Do the results and Projected National Vote Share (PNS) indicate Labour is en route to Government?

Based on the votes cast at these elections, Professor John Curtice calculated a Projected National Share (PNS) of the vote of 34% for Labour and 25% for the Conservatives.

At first glance, this appears encouraging for the Tories and was seized upon by some party sources as evidence that the Labour lead is not as insurmountable as current national polls suggest. However, this position does not hold up under scrutiny. Extrapolating a national vote share based on local elections is useful to understand how people have voted in a particular set of local contests – but it does not follow that this is how people will vote at a General Election.

PNS figures have not traditionally been a very good barometer of how people will vote at ensuing General Elections. People vote differently in local contests and smaller parties and independents tend to fare better than at General Elections. The PNS had the Lib Dem vote at 17% and votes for “Others” including the Greens at 24%, figures which are unlikely to be borne out at the General Election. While there may be comfort for theConservatives in the relatively modest 34% PNS figure for Labour, it should also be tempered by the fact that 25% is the lowest PNS for the Conservatives in any local elections since 1995.

Has the Prime Minister earned a stay of execution?  

For Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Thursday’s elections presented potentially the greatest moment of jeopardy for his premiership so far. For now, the imminent prospect of any Conservative leadership challenge and a summer General Election appears to be off the cards. This is in part due to the beneficial timing of the announcement of Ben Houchen’s victory in Tees Valley on Friday and wild briefing in the media that the Conservatives were over-performing in London, helping Sunak brush off rebellion and head into the weekend. However, the actual results that trickled in over the weekend saw the Conservatives lose the bellwether West Midlands Mayoral Election and 474council seats across the country, approaching the worst-case scenario 500losses that had been pre-briefed in an effort at expectation management. Perhaps most concerning was that despite holding onto the Tees Valley region, the swing against the Conservatives there was actually greater than the swing which ousted Andy Street from the West Midlands mayoralty.

Reacting to the results, former Home Secretary and cheerleader of the Conservative right-wing Suella Braverman stated that there was insufficient time to replace the leader before a General Election, hence the onus on Sunak to rectify the situation. The divide between Braverman and fellow Conservative MPs on the right of the party and the Government over the potential course of action is clear. However, the scale of the results has precipitated some re-calibration of the Conservative strategy for the upcoming General Election. The team around the Prime Minister and Conservative campaign directorIsaac Levido are reportedly looking to an aggressive shift away from its original “80/20” strategy of defending 80% of Conservative seats and “going after” ~20% of seats in Labour’s hands, to a new core vote strategy. The manoeuvre to be outlined to MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates this week, could see further unexpected policy changes between now and the autumn.

What are the other parties taking from Thursday’s results?

For the minor parties, it is the Lib Dems who have undoubtedly made the most significant strides, adding 104 councillors to their tally and bringing their total number of councillors to 522 putting them in second place for this year’s set of results ahead of the Conservatives. The election proved favourable for the party in securing council seats in areas they’re now looking to focus in on in the General Election including inTunbridge Wells and Dorset. However, they were unable to gain control of WestOxfordshire and Wokingham, both of which were target areas. The Green Party added over 70 seats to their count, including 10 on Bristol City Council, a key target for the Westminster election. The party has seen an increase in voteshare in areas dominated by Labour, particularly benefitting in areas with ahigh Muslim population as the Labour Party comes under pressure over its stance on the conflict in Israel and Gaza. 

Evaluating the Reform Party performance is the hardest to do so in this set of local elections, with the party only managing to win a couple of council seats, fielding a considerably lower number of candidates than other parties. However, its performances in recent Parliamentary by-elections coupled with a steady 8-10% in national opinion polls have still been enough to cause concern among Conservative MPs.