2 May 2024 : LAB 44% / CON 26% / LDM 10% / REF 10%

[crossbat11]

May 3, 2024 21:07:55 GMT graham said:

May 3, 2024 21:04:15 GMT alec said:

Poor old graham .

He's like the party spokesman given the short straw of doing the media rounds in the 'Second Place in a By Election' sketch on the 1980s sketch show Not the None O'Clock News.

Give it up mate. Labour triumphed, Tories got stuffed. The next election is done and dusted.

There is no other interpretation available.

I have not suggested otherwise - and voted Labour myself yesterday for the PCC! Believe it or not - I am capable of being perfectly objective psephologically and have never belonged to the School of Wishful Thinking. I speak as I find it - Others are free to disagree. I am always happy to bow down before the greater psephological insight of other commentators - but never inclined to accept things at face value.

So you voted for the party of liars, pledge-breakers, Arbeit Macht Frei peddlers, genocide apologists and war criminals.

Shame on you.

[RAF]

May 3, 2024 21:28:58 GMT pjw1961 said:

Interesting that RefUK are being talked up in the media - presumably off the back of the Blackpool South result. However, their local election performance was pathetic. To date with 102 councils reported they have won two councillors. Galloway's Worker's Party has won twice as many. RefUK clearly have little organisation or capacity to campaign at local level. They seem like simply a creation of the national media's obsession with Farage.

With Farage and with the Tories. These results show that they are pretty much cannibalising the Tory vote.

[johntel]

Major land grabs by the the Lib Dems in the south of England, typified by gaining control of Dorset  .  

[steve]

LAB
1,026
+173
Labour 1,026 councillors 173 councillors gained
LD
505
+101
Liberal Democrat 505 councillors 101 councillors gained
CON
479
-448
Conservative 479 councillors 448 councillors lost
IND
224
+92
Independents 224 councillors 92 councillors gained
GRN
159
+65
Green 159 councillors 65 councillors gained
RA
48
+11

Excluding the independent and rpa candidates best of luck to them, this has been a very promising night for both lib dems and greens

The fact that refuk managed a grand total of 2 is also encouraging.

[steve]

505 councillors.

Vote lib dem get lib dem.

What Paul said.

[mercian]

The West Midlands mayor result won't be out until Saturday afternoon. Someone posted a poll showing Akhmed Yakoob (Independent, big on Gaza, supposedly endorsed by Galloway) on only 3%. My feeling was that he was running a strong campaign, as we got a leaflet and the area is not predominately Muslim (yet). I think crossbat11 noticed posters of the chap when he visited Lye. There are hints that Labour think that Street will win because of Yakoob's intervention.

It will be very interesting to see the result and how Yakoob does. As this site is about polling I wonder what the implications are for pollsters if he gets say 10%? I know it was a one-off poll but if that 10%ish were to happen, does it suggest that polling companies might be under-sampling Muslims and also perhaps other ethnic or religious minorities?

[crossbat11]

steve

jib hasn't quite computed the Cheltenham result. In that fine town, if you vote Lib Dem you get no Tories at all. Literally.

[steve]

crossbat11
And if you vote lib dem in Dorset you give them the boot!



Lib Dems win Dorset Council from Conservatives
The Liberal Democrats have won a majority in Dorset Council, taking over control from the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems gained 13 seats, meaning the party now holds 42 seats in the council, while the Conservatives lost 13 seats, dropping to 30.

[pjw1961]

May 3, 2024 21:40:28 GMT RAF said:

May 3, 2024 21:28:58 GMT pjw1961 said:

Interesting that RefUK are being talked up in the media - presumably off the back of the Blackpool South result. However, their local election performance was pathetic. To date with 102 councils reported they have won two councillors. Galloway's Worker's Party has won twice as many. RefUK clearly have little organisation or capacity to campaign at local level. They seem like simply a creation of the national media's obsession with Farage.

With Farage and with the Tories. These results show that they are pretty much cannibalising the Tory vote.

One of the understated joys of a Labour government is that for 5 years you can ignore the ongoing Tory psychodrama. It rumbles on in obscurity but no longer has much salience. Last time it got replaced by Blair v Brown (and their eager acolytes). I can do without a replay of that type of thing. 

[steve]

Not disgusted

Lib Dems gain Tunbridge Wells council in Kent
Another result's come in - this time in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where the Liberal Democrats have won an overall majority.

The party gained eight seats, bringing their total to 22, two more than needed to claim a victory on this borough council.

The Conservatives come in second with seven seats, losing three, and Labour are third with five - having lost a seat.

[mercian]

May 3, 2024 21:28:58 GMT pjw1961 said:

Interesting that RefUK are being talked up in the media - presumably off the back of the Blackpool South result. However, their local election performance was pathetic. To date with 102 councils reported they have won two councillors. Galloway's Worker's Party has won twice as many. RefUK clearly have little organisation or capacity to campaign at local level. They seem like simply a creation of the national media's obsession with Farage.

Yes, UKIP built up over about 20 years to their peak around 2010-2015. They did have a national organisation, and local branches. I remember we got over 70 turn up for one meeting. 

Reform on the other hand, though attracting some ex-UKIP people seem to have no such organisation. They are much more centrally directed. Farage famously hated the UKIP governing committee (I can't remember what it was called). There is no local branch of Reform near here that I'm aware of or indeed if any exist at all. Having achieved Brexit, most UKIP voters went back to previous allegiances (including WNV), though a rump still exists I believe.

I do sometimes wonder if Reform is just a vehicle to get Farage and Tice into prominent positions in the Tory party. i.e. If Reform get close to Tories in VI (which they now are), and appear to be taking more votes from Tories than others will he do a deal in exchange for a safe seat (if there is one) or a peerage?

BTW, though I have been a UKIP candidate and think that Farage was a good campaigner I think he'd be terrible in any position of power. 

[domjg]

May 3, 2024 21:54:50 GMT crossbat11 said:

steve

jib hasn't quite computed the Cheltenham result. In that fine town, if you vote Lib Dem you get no Tories at all. Literally.

Same here in Vale of White Horse Oxon. As of last May 0 tories in a previously tory heavy district. All LD save one Green I believe.

Edit: 33 LDs, 4 Green, 1 ind.

[mercian]

May 3, 2024 21:30:18 GMT jib said:

May 3, 2024 21:25:22 GMT bardin1 said:

When is the last election night the Liberal Democrats had more candidates elected in local government elections than the Tories?

Maybe JIB can advise as he seems to keep tabs on those two

I believe 1996 was a particularly good vintage for Chateaux Ashdown.

There have been a few others too, but you couldn't go wrong with Paddy.

I've always thought that Jeremy Thorpe was the quintessential Liberal.

[Deleted]

May 3, 2024 21:54:50 GMT crossbat11 said:

steve

jib hasn't quite computed the Cheltenham result. In that fine town, if you vote Lib Dem you get no Tories at all. Literally.

Almost as though some people are thick.

[oldnat]

From Matt Singh (formerly spinster of UKPR1 parish)

[oldnat]

An interesting thread from the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff Uni, since those of us in rGB seldom get much analysis of Welsh politics.

[RAF]

May 3, 2024 22:33:16 GMT oldnat said:

From Matt Singh (formerly spinster of UKPR1 parish)

That wouldn't be enough. Also, I know everyone (including me) has been comparing how swings in turnout data may affect the result of the Mayoral election. However, given the tiny swing Matt Singh's data implies I think the value of the comparison is outweighed by the change in voting system. Put simply, Khan will win a higher percebtage of votes in a FPTP election in 2024 than he did on first preferences in 2021. So the overall swing to the Tories needs to be quite a bit higher than 2.5%.

[oldnat]

RAF

Thanks for the response - but you could have given it without repeating the huge tweet thread that appeared on my original post. Once was enough for something that long!

[eor]

RAF at the risk of being cynical, it is also in Labour's interests to be playing this up. If they reckon Khan's going to win fairly comfortably, but not as comfortably as the polls implied, then making out like it's on a knife-edge is exactly the way to go, so that a weekend of really positive results ends with a tense triumph rather than with a "hmm, bit tighter than we expected..." anticlimax.

[RAF]

May 3, 2024 23:18:54 GMT oldnat said:

RAF

Thanks for the response - but you could have given it without repeating the huge tweet thread that appeared on my original post. Once was enough for something that long!

I realised this after the deed had been done. Sorry.

[graham]

May 3, 2024 21:17:33 GMT eor said:

Also on RefUK's VI - More generally I'm not convinced that 2015 UKIP is a great yardstick for RefUK. UKIP had a very specific, driven central purpose, so ahead of the 2015 GE it made sense for people to make the effort to cast protest votes for them in pretty much any election, especially lower-turnout ones where they might make some noise. And their conversion of that VI into the 2015 GE vote share, whilst impressive (and far above most wise predictions at the time) also had two important contexts to it - the GE itself was thought to be pretty close, and if the Tories won they'd promised to hold the referendum anyway.

None of that necessarily applies to RefUK VI this time around. It is increasingly clear the General Election is not going to be close at all, the chances of splitting the vote in their seat mattering is virtually nil. And also if a big chunk of RefUK VI is people who feel for whatever reason that this time around they won't/can't vote Tory and are giving RefUK as a protest option to pollsters, it doesn't seem that far-fetched that many of those people will be in the roughly half of GE voters who don't vote in other types of elections anyway, so there wouldn't be a UKIP-style footprint to map them from.

I think it's quite possible that the RefUK VI could hold up very well and if they're close enough to CON VI then the very uniformity that made it almost impossible for UKIP/BXP to win Westminster seats starts to act in their favour, turning a number of very safe Tory seats into three-way marginals which they could narrowly win.

There is nothing in these Local Election results - nor the Blackpool South by election - that is likely to persuade Ofcom to award Reform 'Major' party status during the GE campaign.

[eor]

graham - it'll doubtless be a topic of fierce and arbitrary debate, but I'm not sure it'll matter much either way. If RefUK are largely a reaction to the unfitness of the Tories to normally Tory voters then a PEB or a seat at a witless "debate" that those voters probably wouldn't watch anyway seems unlikely to make much difference to the outcome.

[neilj]

Some interesting analysis of London voting, in short it seems highly unlikely Khan will lose

[steve]

I suspect what will have happened in London, I may of course be totally wrong, but it's what I would have done if I still lived there.
Will be because the fairer voter system has been abandoned that a proportion of lib dems will have voted for Khan as he would have been their second preference.
The green vote tends to be more performative so is stickier.

The problem is that the polls have shown Khan so far ahead that supporters of other progressive candidates may have felt safe to vote their first preference.

Hall would be an awful mayor and wouldn't even have the farcical humour value of Spaffer, a nasty racist, climate change denying bigot.
Just what London needs.

[Danny]

May 3, 2024 21:54:10 GMT mercian said:

.

It will be very interesting to see the result and how Yakoob does. As this site is about polling I wonder what the implications are for pollsters if he gets say 10%? I know it was a one-off poll but if that 10%ish were to happen, does it suggest that polling companies might be under-sampling Muslims and also perhaps other ethnic or religious minorities?

in general all pollsters under sample local elections, obviously they have to. Maybe they sample one person in a constituency. It's a pretty big problem trying to get sensible results for small parties like libs or snp never mind one off independants.

What I remember about brexit is how it surprised everyone. At first the main parties tried to trash Farage and UKIP, pretend they were unimportant. But Farage had at least partial truth on his side, that the eu is far from perfect and does stupid and annoying things sometimes, and of course it's a compromise between what all the members want. So he could point out all its problems, while uk politicians have always used it as a whipping boy to take the blame for doing things they wanted to do but knew would be unpopular. No one wanted to stand up and reverse their formal positions and say its essential to the UK. Anyway, my point is it took over uk politics and politicians ended up doing what they did not want to do, which is leave.

The question is to what extent gaza might have similar influence, or just come and go. Israel has invaded a neighbouring country, which it has already been at war with for the entire existence of the state of israel. Which was carved out of a bigger state by imperial powers, firstly the UK, for our own political gain. It's understandable why they need to dominate their neighbours because if the situation reversed Israel would be crushed out of existence. As they are trying to do to gaza. This isnt a friendly football match, it's a war of annihilation. We started it, but then we gave up trying to control the middle East by force. The US is now the imperial power, and is trying to rule with economic power alone.

The UK government has done nothing except copy the US response. We tut tut, but keep sending the guns. It's clear Israel is morally in the wrong and through its entire history has always inflicted more harm on others than they on it. The problem is while others started this war upsetting the peace in palestine by inciting rebellion, supplying arms and importing European settlers, those others are no longer willing to put force on the ground and impose peace.

I doubt this will be a game changer in the uk. But in the US there is a tight election and Biden is getting blame for assisting Israel slaughter palestinians. Not that republicans typically oppose helping Israel, this is a cross party problem for politicians as was brexit here. The world had changed away from use of raw force since ww2 or imperial days. Or at least the western world has, Putin is perfectly happy to use murder as a tool of diplomacy, and he os not at all alone, so are israel, so are Ukraine, so are all countries ultimately.

Bottom line, israel is in the wrong here and it will harm all western politicians who say otherwise. Con seem to be doing rather a good job in avoiding that blame considering they are the actual government and the ones aiding israel, not labour. Labour seem incapable of extricating themselves from their foolish acceptance they are antisemitic. They aren't, they never were, but they allowed a witch hunt because it suited them to get rid of Livingstone and Corbyn. Now they are tied in knots supporting israel, equating this with opposing antisemitism which it absolutely is not.

Funny it takes a dictator like Erdogan in turkey to call them out.

[thylacine]

May the fourth be with you Sadiq.

[steve]

The results for Labour and the lib dems are exceptionally promising for both Labour and the lib dems with many of the council seats picked up in areas where the parties are targeting vulnerable parliamentary Tory seats*.
For Labour this is landslide territory for my party despite only half the vote share of the 2000's it's potentially going to be The biggest parliamentary representation the party has ever seen.

* Ok we did actually  win all the wards in Sheffield Hallam bringing the possibility of a Labour " loss" in the landslide☺

[davem]

On the topic of how the BBC reported that Reform did well in Sunderland, I ran the Labour campaign in the only ward in the City and region which had a Reform councillor.

The result is here
www.sunderland.gov.uk/media/32478/Result-of-Poll-LGE-May-2024-Washington-South/pdf/Local_Declaration_Coms_for_Washington_South_correct_as_of_Friday__3_May_2024_0_41.pdf?m=1714697133487

Labour 1555
Tory. 890
Reform 383
Green. 96
Lib Dem. 82

Clearly for your only sitting councillor to come so far behind, especially when he was also getting TV and other media exposure as the candidate for Northeast Regional Mayor is not good.

Across Sunderland as a whole, while this did come above the Tories in a lot of wards, these where in the main wards where the Tories had no chance and traditionally very low vote shares. In short they split the Tory vote in seats they couldn’t win.

In 2019 UKIP won three seat and were second in eleven, including at least six where they were a close second, compared with these results this years performance was poor and part of the rradon the Tories held onto three seats in the City.

[crossbat11]

May 3, 2024 21:07:55 GMT graham said:

May 3, 2024 21:04:15 GMT alec said:

Poor old graham .

He's like the party spokesman given the short straw of doing the media rounds in the 'Second Place in a By Election' sketch on the 1980s sketch show Not the None O'Clock News.

Give it up mate. Labour triumphed, Tories got stuffed. The next election is done and dusted.

There is no other interpretation available.

I have not suggested otherwise - and voted Labour myself yesterday for the PCC! Believe it or not - I am capable of being perfectly objective psephologically and have never belonged to the School of Wishful Thinking. I speak as I find it - Others are free to disagree. I am always happy to bow down before the greater psephological insight of other commentators - but never inclined to accept things at face value.

I haven't a problem with that at all and value opinion and psephological expertise that challenges received wisdom and lazy assumptions, and you often provide such perspectives, but where it gets a little silly, certainly for me anyway, is where this mutates into distortion and statistical cherry picking to support esoteric hobby horses.

I recall you belittling the rather extraordinary Labour capture of Tamworth last year, won on an almost historic swing, by arguing that it was in effect a 5% swing to the Tories compared to a previous contest in the town in some bygone political and electoral era. I see you're trying this trick again with some of the local council results.

I suspect your well trailed antipathy to Starmer is leading you down these rabbit holes whereby you're finding it very difficult to accept Labour's recent electoral success under his leadership and this is sending you on increasingly ludicrous psephological wild goose chases to either disprove or devalue it.

That's not psephology, it's rather silly axe grinding.

[leftieliberal]

May 3, 2024 22:04:31 GMT pjw1961 said:

May 3, 2024 21:40:28 GMT RAF said:

With Farage and with the Tories. These results show that they are pretty much cannibalising the Tory vote.

One of the understated joys of a Labour government is that for 5 years you can ignore the ongoing Tory psychodrama. It rumbles on in obscurity but no longer has much salience. Last time it got replaced by Blair v Brown (and their eager acolytes). I can do without a replay of that type of thing. 

Thankfully, I have not heard any rumours of Starmer and Reeves eating together at Granita, so there's no danger of a repeat of Blair vs Brown.