The local election results are as terrible for the Conservatives as feared and thanks to Reform they would have been lucky to have had only a 1997-style wipeout, says veteran pollster John Curtice in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
The overnight election results have been every bit as disappointing for the Conservatives as they might have feared.
The party is so far losing one in two of the seats they have been trying to defend. When all the results are in, it is at risk of suffering the catastrophic 500 losses of council seats that some analysts had predicted.
The party’s vote fell by 32.1 points in Blackpool South, making it the party’s third worst ever performance in a parliamentary by-election. With 16.9% of the vote, its best performance yet, Reform appears to have done much of the damage.
Moreover, in the local elections the Conservative vote fell most heavily in those wards where Reform fielded a candidate. The only silver lining for Tory HQ was that Reform only contested one in six of the wards where there was an election on Thursday. A full slate would have been even more devastating.
Meanwhile, some of the evidence underneath the bonnet of the headlines will particularly worry the party.
First, detailed ward by ward results collected by the BBC suggest that on average support for the party is down on last year’s local elections. That slippage is consistent with the message of the opinion polls that, rather than closing the gap on Labour, the party has actually lost ground over the last twelve months.
Second, the fall in Conservative support is proving to be highest in the party’s heartlands. The better the Conservatives did locally in 2021, that is, when most of the seats being contested on Thursday were last fought, the greater the fall in their support now.
Worth reading in full.
Their only I hope I suppose is that voters will give them more of a kicking in the locals than in the General Election. But the scale of Conservative failure, particularly on immigration but also on cost of living tied to Net Zero (and lockdowns, though it’s not clear how many voters blame them for that) should not be underestimated.
Meanwhile, Muslim voters have been giving Labour its own (much smaller) kicking over Gaza. From the Mail:
Labour has today sensationally lost control of Oldham Council after Muslim voters punished it over Gaza.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party has lost power in the town in Greater Manchester – and outgoing councillors say the leader’s face has been plastered on leaflets of independents who took their seats.
Speaking today Sir Keir was asked whether his stance on Gaza had been a factor in Oldham. He told the BBC: “There are some places where it’s a very strong factor… I respect that.”
Despite gains all over England from the Tories in yesterday’s local elections, Labour lost control of Oldham after gains by Independents, some of whom abandoned Sir Keir’s party over Gaza.
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