PM blamed as Tories lose council seats
LONDON: Boris Johnson’s Conservatives shed seats across England and lost control of three London strongholds in Thursday’s local elections, leading to a backlash against the prime minister from local party leaders.
In the capital, the Tories lost control of Wandsworth Council, an iconic seat of UK local government which has been Tory-run since 1978, as well as in Westminster — where the Houses of Parliament are based.
They also ceded power to the main opposition Labour Party in Barnet and in the southern city of Southampton. With about half of councils reporting results by yesterday morning, the governing party had lost about one in six of its seats.
Council seats were being counted yesterday across the country, while there were also elections to the Stormont Assembly in Northern Ireland.
While mid-term elections are always a chance for voters to protest against a governing party, Conservative losses were not as bad as some pre-election forecasts. Electoral Calculus had projected they would lose about a third of their seats.
The elections take place following a succession of missteps by Mr Johnson, including the partygate scandal in which he became the first sitting premier to be fined for breaking the law, after celebrating his birthday in breach of pandemic lockdown rules.
That’s alongside voter concerns about a cost-ofliving crisis underlined by gloomy economic forecasts from the Bank of England on Thursday’s polling day.
“It is not just partygate, there is the integrity issue,” John Mallinson, the Tory leader of Carlisle City Council told BBC News. “I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.”
The Carlisle council will be replaced by the new Cumberland authority won by the Labour Party.
The loss of Wandsworth is likely to be felt most keenly by the Tories. The seat of local government was described as former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s favourite council for having the lowest rate of local taxes. Outgoing Tory leader Ravi Govindia told BBC News “consistently on the doorstep the issue of Boris Johnson was raised” by voters during campaigning.
In Portsmouth, where the Tories lost four seats, the leader of the Conservative group Simon Bosher said the PM should “take a good, strong look in the mirror” because “those are people that are actually bearing the brunt on the doorstep of behaviour of what’s been going on in Westminster”.