of an hour Stratford-on-Avon DC, Dacorum BC and South Hams DC were all won with the party registering 15 gains in the former and nine each for the others. It is the first time the party has had majority control in any of these councils.
Later results brought more success. West Berkshire Council fell back into Lib Dem hands after a 21 year absence with 13 gains. For Horsham DC the wait was even longer, 25 years, with the Conservatives losing 21 seats to a combination of the Lib Dems and the Greens, who won six seats.
This was the best local election performance by the Greens, making a net gain of more than 200 seats. Before polling day Mid Suffolk DC was being mentioned as a possible Green win but few would forecast its scale. The Greens doubled their seats and now enjoy a 14-seat majority. Suffolk generally moved in their direction, with the party making 12 gains in East Suffolk Council and a further six in Babergh DC. Nationally, the party now holds 10 or more seats on 20 councils.
It was not all good, however. Brighton & Hove City Council reverted to Labour control following an 18-seat gain which included defeating the Greens’ council leader and deputy leader.
Although Independents and the smaller parties lost ground in general, there are some important exceptions. In Boston BC, a combination of Boston Independents and others made inroads into the Conservatives, who lost 12 seats. Castle Point BC, another Independent bastion, was strengthened further with seven gains from the Conservatives. Tandridge DC now has Independents and the Oxted & Limpsfield Residents Group occupying more than half the seats. The Ashfield Independents advanced, leaving the two main parties with just three seats between them on the Nottinghamshire district. But pressure from Lib Dems in Elmbridge BC saw two losses there while in Uttlesford DC the Conservatives made gains from both the Independents and Lib Dems.
As local authority-wide results were reported a number caught the eye. Slough BC, which has issued a section 114 notice, was using new ward boundaries to elect the whole council. The incumbent Labour administration lost 18 seats and council control with the Conservatives the principal beneficiaries. Torbay Council brought some welcome news for the Conservatives after they gained the four seats required to gain an overall majority. A second gain followed shortly afterwards when Wyre Forest DC revealed the Conservatives had made the gains to retake a council lost five years before.
Our analysis of six million votes cast in almost 3,000 wards reveals interesting regional variations. Comparing voting with 2019 shows the Conservative vote fell furthest in southern England and the north-west but there was a small increase in the north-east. Some of the swing to Labour came at Conservative expense but much of it stemmed from voters deserting Independents of various types, particularly in the West Midlands and Yorkshire & The Humber.
The Lib Dem figures are probably the most interesting. A modest overall increase of one percentage point in vote produced a significant increase in seats and councils. Such effective targeting will be a principal concern for the Conservatives.
