Institute of Local Government Studies The 2011 English local elections – Labour’s continuing recovery? INLOGOV Briefing - April 2011 Chris Game The 2011 English local elections – Labour’s continuing recovery? Chris Game There are hardly any iron laws in political science, but, picking a rather floppier metal, we do have what might qualify as a few tin truths. One is that parties in national government do badly at local elections, as dramatically demonstrated recently in Germany, where the normally conservative voters of Baden-Württemberg threw out Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats for the first time in half a century, and elected in their place the country’s first Green-led state coalition. It worked almost perfectly with New Labour too – the party’s total of council seats in Great Britain falling every year from 1998 to 2009. But then come the tinny bits – the exceptions, like the (equally floppy) premature comeback modification. In this country at least, the main proposition seems to stop working precisely when least expected. When the governing party’s unpopularity plumbs such depths that it is voted out of office, it simultaneously starts winning back council seats. Thus, as the Conservatives were coming into government in 1979, Labour made its first net gain of council seats since 1974. In 1992, the election John Major was expected to lose, the Conservatives gained seats. They did so again in 1997, as did Labour last year. Though overshadowed by the General Election and its aftermath, Labour’s local government comeback had already begun, with a net gain of nearly 400 seats. Local elections are, of course, primarily about determining local governments and the policies they will implement. They are not mock parliamentary elections. That does not mean, though, that there are no underlying themes to their results and 2011’s key theme will undoubtedly be the scale of Labour’s continuing local recovery and, with two parties in national government, its principal victims. Last spring, even before Cleggmania, life for local government Liberal Democrats was pretty good. They had comfortably outpolled Labour at the 2009 county elections. They had more English councillors than Labour, ran many of its erstwhile urban strongholds – Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Oldham, Rochdale, Bristol – and were in minority or shared control in numerous others – Birmingham, Leeds, Kirklees, St Helens, Wolverhampton, Derby, Exeter, Cardiff, Swansea. In London, polls suggested they could add to the eight boroughs they already governed either singly or jointly. That, however, was as good as it got. Gains of seats and councils were outweighed by losses, with Labour the chief beneficiary. Councillor defections, again mainly to Labour, began immediately and increased through the year, as did disaffection, with the Coalition Government’s policies or simply its existence. The party’s poll ratings plummeted and currently flounder on the brink of single figures – representing a swing to Labour of nearly 12% since the pre-election polls in 2007, when most of this year’s seats were last contested. [1] The comparable swing to Labour from the Conservatives has been around 6%, and between them those two swing percentages provide the statistical backdrop to the English local elections, summarised in the table. Both parties are frantically spinning down expectations: Nick Clegg preparing his troops for a ‘remorseless battering’, and Conservatives talking of losing at least the 900-plus seats they gained in 2007. Elections to 279 English councils, 5th May, 2011 Seats Councils controlled No Overall contested Con Lab LD Other Control 36 Metrop. boroughs 1/3 3 16 2 15 30 Unitaries All 14 6 - - 10 19 Unitaries 1/3 6 2 3 - 8 126 Districts All 132 5 17 4 36 68 Districts 1/3 Totals 155 29 22 4 69 As noted, Labour’s recovery started last year. In addition to recapturing 10 London boroughs, Labour took Liverpool (last Labour majority: 1998) back from the Lib Dems, plus Coventry (2003) and St Helens (2004) from No Overall Control, while the Lib Dems lost their majority control of Sheffield (2007) and Rochdale (2003). This May it will again be control changes in the bigger urban authorities that will attract most attention – as indeed they do in this briefing – even though all the mets and many unitaries are electing only a third of their councillors. Metropolitan boroughs The Lib Dems’ big remaining northern bridgehead is Newcastle upon Tyne (2004). The Conservatives’ 12 to 15% vote leaves them unrepresented on the 78-seat council, so arithmetic is easy. With the 12% swing since 2007 showing in the polls, Labour would gain the 5 seats required for an overall majority – just. To hold on, therefore, the Lib Dems must out-perform the polls, as they habitually did before they joined the national government. Stockport, the Lib Dems’ longstanding metropolitan flagship, has lately developed leaks – of both defecting councillors and internal strategy documents (‘Stockileaks’). If Labour is ever to become even the largest party, it must be now, but it is challenging from third place in most of the 13 seats Lib Dems are defending. On the other hand, Lib Dems will recall another exception to the proposition with which this briefing opened: the local trumps national modification. Parties in national government do badly in local elections, except where the chief challenging party itself runs the local government. The Lib Dems captured Sheffield from Labour in 1999, almost as soon the Blair Government took office, followed by Oldham a year later. Come 2003, though, when Labour was losing urban councils by the handful, it regained majority control of Sheffield and OIdham – before losing them again, as the main law reasserted itself, four years later. [2] The Conservatives, after losing majority control last year in Bury, North Tyneside and Solihull, are left with just three mets – Walsall (2000), Dudley (2003) and Trafford (2003) – of which Trafford may prove the most secure, having as it does the least Conservative-held marginals. There are fewer safe wards for anyone in the two West Midlands boroughs, and the Conservatives could lose overall control in both on swings of well under 10%. 15 metropolitan councils are under what is generically termed No Overall Control – 7 run by minority administrations (1 Lib Dem, 1 Conservative, 5 Labour), the rest by assorted coalitions. Labour’s tastiest trophy would surely be Sheffield, Lib Dem since 2007 and parliamentary base of Nick Clegg. A 5% swing would win it. Conservative Bury (2006) is bidding to become the ultimate enabler, with no services at all provided from the town hall, but by a combination of private companies, voluntary groups and possibly other councils. A two-seat switch (401 votes in 2007) would make Labour the largest party, so shame on any stay-at-home voters claiming it makes no difference who runs the council. Labour’s minority-run mets include two mid-term acquisitions. Almost simultaneously last December, Labour displaced Conservative/Lib Dem coalitions in both Rochdale, following no fewer than 8 Lib Dem resignations, and Wolverhampton (2008), with Lib Dem assistance in a vote of no confidence. Labour must hope, through election or defection, to regain majority control of both, Wolverhampton being the safer bet. In Bolton (2003), with Labour holding half the seats already, that hope will be an expectation. Bradford (2000) is bigger, has more smaller parties – Greens, BNP – and majority control there would need at least a 10% swing from the Conservatives. Kirklees (1999) has become a rare, genuinely three-party council and is likely to remain so. Of the glorious array of power-sharing arrangements, those Labour will be most confident of ending by winning majority control are probably Leeds (2004 – now Lab/Green) and Oldham (2007 – LD/Con). Birmingham (2003) and Wirral (2002), both Con/LD, seem out of reach, this year anyway, although the key first step of again being the largest party should be attainable. Birmingham is obviously the bigger prize, but Wirral would be particularly satisfying after last year, when the Lib Dems, after losing 5 seats, appeared to follow their national leadership by ending their 3-year power-share with Labour and forming a ‘Progressive Partnership’ with the Conservatives, giving the borough its first Conservative leadership in 24 years. Meanwhile, Calderdale (1998) and Solihull were moving in the opposite direction, as Conservative minority and majority administrations respectively were displaced by LD/Lab coalitions. Calderdale’s should have the longer life – though probably not one to challenge Sefton’s record. It has been run for 25 years now by a 3-party (currently LD/Lab/Con) coalition, which survived a brief threat by Labour to withdraw, and could now be set for the next quarter-century. [3] Unitaries The ‘all-out’ unitaries most likely to change control include Redcar and Cleveland (2003), which Labour will hope once again to run on its own, without Independent assistance; Brighton & Hove (2003), where both Labour and the Greens will be aiming to overturn the Conservatives’ minority control; and York (2003), where eight years of Lib Dem rule look set to end. Milton Keynes has been Lib Dem-run for even longer and stands a better chance of staying so. The numbers are better, Labour is in a poor third place, and, unlike in York, Open University students aren’t locally registered voters. Then there is the curiosity of Stockton-on-Tees. After losing majority control in 2007, Labour remained comfortably the largest party and ended up in a power-share with the Conservatives, after the latter had failed to put together a rainbow coalition with the Lib Dems and the assorted local Independent Associations that hold a quarter of the seats on this council.