have seen Labour and the Liberal Democrats gain key councils at the expense of the Conservatives. The polls for more than 8,000 council seats on 230 councils, and four mayors, across England closed on Thursday.
Labour won control in Plymouth, Medway and Stoke-on-Trent - a former Labour stronghold which saw Tory MPs win in the 2019 general election.
The Lib Dems won Windsor and Maidenhead, an area which includes the constituency of ex-Tory PM Theresa May.
The Conservatives have so far lost majorities in 10 councils.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Omah…
The Tories have shafted us good and proper…
Stand by to be shafted by Labour in 2024…They will undo all the shafting done by the tories, and invent new ways to shaft us that we haven’t seen before…
Party politics has no place in local elections. Wollongong and Shellharbour have both elected an Independent as Mayor and neither major party control the councils
And because if the way the U.K. voting system works, without proportional representation, most people don’t even have that much choice
If you live in an area where one party has an overwhelming majority, your vote counts for nothing and you are essentially disenfranchised and may as well not have the vote.
If you can’t affect the choice of who is on or the way the country is run by voting and your vote is worthless, then for you democracy is an illusion and you may as well live in a dictatorship
No wonder so many are turning to protest groups and direct action and passive resistance, or just giving up and not voting
when the main 3 parties can’t even be bothered to put a leaflet through your letterbox why should we bother to vote for them, which we didn’t. It was only the independent candidates that did. speaking to the voting place the ladies (meet and greet) said I was not he only one to mention. they had scores of voters saying the same thing.
What a complete shambles these parties around here, no wonder there is no party with overall control. Should make cancel meetings liven up a bit
Election Candidate
Description (if any)
Votes
Outcome
DASH, Wendy Ann
Liberal Democrats
241
FOSTER, Tony
Conservative Party Candidate
474
HILLIER-PALMER, Peter Victor
Labour Party
239
JACKLIN, Nigel Adam
Independent Network
406
LAKE, Nathaniel Robert Jack
Conservative Party Candidate
315
PIERCE, Justin Webster
Labour Party
191
STANGER, Jimmy
Rother Association of Independent Councillors
527
Elected
WINTER, Connor Jack
Independent
630
Elected
ZIPSER, Christine
UKIP
99
NOT EVEN ONE OF ANY OF THEM AT THE POLLING STATION
The Labour wins came in battleground areas the party had been targeting including Medway in Kent and Swindon in the South West - both of which have been run by the Tories for the past 20 years.
In a further boost, the party also won several councils from no overall control including Plymouth, Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool, Middlesbrough, Broxtowe, High Peak and North East Derbyshire.
Throughout the day, the party continued to count successes in councils including Dover, East Staffordshire and Bracknell Forest, which it snatched from the Conservatives.
Some of its later gains were in Erewash and South Ribble, which it took from the Conservatives - the latter for the first time since 1999.
The results came in stark contrast to the Conservatives, who witnessed a slate of councils fall from their grip and into no overall control - a theme that has dominated the party’s evening.
On Friday evening, it lost a host of councils including Surrey Heath to the Lib Dems. Wealden, Staffordshire Moorlands and Central Bedfordshire all switched to no overall control.
The party also crashed to defeat in East Suffolk, Broadland, and Newark & Sherwood.
Despite the progress enjoyed by Labour in this set of elections, the party still needs to achieve a swing bigger than Sir Tony Blair’s landslide election victory in 1997 to secure a majority at the next election.
Sky News’ election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said that based on analysis of change in vote share across 1,500 wards, Labour is the most popular party with 36%, with the Conservative share 29%, Lib Dems with 18% and others standing at 17%.
Assuming a uniform national swing and applying these to the seats decided at the last general election, Labour would be on course to become the largest party at the next election.
It would gain 95 seats - to an improved total of 298 in this projection - the highest number since Labour won the 2005 general election, but 28 short of an overall majority.
Council elections give no reflection on a general election
how often in By-elections has someone been elected for one session then passed over at the following general election
I remember reading years ago that if labour lost Scotland [and they did] we would all be doomed to a tory govt
now it seems the Scots Nats have blotted their copy book then their is a glimmer of hope for the Labour party, but first they need to sort out that front bench, i find it hard to believe non of them can find a job for Milliband, not that he would be our saviour, but his brother might…
