T.R.O.Y wrote:I wouldn't underestimate the depths of ill feeling people of my generation feel towards the Tory party. Local elections in May will reveal a lot as to where people are at the moment. My feeling is that with brexit going the way it is, the Tories will not come out of this with much credibility from either side.
To be a bit technical, local elections are not like for like with the General Elections and work on a four yearly cycle.
Basically there are two types of authorities, the big ones like the London Boroughs, Metropolitans and County Councils, and the smaller ones like the Districts.
The districts have a choice of all seats standing for an election, or, just a third of seats standing over three consecutive elections (with no elections taking place in the fourth year - local election terms lasting for four years). Some authorities do it by halves to further complicate things.
And just to confuse things even more most of the unitary authorities stand in thirds as well!
So what I'm trying to get to is you need to look back to the 2014 elections and the things that were happening back then to get an idea of what the outcome of the forthcoming elections might be.
Just to compound things the 2014 elections took place at the same time as the European Elections and broadly speaking people tend to vote the same way in both of the individual elections taking place on that day.
The 2018 election cycle is the one where the big authorities electorate will be voting in.
For the record Labour did well in the 2014 elections -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2014And of course UKIP did well in the EU elections -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014_(United_Kingdom)(Note - All the country voted in the EU's and not just limited to those councils standing for the 2014 local elections.
So what I'm trying to say is that the Conservative party may not do as badly as people may expect because they start from a low position anyway because Labour had won mostly in 2014 - and thus are defending more seats than the Conservatives - and consequently the seats they (the Conservatives) are defending are more likely to be more hard core blue seats with more solid underlying support than the more normal 'swing seats' that the Labour party probably won a majority of them back last time they stood (and will probably win again this time around also).
Add to this that London were one of the few places that voted Remain, are standing this time - and are already Labour held in the first place - so it is unlikely that there is vast room for them to claim a great many more seats here in any event.
All fascinating stuff, eh?