Small issues – the construction of a hated roundabout or an outbreak of pot holes – can matter a lot at local elections. This year however the mood is different. Traumatised by Brexit, voters have been itching to vent their frustrations at the ballot box one way or another. With the two main parties in the stocks, today’s polls could be a golden opportunity for the most established small party, the Lib Dems.
It would certainly be a long time coming. The party once known as the “yellow peril” lost 750 seats in 2011, then a further 400 in 2015. Broken promises over tuition fees, combined with a general distaste among its core voters at their coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour, their more natural bedfellows, has led to a perception of the Lib Dems as wolves in sheeps’ clothing; the contrarian’s party which promised a cosy third way, but sold its soul at the first taste of real power.
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