What to look out for at local elections

In two days time, voters across England will head to polls for local elections, in the last big test of just how much trouble the Tories are in before the general election.

Over 2,600 council seats are being contested across 107 areas, with Labour and the Conservatives defending almost 1,000 seats each.

Aside from local councillor roles, the Mayor of London and 10 mayoral positions outside of the capital are up for grabs. Police and crime commissioners will also be chosen across England and Wales.

The last time these contests were held, in 2021, a Boris-led Tory government – riding on a high from the UK’s Covid vaccine rollout – made significant gains, a rare feat for an incumbent government in local elections. The Conservatives gained over 200 council seats and won the Hartlepool by-election, while Labour emerged 327 seats down. 

This year, things are set to be more bruising for the incumbent government. Back in May 2021, the Tories commanded a six-point lead over Labour in the polls. Today, they are trailing Labour by roughly 19 points. 

While local election results cannot be mapped directly onto national ones, they are thought to provide an accurate indication of party preference for around 80 per cent of voters. 

A projection from local election experts, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, predicts that the Tories could lose up to half of the just under 1,000 council seats they will be defending. 

That’s despite Starmer’s fiscally tough message during his local elections launch last month. When quizzed on how Labour would sort England’s council funding crisis – in which one in five local authorities have declared themselves at risk of bankruptcy – the Labour leader refused to pledge any extra funds, insisting “There is no magic money tree”.

While the raft of local council elections are significant, the stakes at mayoral elections are perhaps even higher. Or at least, at two particular contests. 

The most prominent mayoral contest, owing to its scale, is the one happening in London. But this won’t be the race keeping everyone on their toes. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is on course to easily win a third term. 

In the two mayoralties currently held by the Tories, however, everything is to play for. 

Sunak will be highly anxious about the fate of high-profile Conservative mayors Andy Street and Ben Houchen, both deemed likeable figures.

According to YouGov polling, Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands, which covers the Black Country, Birmingham, Solihull and Coventry, is on 41 per-cent, just two percentage points ahead of his Labour rival. 

Ben Houchen, meanwhile, the mayor of Tees Valley, which covers North Yorkshire and County Durham, is seven points ahead of his Labour rival, according to one poll, and neck and neck with him, according to another. If it weren’t for Reform choosing not to stand a candidate there, things might look even more dangerous for the Tories – a luxury the party won’t be afforded at the general election.

Back in 2017, when Houchen was first elected as mayor in the red-wall area of Tees Valley, it came as a devastating shock to Labour. A shock that presaged the Conservatives’ triumphant sweep across other traditionally Labour-voting areas in the north in the 2019 election. 

When Houchen was re-elected with a whopping 73 per cent of the vote in 2021, it served as an apparent testament to his popularity and his efforts to improve Teesside’s economy. Houchen was elevated to the House of Lords in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list and has become a poster boy for the government’s levelling up agenda. 

If even Houchen were to lose on Thursday,  it would feel highly symbolic that the tide of public opinion has well and truly shifted against the Tories. 

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