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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Changing the subject – our first look at the May 2nd local elections

Somewhat overshadowed by the ongoing brexit saga we will get a further chance to test the political temperature in this year’s local elections which take place on May 2nd – three weeks on from Thursday. Nominations closed before the weekend.

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PClipp

First - like the Lib Dems in many places in this round of local elections. At least this time the elections are not standing as a proxy for other issues. Last time they overlapped with the general election campaign - with a highly tendentious mail shot from Mrs May.

El_Capitano

Second, and FPT because it's relevant:

dyedwoolie said:

Early GE tip, Chloe has no chance of defending Norwich North unless the blue fortunes change dramatically, Norwich is trending further and further from the Tories even as Norfolk dyes ever bluer

Yeah, this is the big trend for the forthcoming GE and tallies with that analysis doing the rounds of the Conservatives becoming more and more alien to young people - https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/04/james-kanagasooriam-the-left-right-age-gap-is-even-worse-for-the-conservatives-than-you-think.html if you haven't seen it.

I'm in a true blue rural seat (Witney / West Oxfordshire) and fully expect it to be a marginal within 20 years. It's not just the age thing, but basically the Londonisation of the South-East. Rural Oxfordshire is getting 100,000 new houses by 2031, which are effectively "Greater Oxford" overspill. These new residents are going to vote as Oxford votes, and Oxford votes as London votes.

Canterbury was an early harbinger of this. We are going to see much of the rural South-East turn gradually red, yellow, and whatever-colour-TIG-chooses over the next 20 years. The question is whether the post-industrial north will turn blue to balance it.

(added for this thread...)

We may see early signs of this in the May locals. Again, our District Council has a solid Conservative majority, but the areas most influenced by Oxford/London have been swinging Lib Dem (affluent rural, e.g. Woodstock) or Labour (urban, e.g. Witney). Local district councillors are all over Twitter saying they honestly have no idea what's going to go. Everyone expects one or two Conservative losses but it could be many more than that. Labour and the Lib Dems are campaigning hard in wards where they've never had a significant presence, and finding remarkably good signs on the doorstep.