Thoughts on the local elections

Posted by Liam Scott-Smith, NLGN on May 26th, 2010

The recent local elections were somewhat overshadowed by the general election and the subsequent back room haggling. Labour, it’s fair to say, should be considered the biggest winners of the local elections on the 7th May but the top line figures don’t tell the whole story. Whilst London gave Labour its strongest showing alongside the met boroughs there was little else for them to get excited about. The Liberal Democrats had the most disappointing evening. Despite their national poll explosion and ‘Cleggmania’ they weren’t able to translate this upsurge of popular support into votes at the ballot box. (Judging from the eve of poll polling, where every pollster by varying degrees overestimated the Lib Dem share of the vote, their support did seem to fall away on the day as people had a last minute change of heart in a ‘better the devil you know’ moment.)

The increased turnout due to the general election helped Labour in its stronger areas regain councillors who had previously paid the price for long term national incumbency. However, the Labour campaign should be credited for the strategic decision made on where to draw the front line. Unlike the Conservatives in 1997, who spread their resources too thin and tried to fight a wider board, Labour fought the battles it could win and targeted resource on areas which would provide most value for their investment.

David Cameron and the Conservatives had by the far the best of the general election results although in the locals saw 12 councils slip from their control. In reality this does little to change the national picture of council control with the Conservatives still the dominate force in Town Hall politics having more councillors than Labour and the Liberal Democrats combined. This is unlikely to change dramatically over the next couple of years due to the electoral cycle but their continued poor performance in the met boroughs remains a concern. The lack of sitting councillors is debilitating to building local associations and ultimately mounting a serious challenge for the parliamentary seats in those areas. Maybe the plan for directly elected mayors in a number of these places will act as an antidote to this and provide the Conservatives with a much needed foot in the door.

All in all, a set of fairly inconclusive results locally for what turned out to be a thoroughly inconclusive result nationally.

The temptation for Labour to run the ‘springboard for success’ sound bite must be palpable in light of their London success but I would suggest restraint. It’s clear that their core vote is coming back together in their strongholds but this is no more than the beginning of the gradual realignment of traditional support. The district council elections next year will provide a real test for all political parties but especially Labour who control only six district councils to the Conservatives one hundred and thirty five. If we see major inroads in 2011 then maybe its time to talk about ‘springboards’ and ‘success’ but until then we should remember that whilst Labour had a good night locally the Conservatives by no means had a bad one.


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Comments

  • Gardmal

    Inspection is alway a burden and while in theory it should be a tool to improve services through the disemmination of good practice, bench marking and testing it ends up being nothing of the sort. The fear of the inspector calling simply means that those being inspected tidies-up but reverts to their bad old ways as soon as the inspector has reported. There is a quick flurry of reading reports prior to inspection and some consultants can make good money out of pre-inspections. That is really just getting someone in to tell you what needs tidying.

    The Inspectors themselves create an industry around the inspection. Spin-off consultancy to help councils to put things right. What is wrong, I ask, with plain old audit, to ensure the public is not being conned and thereafter letter the citizen's decide whether they are getting a good value for their money. I can not think of a single Audit Commission KLOE report that has been in anyway useful. The more they publish the less interest anyone has in the report. The report on Forest of Dean made page ten of the Local Paper. It did not tell the Council anything that it did not already know. Most of the recommedations were already in hand before the inspectors arrived. The Commission set the agenda rather that letting elected members and the public decide.

    These inspections are disruptive and a waste of resources. Time they were stopped. And while we are at it, we should stop the Audit Commission selling (in a very uncompetitive way) its services. These are things that can be done much better by the private sector. They should be stripped back and concentrate on its core business.


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