England’s Conservatives crushed by Labour in local elections – Technologist

The results of the local elections held in England on Thursday, May 2, the last electoral test before the general election at the end of 2024, confirmed what UK-wide polls have been saying for the past 18 months. Despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s efforts to regain credibility, the Conservatives have still not recovered from the scandals left in Boris Johnson’s wake and Liz Truss’s disastrous term in office. Labour isn’t the stuff of dreams, but voters are willing to give them a chance.

The Conservatives have lost almost 500 seats across England. The result is all the more alarming for the party that has been in power for 14 years, as it is losing ground everywhere, even in the traditionally “blue” lands of southern England.

The Tories lost control of Basildon council in Essex, east of London, which had been in their right-wing hands for decades. They also lost Blackpool in the northwest and Hartlepool in the northeast, former strongholds of the “red wall,” the deindustrialized regions of central and northern England that traditionally voted left-wing, but which chose Brexit in the 2016 referendum and were won over by Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. The charm didn’t last long.

The toughest defeat was probably the one taken by Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, one of England’s poorest but youngest regions, including the cities of Coventry and Birmingham. The moderate Tory (he voted against Brexit in 2016) with an honorable record lost by a hair to Labour candidate Richard Parker, a political novice and ex-auditor with accountancy firm PwC.

Street, former CEO of the John Lewis department store chain, had held the post for two terms and during the campaign did everything he could to dissociate himself from the Conservatives. “I’m a Conservative, but my loyalty is first and foremost to the people of the West Midlands. I’m not controlled by the party, I’m independent,” he told Le Monde in mid-April. Nevertheless, the unpopularity of the Tories caught up with him.

Labour retains London

Arriving in Birmingham on the evening of Saturday, May 4, following the count, Labour leader Keir Starmer welcomed a “phenomenal” result, that went “beyond our expectations.” Voters had “had enough of 14 years of decline, chaos and division,” added Starmer, 61, who could well enter Downing Street before the end of 2024. The only glimmer of hope for Rishi Sunak is that his party has managed to retain his post as mayor of Tees Valley, in the northeast of England, with Ben Houchen, a Tory with a reputation for dynamism, securing a third consecutive term.

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