The local elections: a judgement on Blair or a Tory breakthrough?
According to Tony Blair, the Labour Party fared better than was expected in the local elections. If that is the case, the expectations must have been extremely low.
With the exception of a few pockets of resistance in areas such as Manchester, the map of the country is covered in blue. Incidentally, York seems to be the cut-off point for the Conservative wave.
To the south of Yorkshire, the majority of constituencies were won by the Conservatives, with only 21 being taken by the Labour Party and 20 by the Liberal Democrats.
North of Yorkshire, meanwhile, the situation is decidedly less clear-cut, with most councils lacking a ruling majority. There are a few exceptions to be found, such as Newcastle and Durham, both of which were held by the Liberal Democrats, and the regions surrounding Durham not having shifted from Labour control. However, it is clear that the Conservative Party have not had the same landslide success in the North as they have enjoyed in the Midlands and the South.
The Conservative Party will probably be happy with their result: it is a mirror image of the one Labour had over them in 1996, before they won the general election by a landslide.
The Conservatives have won nearly 900 seats across the country and 205 councils, with an average of about 40% of votes in constituencies.
Francis Maude, Conservative Party Chairman said: “We’re now the only party that represents the whole of England. This is a great base on which we can build victory at the next election, taking our message of change, hope and optimism to more communities across the country.”
However, according to the Labour Party, this is not a bad result.
With control of 46 councils, Labour’s Chief Whip Jacqui Smith commented that the Tories have “failed to make any breakthrough” and that David Cameron’s party “needed to win councils like Bury, Barrow-in-Furness, Bolton and Crewe… their failure to do so shows they have failed to break out beyond their heartlands in any significant way.”
To add to Labour’s woes, there is speculation that their canvassers violated the postal vote code by harassing elderly voters in Leeds and filling in their forms.
These results provide some degree of insight into the next general election, with Labour saying they will take nothing for granted and keep working to achieve a victory and the Conservatives feeling confident that these results are a reflection of who the people will choose as next Prime Minister.
A further boost to David Cameron’s confidence is a study by the Elections Centre at Plymouth University, conducted immediately after election results. The research states that if the voting patterns for the council elections were replicated in the next general elections, the Tory government would win 352 seats in Commons- 54 more than all the other parties.
Nevertheless, the Liberal Democrats will be the most disappointed of all. With the Labour Party on the decline, carrying the weight of the war in Iraq on their shoulders, and the Conservatives being blamed for relying more on their public image than actual policies, it was up to the Liberal Democrats to seize the day and the majority of the ballots.
But the results were disappointing; the Liberal Democrats won only 27 councils, and whilst there was a significant victory in ‘Gordon Brown’s backyard’ of Fife, they are still far too small to pose a reasonable threat to the two giants of Parliament.
It would seem that Labour will be trying to sway the Lib Dem voters towards their camp in the general election, though at this moment in time it looks as though not even that helping hand would stop the blue tide.
But, as they say, a week is a long time in politics and the general election is still many, many weeks away.
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