Do the Tories want to lose London?

The Labour plotters who dream of ousting Jeremy Corbyn had high hopes for the local elections on 5 May. They envisaged a moment of humiliation for their leader in Scotland, Wales and England; a moment that would prove beyond doubt that the party’s leftwards lurch had narrowed its appeal and consigned it to the electoral wilderness. A good time, in other words, to stage a coup. Corbyn’s loyalists, for their part, had been preparing to blame the rebels and their constant sniping. Neither side imagined what now looks likely: that Labour might soon be celebrating a stunning victory in London.

The party is expecting a sharp decline in its total number of English council seats. This is quite a failing for a party in opposition: Labour has only twice before managed to lose council seats when not in government: in 1982, after the formation of the SDP broke the party in half, and in the local elections that followed the 1984–85 miners’ strike. A third failure would be bad news for Corbyn and his apparatchiks, who claim to be one of the most successful oppositions in history. In the elections for the Scottish Parliament, too, Labour finds itself in the humiliating position of having to vie with the Tories for second place. And in Wales it faces not just a Tory renaissance but a Ukip surge.

There are plenty of excuses. A Labour wipeout in Scotland could be written off as the result of decades of complacency and neglect. Problems in Wales can be put down to a backlash against being in government. And Corbyn could well blame his ‘Blairite’ critics in Parliament for poor English local election results — a huge compliment to the Labour rebels, given how few voters can name any of them.