Thursday saw local elections being held up and down the United Kingdom. In the wake of central government cuts and numerous unforced errors, Labour made significant gains up and down the country.
But there are a few things that can be learned from the election and the results that are worth exploring.
National Branding is Important
Local councils have, relative to Westminster, very little power or responsibility. For this reason, what people think of the federal parties will have a huge impact on how they vote on local elections. And if you're one of the parties in the coalition, you certainly would have felt that last night.
People up and down the UK are starting to get affected by the huge cuts being made by central government, and between this and the various other blunders made by or allegations made against Tory ministers, several voters are less likely to vote for them. It is a general trend (though not a rule) that the government party doesn't tend to do well in local elections, especially in tough times like these.
Add to it that most of the campaigning I have seen in the media has been about a party leader or mayoral candidate campaigning, never about local councillors. This makes me wonder how many people can name their local councillor or council leader. But I couldn't find any recent stats for that, so I'll not go too far into it.
Personality Can Make or Break
Boris Johnson bucked the general trend in the rest of the UK. Overall, there was a 4% swing from Conservative to Labour in the local councils, and double that for the London Assembly. But in the Mayor of London election, that swing was a much more modest 1.5%.
Most of this comes from what I call the "Boris Factor", and the fact that he's amusing, off the cuff and not like your typical politician. Whether you like his policies or not, you have to admit he's got good character. On the other hand, Ken had an issue with explaining how his policies - particularly his transport policy - could be achievable, and his personality was slightly on the negative side, which probably turned voters off.
Things Actually Can Get Worse for the Liberal Democrats
For the first time since the creation of the modern London Assembly, the Liberal Democrats have gone into fourth place in both the Mayoral and London-wide Assembly races, with the Green party finishing ahead in both. Brian Paddick was close to finishing in fifth place behind independent Siobhan Benita, who didn't really get that much coverage here in London.
Nation-wide, the Lib Dems lost nearly half of the council seats they were defending, and according to my seat projection from last week (see the right hand column for that), they would lose over half of their MPs if a general election were held now. Their share of the vote is around the same as it was last year, but there are still several councils which haven't gone up since the 2010 election, which provides plenty more room for them to lose seats and councils. Lib Dems, and certainly Nick Clegg himself, will have to ask if he can stay on as leader by the 2015 general election.
Second Preferences Really Don't Matter Much
In London mayoral elections, voters vote for a first and second choice candidate, and if no candidate gets more than 50% of the first preference, the top two candidates move on and receive any second preference votes coming from the eliminated candidates.
In London, only 53% of the votes cast for someone other Boris or Ken went to one of these two in the second preferences. While we don't know yet where the rest of them went, it suggests a large lead in the first preference votes will typically be sufficient to win. Further onto that, the difference in the second preference votes was only around 20,000, which only reduced Boris's lead from 3.7% in first preferences to 3.1% after second preferences.
A similar trend can be observed in the previous three mayoral elections, which suggests to me that the result of the first preference has to be within 1% for the second preference votes to have any chance of impacting the overall result.
Apathy Came Out On Top
The turnout in London was a disappointing 38%. It was 23% in Manchester, and in the 20s in the various wards of Dudley. I couldn't find any aggregated turnout figures for the entire UK (might start compiling this myself if I get time), but if this is any indication, it's rather disappointing.
If I were to hazard a guess, I would guess that this is because people don't see how their lives would be that much different whether they live in a Labour or a Conservative council. Local councils have little powers - mostly transit, public housing, and various services - and with the possible exception of London (where the mayor is very high-profile), they probably wouldn't notice that much of a difference on the ground. In the case of London, I'm going to guess that this is because of the large number of people turned off by both Boris and Ken who couldn't be bothered to turn up to vote.
Britain Isn't Interested in Electoral Change
Ten cities in England held referendums asking whether they want a directly elected mayor as opposed to a leader elected by the council. With the exception of Bristol, all of these cities rejected the idea.
This, on top of the failed AV referendum last year, suggests to me that the priorities of the everyday Brit is not exactly with electoral change. It seems to rest in more sensible areas such as jobs, the economy, and at the local level, transit and housing.
I'm curious why the government has chosen now to look at these changes to how our country is run. Surely these are good debates to have, but in the middle of a double dip recession, there are other things that the British people would rather hear about.
Are you pleased with the result of the vote in London and elsewhere up and down the UK? Have your say and comment below.
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