Apathy the big winner on election day across large swathes of the UK
WE LOOK AT KEY TRENDS THAT HAVE EMERGED IN COUNTDOWN TO GENERAL ELECTION
ELECTION day in this area last Thursday was - in comparison with other parts of the country - a pretty quiet one.
voters re-elected Conservative Ben Adams into a new term as the county’s police and crime commissioner.
While Angelique Foster, lost out to Labour’s Nicolle Ndiweni in the race to be Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for the next four years.
And Labour also won the race to become first East Midlands Combined Authority mayor.
Elsewhere across the country it was a very different situation with hundreds of different contests were held across England and Wales, ranging from the election of local councillors to choosing high-profile mayors.
Now that all the counting is over, here are some of the key trends to emerge from the results – and the statistics behind them.
Mayors
In five of the 11 contests, Labour not only finished first but won more than 50% of the vote: Liverpool (where Steve Rotheram got 68.0%), Greater Manchester (63.4% for Andy Burnham), Salford (61.5% for Paul Dennett), South Yorkshire (50.9% for Oliver Coppard) and West Yorkshire (50.4% for Tracy Brabin).
While, in the West Midlands Labour’s Richard Parker seized victory from outgoing Conservative mayor Andy Street by 1,508 votes after a recount.
in the five other mayoral contests won by Labour candidates: London (where Sadiq Khan got 43.8% of the vote), the North East (41.3% for Kim Mcguinness), East Midlands (40.3% for Claire Ward), Birmingham (37.8% for Richard Parker) and York & North Yorkshire (35.1% for David Skaith).
the sole Tory success in this year’s mayoral contests, the re-election of Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, is very much an outlier, though he did – like most of the other incumbents – manage to win more than half of the vote (53.6%).
Councils
Results from the 107 councils in England that held elections on May 2 and they show Labour won 1,140 seats, an increase of more than 200.
The Liberal Democrats beat the Tories into second place, winning 521 seats, up nearly 100.
The Tories are just behind on 513 seats, down nearly 400.
Independent candidates have won 228 seats, down 28, the Greens have won 181, up 64, while Reform has won two, down one.
The new-look council map of England shows a continuation of the trend that emerged in last year’s local elections - a tilt away from the Conservatives and towards councils controlled by other parties or where no party has a majority.
The Tories lost control of 10 local authorities on May 2.
Many of these are in parts of the country that will be key battlegrounds at the next general election, with Labour hoping to make gains from the Tories in the Midlands and the South East, and the Lib Dems eyeing the “blue wall” in the South West.
A more localised trend specific to these local elections led to Labour losing control of two councils, Oldham in Greater Manchester and Kirklees in West Yorkshire.
In both areas, Independent candidates made gains at Labour’s expense, while in Rochdale in Greater Manchester the Workers Party – led by George Galloway – gained two seats from Labour.
These changes could reflect unhappiness with Labour among some of its supporters in traditional heartlands in northern England, linked to the party’s policy towards the Israel-hamas conflict.
Meanwhile another result that could have consequences for the general election occurred in Bristol, where the Greens made 10 gains to become the largest party on the council. The parliamentary seat of Bristol Central is the Greens’ number one election target – and they have just won every council seat inside the constituency.
Police & crime commissioners
Many of these contests saw very low turnouts, ranging from 32.3% in Northumbria to just 15.5% in Gwent.
This may reflect the fact that for many voters in England and Wales, police commissioners were the only type of election taking place in their area on May 2 – perhaps not as much of a draw as the chance to choose a high-profile mayor or their local councillor. But the overall picture chimes with the trend evident in the mayoral and council elections: that of the Conservatives losing ground in many areas of the country.