Neither as good – or bad – as the parties would have you believe

PROBABLY the last people to listen to if you want to know how, in the aftermath of any election, it should be interpreted are the politicians. Spin comes naturally to most men and women sporting a rosette on polling day. But it becomes an art form when the results are in and counted and the only thing to do is talk up a poor show or go completely over the top about a good one.

So the man to listen to yesterday, as the council results showed a hammering for the Tories in London but a better than predicted showing for Boris Johnson’s party in some parts of the rest of the country, was polling expert Sir John Curtice.

While careful to acknowledge a very poor night for the Tories and gains for the Labour Party he had this key piece of analysis about the performance of Keir Starmer’s candidates. “This is certainly not a local election performance that in any sense indicates a party that is on course for winning a general election with an overall majority,” Sir John told BBC Radio Four.

That didn’t of course, stop Labour quite rightly celebrating in the London council areas where they made substantial gains, cementing themselves as pretty much the rulers of the capital. But it will, in the weeks and months ahead, make some Labour supporters think long and hard about whether Keir is the right leader to take them into the next election and delivery a victory.

Of course that same question has been swirling around the Conservative Party in relation to Boris Johnson for many weeks. And these results won’t have stopped the speculation that the PM has gone from being an asset to a liability. Thanks to partygate, a lacklustre handling of the cost of living crisis so far and a general air of sleaze around the Tory Party more widely, the clamour for Boris to go won’t have subsided.

Speculating on the result of a general election from local election results involving only parts of the country is an inexact science. But Sir John calculated that if the whole country had been voting, Labour would have gained 35% of the vote – five points ahead of the Conservatives on 30%. The Liberal Democrats would have gained 19%, with other parties on 16%.

The Conservative vote share was down five points on 2018 and six points on last year. With the exception of the 2019 local elections – when the party was riven by divisions over the Brexit negotiations – it represented the Tories’ worst performance in a local election since before the EU referendum.

The Lib Dem result matched what the party achieved in the 2019 locals, which was its best performance in any local election since it entered coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.

Let’s be clear, this was a bad night for the Tories and shows a bounceback for the Lib Dems, who control the new Somerset unitary authority, It also shows a Labour Party that is again gaining ground. But on the current showing there is still work to do by the Labour leadership to turn solid progress into a performance that can win an overall majority at a general election.

As for the Prime Minister. His fate still hangs on the balance. Watch this space.