I have been involved in overnight broadcast coverage of local elections since the 1980s. Usually, the pattern is the same — something for every party to cling to somewhere in the trends. Or, at worst, ready excuses from inescapable losers that the elections are not significant to the big picture of the next election.
Usually, having listened to every member of a panel suggest that “on balance it has been a goodish night for us,” I’ve forgotten the whole event by the weekend.
The 2022 local elections are different. This year there is an unavoidable story. The Conservatives did badly. Explaining this fact is an equally obvious “narrative”: voters have lost confidence in Boris Johnson, the Conservative leader and Prime Minister.
