May 2023 Local Elections

Farkin' fick farkin' Northerners:

 

I urge everyone to pray to their gods and help us break that 1000 lost councillors barrier:

 

We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Its not just Herts BWHorn.

I appreciate that most folk on here wont care but previously "True Blue" Surrey will have only one Conservative Council out of 11 by the end of the night.

When I moved down to Mole Valley it was as Conservative as they come with just a Residents Group in one village and a spattering of Lib Dems in the Dorking area. Tonight we stand at 30Lib Dems to 3 Conservatives. I call it progress.

 

I think you have to do both. You can look back to before Blair was elected. Labour had phenomenal impetus then, not just in votes, but ideas. They genuinely seemed ready to usher in a new era.

I’m afraid that Starmer doesn’t have that buzz, for the reasons you identify. The volume in the bear pit is turned up to ten and bending. Labour are running scared of every misstep.

It’s fine to move to where the electorate demands, but you also have to anticipate what the electorate doesn’t know they need yet. In short you have to have ideas and they must learn from their errors, because they remain relevant now.

 

Labour have gained Dover. First time since 1995. That’s a bit of a smack in the chops for Rishi given his stop the boats campaign. As James O’Brien says, seems he stopped the votes instead.

 

That's, the 'delightful', Natalie 'Dover' Elphicke's constituency? Did you know she's from WGC?

 

It's a disappointing result, of course, but really it's all Putin's fault and anyway there's no space to report much about it because.....

coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation coronation

 

In fairness to Rishi, I know the membership didn't get a say but he did go through a vote of MPs before appointed leader.

 

The turnout was as low as 18% in some areas, hopefully this will continue in the general election. I would dearly love turnout to be under 50% in the GE, no party can then claim to have really won.

 

Only after losing to a person that ****ed the economy on purpose, killed the Queen and then got removed after lasting less time than a lettuce.

 

https://twitter.com/secrettory12/status/1654560555485765633

 

Fark me this a very interesting thread:









And were does this rabbit hoe end - why at the very, very murky world of the Teeside freeport:



https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1654802472165163014

 

Well, the 'Wood has made the big time - an article in the Guardian:

Anti-Tory coalition leaves party reeling and ministers at risk after polls disaster

And they managed to pin down one of our resident intellectuals who highlights her political strategy on not voting while pontificating on the Borough's politics:

 

Local elections are peculiar, as the turnout is so low (compared to a General Election), and the demography of those that do vote in Local elections, (older, more affluent). So while it gives a reasonable snapshot of national feeling you don’t get direct parallels of outcomes.

Watford might not have a single Conservative Councillor, but still elects a Tory MP. This is partly because of the nature of local political party membership. Very few activists willing to do the pavement politics bit. But General elections drag in new people motivate by a desire for change or to shore up the barricades (mostly young people).

Also political activists congregate in nearby areas of potential. So Lib Dem’s in Bushey will go to Watford and St Albans, letting the Tories have a bigger advantage in campaigning resources.

So for years in our household we receive no local election campaigning material, no canvassing. We get a full set of Tory councillors. Then a bloke retires, as a Liberal Democrat he decides to start knocking on a few doors and gets elected. Often local areas are pretty much rotten boroughs with very little activity. The subset of residents who care about and vote in council elections. Note a bit of activity and swing behind that party pointing out potholes and parking problems. The Lib Dem’s can attract tactical voters from both Labour and Conservative supporters. Yet come the general election, I bet the street will deliver a Tory majority.

General elections are far more presidential now, tv and social media impacts come into play. I still think the Tories are toast. Partly because they have been there for a decade +. Primarily because the politics of Brexit are going to canalise them.

 

You are correct that Council elections are an unrepresentative sample. It’s hard to tell who stayed away in the biggest numbers, ‘shy’ Tories or younger/less engaged Labour and who has actually shifted.

So is the decline in Tory support is another pre 1997 moment that did see Watford go Labour for President Blair or will it go Lib Dem from a three way marginal? Or will the Tories pull off a surprising feat of escapology?

Who knows? Exciting isn’t it?

 

Watford won’t go Lib Dem. A strong showing for their candidate lets the Tory in. Tactical voting to rid yourself of a Tory means vote Labour in Watford and Lib Dem in St Albans.

 

The good people of Longbeck ward have spoken:

Third recount ousts Redcar Conservative leader Andrea Turner

 

The revolution is starting in the 'wood:

Cllr Jeremy Newmark named Hertsmere Borough Council leader...Hertsmere has a new borough leader who has promised not to end the “insurgency” which he claims led him to power.

That bold part is particularly satisfying seeing as we had a previous mayor with, ahem, unashamedly 'Old Testament' views (sharing his 'wisdom' on youtube from 3'20" onwards).

 

Imagine if future scholars of the inevitable revolution that is to come, conclude it started in Bushey.

 

I imagine it would be like this...



...except as it would involve the 'wood I would (ho! ho!) envisage it would contain more Anglo-Saxon nouns and verbs (particularly in the active voice) and violence.

 

Quite an interesting article (it sounds like there are almost New Labour levels of control freakery):

Labour accused of meddling after vetoing local authority coalition plans
Concerns attempts to block local deals with Lib Dems or Greens risk allowing Tories to regain control of councils

 

My, normally chatty and extremely communicative, newly elected Labour Councillors (two in this ward we have three councillors, the other is a Tory) are strangely exhibiting
omert* of the issuing of working with local LibDems (from this week's PE):

 

Labour won’t even allow its own incumbent Mayor of North Tyne stand again, because he is too left (cut to Conference waffle from the leadership of a ‘broad church’) so very little chance they will give any gifts to the Lib Dems.

This authoritarian behaviour of the Labour Right may be what is required to get elected, but it’s a bad habit that won’t shift easily and as the article says, this is just about sorting the bins in some unsung areas of Hertfordshire and other local stuff. Very little national traction, but an opportunity to do good missed.

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-b...rom-standing-for-new-north-east-role-12895244

 

I, sort of, 'get it'. Labour are facing fighting the greatest electioneering machine in political history that has a majority of 60 seats . The Tories are ruthless (and shameless) in a normal campaign - imagine what they're going to be like when they'll be fighting for their very political existence/relevance. Starmer's very shrewd giving them no 'issues' to campaign on whether that means Brexit, Corbyn (and his 'legacy'), Coalition agreements (I imagine there's a lot of top secret communication behind the scenes), party loyalty/unity ("STFU...for now"), 'woke'. the BBC or the Trade Unions.

We've still got a lot of Tory seppuku to come: De Pfeffel, Covid, PPE scandal, the sunlit uplands of Brexit, the economy, the state of the NHS etc. And that's before you add in the Tory civil war that's still festering away (nicely).

 

I think that’s exactly it, but the worry is it becomes a habit Labour can’t shake. It’s not going to prevent me voting for them, because if we don’t get the Tories out it’s a disaster, but I don’t have to like it.