Local elections

‘We’re trapped between the two worlds,’ said a Labour worker during the last days of the party’s ill-fated Hartlepool by-election campaign. She meant Labour was strapped for cash, lacking the many small donations that came with Jeremy Corbyn and the big donors who backed Tony Blair. Her comment, however, had a wider relevance. In trying to keep hold of younger, middle-class metropolitan voters who already supported Labour while also attracting back older, small town working-class voters who have abandoned the party over recent elections, the various contests held on Thursday showed Keir Starmer was unable to do either. With the Brexit divide still reinforcing ongoing demographic trends that have seen

Sir Keir Starmer has just accepted that Labour needs to ‘change’ and ‘reconnect’ with voters, following the Hartlepool by-election result. In a rather stressed and evasive TV interview, the Labour leader repeatedly said his party needed to change, but refused to say whether there would be a reshuffle, or indeed what the party’s message would be. He insisted that this went ‘beyond’ a reshuffle or other questions of personnel. The reason that Starmer was asked so often about whether there would be a reshuffle is that many in his party are pressing for a number of big changes. The three people in the firing line are shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds,

The government has bowed to the inevitable and announced that May’s local and Mayoral elections have been postponed. With the Chief Scientific Advisor saying that the coronavirus peak is 10 to 14 weeks away, it was hard to see how you could have had an election campaign within that period. As I said in the Sun last Saturday, Whitehall has been braced for a delay to these elections for a while now. They will now not take place until 2021, meaning that there’ll be no immediate electoral test for the new Labour leader. These elections won’t be the last event to be postponed. The current thinking among those leading the government’s

After a disappointing local election result for Labour last week, politicians were quick to blame the party’s Brexit ambiguity for the net loss they suffered. Labour councillors in Sunderland and Barnsley said talk of a second referendum had been unhelpful on the doorstep. Meanwhile, MPs including Jess Phillips suggested that a clearer call for a so-called People’s Vote would boost support for the party. Downing Street hoped they could capitalise on the party’s Brexit worries by convincing the Labour frontbench to back some form of Brexit deal in order to bring the matter to a close. However, the view in Labour a week on is rather different. Coffee House has been

At the end of today, the Tory party will have had a terrible night – perhaps losing as many as 1,000 councillors in England, compared with a worst-case projection (by Tory peer Rob Hayward) of 800 defeats. But that may not end up being the big news: it is not exactly a revelation that vast numbers of Tory supporters are incandescent that the Prime Minister has failed to deliver Brexit yet. A majority of Tory MPs wanted Theresa May to resign before yesterday’s elections; they still want her out. Nothing has changed, as she would say. Much more significant is that Labour too is losing seats. And even though the

Next week, the Tories will face their first big electoral test since failing to deliver Brexit on time. On Thursday, the local elections take place – with 9,000 seats up for grabs. While the focus in recent weeks has been on the European elections next month – which will see Nigel Farage’s Brexit party and the pro-EU Change UK field candidates – these votes ought to give a hint of how deep the hole the Tories find themselves in really is. With Labour consistently leading in recent polls, the Tories are predicted to lose seats next week. However, owing to the timing of the election, there wasn’t time for the

I live in Wandsworth. It’s nice. That’s not a political comment, just an observation on the borough. OK, it’s not edgy or cool or even wildly imaginative, but neither am I. It is also the sort of place the Tories should win at a canter. There’s a reason it’s called a flagship council, after all. It’s still Conservative today and Tories are celebrating that: Theresa May has been in the borough lauding “success” and noting that Labour threw a lot of resources at Wandsworth and appeared to believe that it really might turn the borough red. Of course, a win’s a win and nothing else really matters, but I can’t

Next Saturday had long been circled in Tory plotters’ diaries as the date on which the next effort to remove Theresa May would begin. But as I say in The Sun this morning, even May’s most ardent Tory critics now accept that next week’s local elections aren’t going to lead to her downfall. Why, because expectations are so low for the Tories that they are almost bound to surpass them. (May’s own position is also stronger than it was in January thanks to her handling of the Salisbury attack.) Tory insiders now believe that they are likely to hold one of their London flagship councils, Westminster and Wandsworth. This combined

In this week’s episode, we talk about red London – just how badly will the Tories do in the upcoming local elections, and why do people love Sadiq Khan? We also talk about the end of Macron’s political honeymoon, and the death of the Grand Tour. As national headlines are dominated by Jeremy Corbyn, local Labour candidates are preparing for a sweeping victory through London’s upcoming local elections. Will Heaven, the Spectator’s Managing Editor, writes in this week’s cover that ‘the Tories are braced for disaster’. Why is London turning red? Joining him is Andrew Gilligan, senior correspondent at the Sunday Times, who writes in this week’s magazine that Sadiq

Will Russia disrupt the local elections? That’s the question being asked in Westminster. But rather than worries over Russian meddling and subterfuge, the issue at hand is whether Jeremy Corbyn’s questionable response to the attempted murder of a former Russian double agent on British soil will help boost the Conservative vote come May. Those local elections are expected to be a blood bath for the Tories, with Labour predicted to win big – particularly in the capital. The Conservatives are so worried about the vote that the managing expectations operations includes suggesting that it would be a disappointing night for Labour if the party didn’t win every London council. But in