Six of the best: 2024 Local Elections preview

We’re less than a month away from this year’s Local Elections. I’m glad that they don’t coincide with a General Election. I believe local government is an important end of itself, and by being a stand alone election it gives opposition party activists a chance to really focus and stick it to the Tories, who deserve another chapter in their own version of Decline and Fall. I covered off what I regard to be five important and interesting contests in my previous blog. Here are another six councils where the Tories are likely to lose control, or offer some major talking points.

Gloucester – set to join the liberal family?
‘Glowster, Glowster’ comes the cry from the infamous Shed stand at Gloucester RFC when the cherry and whites are on song. Gloucester is a cathedral city with an edge. While the Lib Dems have had plenty of success in Bath and Cheltenham, not so much in Gloucester. ‘Oh but Gloucester is different’ is what the locals will tell you.
The social demographics are certainly not the same, it doesn’t have quite the feel of a genteel spa town, even if it’s rich in history. Nevertheless the local Lib Dems have been plugging away steadily and overtook Labour to become the main opposition after the 2021 Covid raddled election.
At that point the Tories had 26 seats to the Lib Dems’ 10, via by elections and defections the numbers have shifted to 21 plays 14. As Labour have two councillors, it will take only a handful more Conservative losses to make them lose their majority and flip the status of this council. A Lib-Lab administration is a realistic good case scenario, an outright Lib Dem majority in a goldilocks scenario if the Tories really collapse.

Gloucester – will the city turn yellow like so many other heritage hotspots?

Adur – another blue brick in the wall
Sandwiched between Hove and Worthing, plucky little Adur is a small brick of blue on the South coast, in fact the last Tory-run district council in the whole of Sussex. Adur contains the small towns of Shoreham and Lancing. Lancing College is a pretty successful public school, turning out the likes of Tim Rice, Evelyn Waugh and David Hare. If you were a retired Brigadier or Chief Accountant and you thought Hove wasn’t middle class enough you’d probably move to Lancing instead. In the distant past Lancing was controlled by Liberal/Alliance and Lib Dem admins.
As recently as the coalition years Lancing had veered so far off to the right it had a combination of Tory and UKIP councillors and has been in Conservative control since 2002. A few losses, however, and Adur could be in the hands of a Labour/Green/Indie coalition instead – certainly Labour have been gaining strength in Worthing and will send plenty of activists in. A nightmare scenario in May would also involve the Tories losing control of Runnymede and Reigate & Banstead councils in Surrey meaning a vast swathe of the home counties South of London would be completely Tory-free at a local level.

Southend-on-Sea – cruising towards a coalition
Southend – is a longtime playground of day-trippers coming out of East London, and its politics are entertaining too. The council is currently on a knife edge with a minority Conservative admin because the numbers stack up at Cons: 22 Lab/Lib/Green: 21, with eight independents not willing to back the slightly smaller liberal left bloc. An exchange of a handful of seats could see the status of Southend change.
Since it was established in 1974, Southend has been Tory outright five times and NOC seven times. It will be fascinating to see if the voters of Southend follow national trends or stay loyal to the Conservatives. Certainly this is a part of the world where the Tories do particularly well among the C2, D and E social groups due to cultural reasons. South Essex voted for Brexit, though Southend went ‘only’ 58% for leave.
A shift away from the Tories here could be a good barometer of how successful the Sunak stop the boats, culture wars, I’m backing motorists agenda will turn out. Certainly Southend has become a honeypot for petrolheads, hosting a car cruise for many years, much to the annoyance of the council (and many residents).

Southend-on-Sea – if Sunak’s agenda doesn’t gain traction here, he’s royally royally stuffed

Cherwell – time for Labour to grow up
Not unlike Adur, Cherwell is a hold out of Tory control, the only council in Oxfordshire still led by the Conservatives as the rest of the county contains four Lib Dems led authorities, and the Labour bastion of Oxford. Last year the Tories lost their majority on Cherwell Council due to a combination of gains by Labour, Lib Dems and the Greens. High fives and vegan canapés all-round – we’re heading for another rainbow coalition, the like of which exists in multiple councils elsewhere. Or so that’s what most of the opposition parties and the public thought.
Due to instructions from Labour central office, the local Labour Party refused to do a coalition deal with the Lib Dems and Greens. This precipitated a rather extraordinary turn of events, whereby Conservative leader Barry Wood was voted out of office on May 17 last year, and then voted back in as leader on May 23, due to the power vacuum created by Labour’s unwillingness to work with anyone.
Again, if Cherwell follows national trends then the Tories will lose more seats and be even more distant from being able to form a credible administration. No one knows for sure what will happen in Cherwell, but it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the big three parties will end up with roughly the same number of seats and Lib/Greens/Indies will form a very precarious chewing gum coalition . . . unless Labour sees the error of its ways.

Sunderland – a case of regrexit?
Up until recently, Wearside has not been hotbed of liberalism, with all due respect to our decent showing in Newcastle and Gateshead down the road. On the night of June 23rd Sunderland was the first straw in the wind that we were heading for the EU exit door, it voted emphatically to leave, despite the fact that the area’s biggest employer, Nissan, largely depends on exports to the EU. Hard to understand looking in from the outside. Are Mackem leavers regretting their choice now?
For decades us Lib Dems couldn’t make much headway in Sunderland. While the council has had a solid Labour majority ever since formation in 1974, there has been a decent sized Tory opposition at times. Apart from a brief flurry in the early-1980s when the SDP/Liberal Alliance was at its zenith, the Lib Dems have never really featured until 2018 when the party started to pick up. Wearside Lib Dems crossed a rubicon last year, becoming the official opposition for the first time, with 15 councillors.
What’s their secret? According to reports from party insiders the local group is extremely well organised, very hard working and are going down the grass roots community politics route. When you have an incompetent or lazy Labour group that’s been in charge forever, people are willing to look for alternatives. If you’re not that ideological you just want your roads resurfaced, drains flushed out, street signed cleaned, litter picked up and graffiti removed. This is simple monitoring, reporting or voluntary work that Labour often isn’t willing to do, but we are.
While Sunderland is still a relatively safe Labour council, a few Lib Dem gains here courtesy of Paul Edgeworth’s team might make it competitive, keeping the ruling party on their toes – never a bad thing.

Paul Edgeworth, leader of the Lib Dems group on Sunderland City Council, keeping the pressure on the ruling Labour party

Solihull – who’s going to win the lottery?
Solihull, just to the South East of Birmingham, has developed into a topsy turvy four-way fight at council level. I say topsy turvy because it’s not uncommon with the wafer-thin margins at play for a party to increase their vote share and come away with seat losses. The thirds election cycle means that the Tories could lose just enough seats for their majority to disappear.
That’s possible if Solihull follows the regional trend outside of Birmingham that saw really solid Tory councils in the West Midlands lose seats or get flipped last year (East Staffs, Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Bromsgrove, North Warks). An added reason why Tory voters would stay at home is that their MP, Julian Knight, lost the whip two years ago and is subject to an ongoing Police investigation.
While the local politics of Solihull are complicated, from the outside it seems that Lib Dems, Greens and Labour dovetail enough to mount a challenge to the Tories. If the Conservatives do lose their majority, all eyes will be on a small group of Independents to see if they’re prepared to prop up a very unpopular party nationally.

Lorely Burt – fantastic Lib Dems MP for Solihull 2005 – 2015, sorely missed from parliament today