Local election review: Great Yarmouth

Ask which councils in the East of England represent Labour’s best chances of a change in control and most observers will answer Thurrock, Harlow and Norwich.  Great Yarmouth is often missed off the list of prospects, but with a 22-16 split (with one Independent retiring in an otherwise Labour seat), Labour needs just four gains to take back control for the first time since 2000.

Perhaps the easiest pick up will be regaining the seat that is up in Claydon, where former Labour councillor turned Independent Mike Taylor is standing down.  The party should retake this historically Labour seat. 

In the remaining twelve wards electing councillors next week, Labour and the Conservatives are defending four and eight seats respectively.  Labour should be confident in Magdalen ward where they are hoping to turn the third seat in that ward from blue to red.  In the corresponding election in this ward last year, the party took a seat from the Conservatives with a majority of nearly 400 votes.

Labour faces a tougher battle in Bradwell North and Yarmouth North, where Conservative majorities of between 200 and 250 need to be overturned.  Victories in both of these seats are necessary to give Labour a chance of gaining control of the council and would indicate that the party is beginning to pick itself up after losing the parliamentary seat in 2010. 

Labour is also very competitive in the two Caister wards (North and South), but neither has elections this year – allowing Labour to focus its resources across fewer target wards, but restricting the viable wards in which it can make the gains necessary.

It is difficult to judge Labour’s prospects in these elections, although the issue at hand would appear to be whether Labour can make sufficient gains to take control rather than whether it will make any gains.  That would be an improvement on last year, when a solitary gain for Labour in St Andrews ward was offset by the loss of a seat in Caister South. 

Local election review: Crawley

Whether you are looking at local or parliamentary elections, electoral politics in Crawley are currently dominated by a battle between the two main parties: Labour and the Conservatives.

In parliamentary terms Crawley was for many years a solidly Conservative seat - though more because the town wasn't big enough for a seat of its own and so took in most of what is now Nicholas Soames' Sussex Mid. The growth of Crawley meant the loss of more rural and nearby commuter belt towns and the national swing in 1997 ensured Laura Moffat took the seat for Labour. She retained the seat comfortably in 2001 but held on by the smallest margin in the 2005 election: just 37 votes. A comprehensive Conservative victory two years ago took the seat back into the Conservative fold.

Labour has a better track record in local elections in Crawley, running the council from 1973 until 2006. A period of Conservative control since then was punctuated by a time in which no party held overall control. That outcome seems unlikely as a result of this year’s elections, especially as it seems certain that all 37 seats will continue to be held by the two main parties.

Labour and the Conservatives are defending four and nine seats respectively. Of the Conservative seats up for election, Maidenblower and the two Pound Hill wards can all be listed as safe for the Conservatives. Three Bridges, whilst not safe, is certainly a Labour long shot with the Conservatives enjoying a near 400 vote majority in this ward in 2011.

Labour’s best prospects lie in the four Conservative wards of Gossops Green, Ifield, Southgate and Tilgate. Ifield switched back to Labour in the 2011 local elections, although only by 38 votes. Labour isn’t taking another gain here for granted and is campaigning hard in the ward, as demonstrated by the recent visit of party deputy leader, Harriet Harman. In Southgate, Tilgate and Gossops Green Labour will be hoping to fare better than it did 12 months ago, when the Conservatives retained all three seats by fewer than 100 votes (& in the case of Gossops Green, by just 5). Three wards could be determined by as few as two hundred votes – something both parties recognise as they campaign hard to get out their vote.

With a 24-13 Conservative advantage on the council, Labour seems unlikely to retake control of Crawley in two weeks time. But posting gains in target wards like Tilgate and Southgate will demonstrate that Labour in Crawley has regained its winning ways and that will encourage the party as it turns its attention to the parliamentary contest of 2015.

Local election review: Swindon

Lewis Baston, senior research fellow at Democratic Audit, has kindly authored a review of the whole council elections taking place in Swindon in May. This is an extra review in addition to our scheduled "Ten to watch", where we think control of the council may change in Labour's favour.

Swindon has been one of the fastest-growing towns in Britain. It has two marginal Parliamentary seats which were both gained by the Conservatives from Labour in 2010, the North seat on a huge (10 per cent) swing, and the South seat more narrowly. Since 1974 Swindon has gone to the winning party in every election, except for a Labour hold in 1979. The Swindon seats are exactly the sort of places where Labour needs to be competitive again.

Although the Conservatives currently have a large majority on the council, this is at risk because there are boundary changes and every seat on the council is up for election this May. While this creates an opportunity for Labour, the boundary changes also help the Conservatives by creating new wards in areas of high population growth in north Swindon, particularly the Abbey Meads area. These areas have produced a strong Tory vote in recent elections, in contrast to the older estates and terraces where the Labour wards are located.

Before 2000, Swindon had been solidly Labour at local council level but the growth and demographic change in the town, plus the effects of a long period of Labour rule at a national level, shifted it towards the Tories in local elections. After four years of no overall control the Conservatives gained a majority in 2004 and built up a dominant position in successive local elections. Labour made a partial recovery in 2011, reducing the Conservative lead in votes to 2.6 per cent (although two small Tory wards did not have elections) and the Tory advantage in seats to 10-9, with one Lib Dem. Labour has to do better than in 2011 in order to win Swindon, and the boundary changes do not help, and it is a tough but possible target. National trends will determine the results, but a lot of the gloss has come off what was previously a Tory flagship council with the failure of its project to roll out free Wifi to the entire town.

A fairly superficial look at the new ward boundaries suggests the following political alignments:

SAFE CONSERVATIVE (18 seats) Blunsdon & Highworth, Chiseldon & Lawn, Old Town, Priory Vale, Ridgeway, St Andrews, Wroughton & Wichelstowe
REASONABLY SAFE CONSERVATIVE (9 seats) Haydon Wick, St Margaret & South Marston, Shaw

SAFE LABOUR (6 seats) Central, Gorse Hill & Pinehurst
LEANS LABOUR (9 seats) Liden, Eldene & Park South, Penhill & Upper Stratton, Walcot & Park North
MARGINAL to Labour (6 seats) Mannington & Western, Rodbourne Cheney

MARGINAL (6 seats) Covingham & Dorcan, Lydiard & Freshbrook
MARGINAL (Lib Dem v Labour) (3 seats) Eastcott

There are therefore 27 Tory seats, 21 Labour and 9 marginals, assuming that Labour isn't cutting into what I've termed 'reasonably safe' Tory seats, and that the Conservatives won't do better than they did in 2011. The other assumption is my pretty rough translation of old wards into new ones. Swindon is a tough ask for Labour, and perhaps a ‘nice to have’ rather than a key target in 2012. But the party has to get back in the driving seat in places like Swindon to win a general election.

Local election review: Exeter

With 19 of Exeter’s 40 councillors, Labour needs just two gains to take outright control of the council. They will get that – and more – or otherwise will feel somewhat disappointed. With only three seats to defend Labour is competitive in up to eight of the remaining eleven contests. Prioritising resources and avoiding overreach in one seat at the expense of another will be critical for the Labour campaign.

Labour looks on course to win its two seats in Alphington and Exwick, seats it took from the Liberal Democrats in 2011, both contests in which the Liberal Democrats slipped from first to third place. Other target seats include St James and St Thomas where the Liberal Democrats held off a Labour challenge in 2011 by as few as 85 and 77 votes. Labour should be confident that it can make the breakthrough this time around, and will be helped by the fact that the sitting Liberal Democrat councillor in St James is standing down.

With six of their nine councillors up for re-election, the Liberal Democrats face a very difficult election. Indeed, there is the very real prospect of defeat in every one of the seats they are defending. The four seats referred to above are all highly vulnerable and they also look shaky in St David’s where Labour needs to close a 200 vote gap. In Pennsylvania the Conservatives must also fancy their chances to regain a seat in a ward that whilst predominantly Liberal Democrat in recent elections, has elected a Conservative councillor as recently as 2006.

But it isn’t just the Liberal Democrats that Labour is challenging in these elections. Labour is also competitive in a number of Conservative held seats in the city, where the latter are the official opposition on the council. Having snatched a seat from the Conservatives in Pinhoe in 2010 by the narrowest of margins (4 votes), Labour are looking to do the same again this time around, but without the tension of a number of recounts. In those same elections two years ago Labour fell short in Polsoe but by fewer than 100 votes and if this is an election in which Labour has momentum locally, then a gain here isn’t out of the question.

The Conservatives have their own target seats and in addition to Pennsylvania, are in pole position to take the seat being vacated by veteran councillor Joan Morrish, the authority’s sole Liberal (as opposed to Liberal Democrat), who retires after 20 years as in office.

Along with Thurrock, Exeter is one of Labour’s most likely council gains this year. With plenty of seats to target it seems unlikely that the party will fail to make the gains it needs to win outright control.

Local election review: Cambridge

Cambridge has been a Conservative-free city since Labour’s victory in the Coleridge by election in 2010 denied the Conservatives their last remaining seat in the council. The authority is dominated by the ruling Liberal Democrats, who have 25 of the 42 seats, and Labour, with 14. The Greens and a solitary independent make up the remainder of the council.

Of the ten councils we are profiling Cambridge is the only one that represents a straight fight between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Given the national unpopularity of the junior partners in the Coalition, Labour should be confident of a good set of results in May. Despite that don’t expect Labour to record a gain here: in addition to holding the four seats we are defending, we need an additional eight seats to take outright control. Most likely here is Labour gaining East Chesterton, King’s Hedges and Romsey – seats that all recorded Labour gains from the Lib Dems in last year’s city council elections. Labour's prospects have been boosted by the defection of two leading Liberal Democrats in recent weeks.

Despite the electoral challenge facing Labour if it is to take outright control, the party is clearly serious in its intentions as its local manifesto - A Fairer, Safer, Cleaner, Greener and more Prosperous Cambridge - confirms.

Cambridge is another southern council with a small Green group – in this case, two councillors in Abbey ward. The ward elected a Labour councillor in 2011 and it will be interesting to see whether Labour’s Richard Johnson can snatch a seat back from the Greens in a ward that was historically Labour until 2008.

In 1992 Cambridge elected its first Labour MP since 1966 when Anne Campbell took the seat from the Conservatives . She polled over 50% in the landslide of 1997 and held it with a reduced majority in 2001, but was comprehensively defeated in 2005 on a 15% swing to the Liberal Democrats. In this university city, Iraq and tuition fees took their toll on the party. Labour’s parliamentary fortunes worsened in 2010 when Daniel Zeichner was pushed into third place with just 24%.

An improvement in Labour’s parliamentary fortunes in the city is reliant on winning back progressive voters to its banner. How well placed the party is to do this will be evident in the results next month.

Local election review: Plymouth

Labour needs to win four seats to win control of Plymouth City Council from the Conservatives, and is targeting the wards of Moor View, Southway, St Budeaux and Stoke for their gains. All four seats fell to the Conservatives in the electoral Annus Horribilis of 2008 when the Conservatives won 14 of the 18 seats up for election in the city that year. Labour comfortably won contests in all four wards last year (in St Budeaux by over 1000 votes) and should complete a clean sweep again next month. The Conservative Party’s task has been made all the harder by the defection to UKIP of its councillor in Southway, who is standing again. Labour will also be hopeful that it will prevail in St Peter and the Waterfront, a Conservative seat it won in a by election last year.

Achieving these four gains would only give Labour a slender one seat majority so the party will be looking to extend its majority with an extra gain or two elsewhere in the city; it is worth watching the result in Budshead where a Conservative majority of over 700 in 2008 was whittled down to just a little over 100 last year.

While the two Plymstock seats are not targets for Labour this time around, their results will be eagerly anticipated by those with an eye on the newly drawn Plymouth Sutton constituency, as the wards form part of the new boundary. Large parts were Labour until the 2010 general election.

This is an electoral contest that is essentially a two-way fight between Labour and the Conservatives, although UKIP are contesting every ward. The Liberal Democrats are a weak force locally and are only contesting 10 seats. They have no councillors on the council.

Labour is fielding a strong team in 2012 but it is worth highlighting one candidate in particular: Kate Taylor will become Labour – and the city’s – youngest ever councillor if she wins in Devonport, where she is favoured to retain the seat for Labour.

The Conservative campaign is being hampered by the council’s unpopular sale of CityBus, the former publicly-owned bus company in Plymouth, and their support for the plans to build a massive incinerator near homes in Devonport. Labour is running a strong and highly professional campaign in Plymouth and doing everything that is to be expected of a party serious about retaking control of the council. The launch of an impressive manifesto is one sign of this, as is the regular phone canvassing sessions held in London that allow activist there to support this important South West target. That works looks like being rewarded come 3rd May.

Local election review: Reading

With recent visits from shadow cabinet members Ed Balls and Caroline Flint, Labour locally must be confident that the party will gain overall control of Reading Council next month, and with only two gains required that confidence seems well placed. But closer inspection of the wards up for election, and the pattern of local results in these wards since 2008 when these seats were last contested, suggests that Labour’s task isn’t quite as straight forward as the maths suggests.

The three obvious target wards for Labour are Redlands, Katesgrove and Church. Labour lost in all three wards when these seats were fought in 2008, with the Liberal Democrats claiming victory in Redlands and Katesgrove and the Conservatives picking up Church. Four years on and all three should produce relatively straight forward victories for Labour given the party won in each of the wards in question in last year’s local elections (with comfortable majorities ranging from 300-600).

Although Labour made three gains in 2011 it failed to take outright control of the council because it was unable to win back seats in three other wards that it lost in 2008: Caversham, Kentwood and Peppard (all won by the Conservatives). Indeed, Reading Labour was someway off regaining these seats, coming closest in Kentwood where it missed out by 210 votes but falling short by a considerable 1438 votes in Peppard*.

Labour is fielding three experienced candidates in its targets wards, two of whom are former councillors – Rose Williams in Katesgrove and popular local Unison official, Tony Jones in Redlands. In Church Eileen McElligott is engaged in a tense and controversial contest with ex Labour turned Conservative councillor, Anzam Janjua.

Labour is also fighting a defensive campaign in at least one ward. In 2011 the party lost a seat to the Greens in Park ward and there must be a real concern that the Greens who have two of the ward’s three councillors, may complete the full set.

Clearly a good result for Labour is for the party to take outright control and despite the factors mentioned above, this looks the most likely outcome. But a genuinely good result on the night would see Labour not only win in its three target wards but regain a seat in Kentwood and stop the Green surge in park ward.

* AMENDMENT: Peppard was a Conservative gain from Lib Dems in 2008 and hasnt ever elected a Labour councillor.

Look East

Congratulations to Alan Olive (Regional Director) and the team in the East of England, where Labour will be contesting every single ward in the region in May’s local elections. Indeed, we only missed running a full slate of candidates by two places as we are standing 28 out of 30 seats up in the all out elections in Broxbourne. As a consequence every Labour supporter will have an opportunity to vote Labour and unlike in previous years no Tory candidate will be elected unopposed.

The party figures for the wards being contested and seats up for election are as follows:

Wards

362 wards with elections

Lab: 362 (100.0%)
Con: 360 (99.4%)
Lib Dem: 294 (81.2%)
Green: 143 (39.5%)
UKIP: 113 (31.2%)

Councillors

390 councillors to be elected

Lab: 388 99.5% (+13.2)
Con: 388 99.5% (-0.3)
Lib Dem: 300 76.9% (-0.2)
Green: 146 37.4% (-2.0)
UKIP: 121 31.0% (+17.8)
BNP: 3 0.8% (-19.2)

The figures in brackets are the 2008 numbers - the last time the seats were contested - and the change since then

Local election review: Norwich

Norwich is an unusual local authority for Labour in that our main opposition comes from the Greens. With 18 out of 39 councillors, Labour leads a minority administration, with the 15 Green councillors forming the opposition. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been haemorrhaging councillors for a number of years and have just six between them (2 and 4 respectively). Labour last run the council with a majority in 2002, and ten years on, May’s elections represents the party’s first real chance since then to form a majority administration. Just two gains are required.

Norwich Labour Party will be bitterly disappointed if they fail to pick up seats in Bowthorpe and Catton Grove, defeating the last two Conservatives on the council. Labour won the election in these wards in both 2011 and 2010 so confidence ought to be high that success can be secured for a third successive year. The elimination of the Conservative party at a local level in the city would be noteworthy beyond the city and indeed East Anglia.

Labour will also be targeting Lakenham, where the sitting Liberal Democrat councillor was trounced when he stood in a County Council by-election a few months ago. This ward too has returned Labour councillors in 2010 and 2011, and seems likely to record another Labour gain.

Although much of Labour’s effort is likely to be focused in these three wards, there are other contests in the city worth looking out for. In Mancroft ward where popular local Labour campaigner, Marion Maxwell is standing again, having increased the Labour vote at the last two elections; and in Wensum, where two seats are up following the imprisonment of a Green councillor for arson. Labour cannot rely on anti-Coalition sentiment when taking on the Greens; indeed, the Greens themselves are beneficiaries of this sentiment, taking a seat off of the Liberal Democrats in last year’s local elections. Labour has yet to take a seat from the Greens in Norwich and it will be interesting to see if they restrict their efforts to their Conservative and Liberal Democrat targets, or if they seek to make inroads into the Green vote.

Following the recent defection to the Tories of the Leader of Norfolk County Council’s Green group (Arson. Defections to the Tories. What is it about Norwich Greens?), Labour might just think that 2012 could be a turning point and the start of the green tide going out in Norwich.

Late last year Clive Lewis was selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the marginal constituency of Norwich South, a seat snatched from Labour by the Liberal Democrats in 2010. Winning seats from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in May will give him confidence that he is on track to bring the seat back into the Labour fold. But with the Greens polling 15% at the last general election and looking well dug in at local council level, will the real barometer of Labour’s performance be the extent to which it makes inroads into the Green vote?

Local election review: Thurrock

Of the ten local authorities to be profiled in this series, in many ways Thurrock represents Labour’s very best – and most likely – opportunity for good news. With a minority Labour-led council already in control at the town hall, Labour only needs to gain one seat to achieve outright and overall control. With ten non-Labour seats being contested (along with seven Labour held seats), the party ought to feel confident that Friday's papers will report the Thurrock result as “Labour gain from NOC”.

The battleground in Thurrock will be the marginal wards of Ockendon and Stanford East and Corringham Town. Ockendon was the venue for Labour’s local election campaign launch, and scene of a Labour gain in the same elections in 2011, where Aaron Kiely took the ward from the Conservatives, albeit with a slim majority of just 97. Labour’s Ockendon candidate this time round is Tilbury-raised Martin Kerin, a teacher at a local academy who’s campaign has coincided with becoming a father. It doesn’t seem to have slowed him down with Your Thurrock noting that he has been “putting in the hard yards” on the campaign trail.

The highly regarded Richard Speight is carrying Labour’s banner in Stanford East. An integral part of the 2011 local election campaign Speight is hoping to go one better than his second place finish in The Homesteads last year. His place as the Labour name on the ballot paper in The Homesteads is taken by rising star Liam Preston, who works for the YMCA and is also involved in the British Youth Council. With 250 votes to overturn he faces a tougher task than Kerin and Speight, but don’t rule out his election a month from now.

As well as competing hard to win these seats to Labour, the party is defending a number of seats, the most notable of which is Stanford le Hope West. Here, Labour Councillor Terry Hipsey will be defending the seat he was elected to serve as a Conservative in 2008. Hipsey, a former Leader of Thurrock Council, crossed the council chamber in 2009 in a high profile defection. He is the subject of a concerted local Conservative campaign in this blue leaning marginal ward, and Labour is working hard to ensure his re-election.

The far right continue to contest elections in this part of Essex. Four years ago the BNP elected their first councillor in Thurrock in Tilbury Riverside. The victor of that contest has since departed: quitting the council in 2011, and Labour regained the seat in the subsequent by election. But the news locally is that this year’s elections will see National Front candidates fielded, ensuring a far right presence on the ballot paper.

Thurrock is home to one of the Conservative’s most marginal parliamentary constituencies. Thurrock returned a Conservative MP for only the second time since the second world war when Jackie Doyle-Price won the seat from Labour in 2010 by a mere 92 votes. Labour’s determination to win the constituency back was signalled when the seat was identified for early selection. Polly Billington was selected last year and the experienced former SPAD to party leader Ed Miliband will be keen to see Labour’s local momentum extended with another successful local campaign.

The ten to watch

By this time tomorrow, nominations for May’s local elections will have closed, although it will be a further week before a full list of candidates is made public. Yesterday Ed Miliband was in Birmingham to launch Labour’s local election campaign – Labour with you in tough times - although for most the local campaign has been underway for some time (or ought to have been).

Labour’s path back to Government must pass through the south. Labour cannot win a majority without winning back some – if not all – of those seats we held from 1997 to 2010. Reconnecting with voters in these communities is essential, and next month’s local elections are important wherever you are in the south. However, there are ten local authorities with elections this year, where it is essential for Labour to show it has made progress.

Each of these ten authorities could elect a majority Labour council on 3rd May if gains of between one and eight are realised. The prospects in some are far greater than in others, but it is essential progress is made.

Thurrock (1)*
Exeter (2)
Norwich (2)
Harlow (3)
Plymouth (4)
Reading (2)
Great Yarmouth (5)
Southampton (6)
Crawley (6)
Cambridge (8)

* indicates number of gains required to win majority control of the council.

All ten authorities contain marginal parliamentary constituencies: four are currently Labour held, 9 are Conservative (all seats won from Labour in 2010 except Reading East, which was lost in 2005) and one – Cambridge – which was won from Labour by the Liberal Democrats in 2005.

Over the course of the next four weeks we’ll publish analyses of the challenge Labour faces in each of these local authorities as it seeks to take control of the council: which are the seats that we are most likely to win? From which parties have we got to make our gains? How good are Labour’s prospects?

On Thursday we start with Thurrock and Norwich.