On May 2, we will get a pretty good preview of the General Election, likely coming in October after dissolution in September.
There will be elections for Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales and for Councils and Unitary Authorities as well as Mayors in England, including the Mayor of London. There will be no elections in Scotland or Northern Ireland. There will also be one parliamentary byelection in England.
These elections were last held in 2021, after having been delayed from 2020 by Covid. The Conservatives experienced a Covid bounce and actually did quite well in 2021, which ironically will magnify the scope of the slaughter they are facing since they have to defend a huge number of seats.
2,655 councilors across 107 councils are up for election. The Conservatives are defending 985 seats and are expected to lose roughly 500 or over half their seats. They currently control 18 councils and it is not out of the question that they could end the night in control of nothing. Labour is expected to be the biggest recipient of Tory seats, with an expected gain of 300, with the rest scattered between the the Liberal Democrats and Greens.
As for council control, some Tory losses will go to No Overall Control, but Labour and Liberal Democrats have good shots at picking up some of these councils outright, as well as winning control of councils that are currently under No Overall Control. For example, the Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council will likely go from Tory to Labour control.
May 2 will be a preview of what is coming in October.
The 2025 local elections will likely be a wash, since Labour will still likely be in its honeymoon period in power, so Conservatives probably will not be able to start clawing back local seats until the 2026 local elections.
For anyone interested the best coverage of the local elections is on LBC. This is a UK radio station but they have an app and you can listen online. And because we are 5 hours behind no need to stay up late.
Rumors abound that the PM could call a summer election. However he will make sure that at least one plane takes off for Rwanda so he can tell the country he and his party delivered on that promise .
BTW, I did note they FINALLY were able to shove that turd through the Lords.
And if anybody tries to pull a leadership challenge against Sunak (extremely likely due to the expected bloodbath tomorrow) I would not at all be surprised if Sunak runs to Charles and demands a dissolution immediately.
The last poll (General Election) prior to the Local Elections has Conservatives at 24, Labour at 44%, LibDems at 8%, SNP at 3%, Greens at 5% and Reform at 12%.
Electoral Calculus’s current prediction for the General Election is:
Labour 472
Conservatives 85
LibDems 50
Reform 0
Green 2
SNP 19
PlaidC 4
Total is 632 seats, since the 18 Northern Ireland seats are rarely counted in polls or predictions.
So labor won’t have to form a coalition to get a government once this is all said and done right?
Boy that’s embarrassing for the Conservatives. They ran Parliament since the middle point of the Iraq War and have really got thrown out on their asses.
Pretty much 100% chance of a Labour majority. Conservatives are far too deep in the hole and Reform is helping out Labour by actively digging the Conservatives deeper.
Excluding wartime coaltions and the 1930’s National Labour coaltion, it would be the biggest seat majority in modern history, post 1900.
For comparison, Thatcher had a 144 seat majority in 1983.
Tony Blair had a 179 seat majority in 1997.
Conservatives had an 80 seat majority when the current Parliament convened in 2019.
If Labour even comes close to the prediction, they will have the largest seat majority in history for a single party.
According to the survey, taken on 30 April and 1 May, the Conservatives are down to just 18 per cent – 26 points behind Labour on 44 per cent and a mere three points ahead of Reform UK on 15 per cent.
I have been there several times, we have an office in Weybridge, just outside of Greater London. As well as seeing all the sites around England as well.
