The local election results are coming in. The Conservative party is watching closely, perhaps searching for a pretext to act against their leader. The early indications suggest Labour will thrash the Tories and that there is little, if any, comfort for the Tories in the national share of the vote. Labour turned around a vast deficit to win the Blackpool South by-election, where Reform – worryingly for the government – almost pushed the Conservative party into third place. As I write it is still early not too early for Sir John Curtice to have delivered his verdict: “You’re probably looking at one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performance in local government elections for the last 40 years”.
There will be a lot more to be said once the picture has been fully drawn. But there is one aspect of the results which will be notable, as it usually is. For elections on which so much rests, it is worth remarking that so few people will vote. Turnout in local elections is almost always pitiful. In 2021, across all types of local authority turnout at elections was just 36.1 per cent. There has been a steady decline since the reorganisation of local government in 1973, from which time comparable data exist. These are elections, remember, for the local politicians who will run social care, schools, libraries, housing and planning, waste collection, licensing, business support, registrar services, pest control. They are elections with a quarter of all public spending in Britain at stake. And that’s without considering the national political consequences. It’s a big deal and yet, to be blunt about it, hardly anyone cares.
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