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LONDON — “It’s like Basra after we bombed it.”
That was the stark verdict of one dismayed Stoke-on-Trent resident this week as they rated the city’s roads ahead of crucial local elections.
Voters head to the polls to choose councillors in more than 8,000 seats on 230 councils across England Thursday. Local elections, typically, are more likely to be determined by voters’ takes on tarmac, trash, graffiti and street lighting rather than who should lead the country.
Reading across from local polls to glean general elections insight is fraught with danger, as experts and activists try to remind everyone at this time of year.
Yet after 13 years of Conservative rule at Westminster, and with Keir Starmer’s Labour continuing to outpace Rishi Sunak’s governing party in the national opinion polls, the line between the local and the national is blurring.
Between two walls
Labour and Conservative insiders are managing expectations ahead of the big day.
Labour officials insist 400 gains would be a good night — far fewer than suggested in some quarters — while the Conservative Party top brass has stuck rigidly to a warning by the Oxford academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher that 1,000 council seats could be lost.
It’s widely acknowledged that the Tories should do somewhat better than the grimmest predictions, however, with Thrasher specifying that limiting the number of seats lost to below 500 will leave Conservatives thinking they’ve actually had a good night.
Yet Tories on the campaign trail report a general feeling of malaise among voters after 13 years of Conservative-led government. In turn, Labour officials are concerned about the introduction of mandatory voter ID for the first time.
“It’s making life a lot harder for us,” said one Labour campaigner. “We’re having to expend energy which would normally be used to persuade people to vote for us on sorting out ID problems.”
Liberal Democrats — who often go toe-to-toe with the Tories in more affluent areas — appear buoyant in contrast. Deputy leader Daisy Cooper confidently predicted on the eve of the election that “senior Conservative MPs are in for a big shock tomorrow.”
A senior Conservative adviser, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly, admitted the ruling party was “feeling the pressure” in both the “red wall” areas the party snatched from Labour in 2019, as well as in the “blue wall” — historically Conservative areas where the Lib Dems are a real threat. A number of other officials in this article also asked not to be identified, as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Tories expect to be challenged too by the Green Party expanding beyond its metropolitan base — and a high number of independent candidates creates an extra layer of unpredictability for the Conservatives.
Tory MPs in seats that heavily support Brexit point out how independents are standing on anti-migrant tickets, and promising to drive out asylum seekers. That may in part explain a hardline clampdown on asylum by Sunak’s government at a national level.
‘See you later’
While potholes and Christmas lights are among local priorities still high on the agenda, activists across the political spectrum say voters are citing wider national concerns too.
A Tory councillor for a part of the north-west where the Conservatives have traditionally held a handful of seats said he expected his group to be “wiped out” because of “a general sense that ‘things aren’t going well and you lot have had enough time to sort it out, so see you later.’”
“There’s a palpable sense that nothing really works,” he added. Inflation in the U.K. remains sky-high, while millions face long waits to see a doctor and schools are forced to shut as teachers go out on strike.
Chris Curtis, the Labour parliamentary candidate in Conservative-held Milton Keynes, said: “Elections are often about risk, and when you’re in a situation where nothing works already, then turning away from the Conservatives feels less risky.”
In the leafy Cotswolds, Lib Dem councillor Joe Harris said “we’re encountering a lot of general dissatisfaction with public services and the NHS, so you’ve got national issues coming up more and more.”
The big question is whether Sunak can counter that decline narrative in time to make a meaningful difference when the general election rolls along by 2025.
Narrow path
From blocking migration to cutting health service waiting lists, Sunak’s to-do list remains a daunting one, and his MPs fear they are running out of time.
One red wall MP said: “People need to see tangible change in their communities that they can point at and say, ‘the government invested in my town when no one else would.’”
Where Sunak’s MPs seem more confident is in the prime minister’s ability to avoid the high-level psychodrama which has dogged the party in recent years.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt told POLITICO that under Sunak the Conservatives were restoring their credibility. “He’s got us back on the starting grid — we’ve done a few laps and we’re starting to close that gap.”
When the Conservatives lost control of key councils in London and the south of England at local elections last year, it was against the backdrop of deep turmoil over Boris Johnson’s leadership.
“When the last set of local elections landed, we were in a total mess,” commented another Conservative MP. “This time the party is more united and hopeful — even Rishi’s harshest critics have to admit he’s doing a good job.”
They pointed to a phrase used by the party’s election guru Isaac Levido — the “narrow path to victory” — which they said Tory MPs were now focused on.
“That route to victory will require the Conservatives to deliver on those five pledges by the prime minister, and for us to deliver locally on the ground that leveling up agenda,” said Jonathan Gullis, Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.
No done deal for Labour
Labour too has its own big questions to answer, with a sense the party has yet to seal the deal with voters.
Paula Surridge, professor of political sociology at Bristol University, said one thing to watch this week will be people’s willingness to vote for alternatives: “Are the electorate still declaring ‘a plague on both your houses’, or ready for a new government that they think only Labour can provide?”
Tories are reassuring themselves that while voters may be cheesed off, it’s not yet clear they are willing to make the leap and embrace the opposition. Starmer is rarely mentioned on the doorstep, two of his own activists said.
A shadow minister observed: “People are fed up with the Tories, and they’re not hostile to Labour — unlike in 2019, which was the worst election I’ve ever experienced. But that willingness to have a conversation hasn’t translated into enthusiasm for us yet.”
If Labour can make progress beyond their last local elections high point in 2012, when they hit 38 percent of projected vote national share, they can begin to hope change really is afoot.
Emilio Casalicchio reported from Stoke-on-Trent.
