Five key take-aways for Labour from the locals

A Lot Done … A Lot to Do

It’s a sign of age for the political nerd when you can’t squeeze any more campaign mugs into the kitchen cupboard. Some never see the light of day but there is one in my collection which is almost fully faded from far two many turns in the dishwasher.

It’s a relic from New Labour’s second landslide general landslide in 2001 and bears the legend “A Lot Done, A Lot to Do”. After this set of local election results Keir Starmer’s strategists would do well to make that barely readable slogan their mantra for the final pre general election push.

However much of lather Tory spinners get themselves into trying to rain on Labour’s parade there is no doubt that, so far, these are an excellent set of results for Keir Starmer’s party. Excellent but not earth-shattering. No Labour heart could fail to be moved by the sheer joy on the face of Vince Maple, Labour’s irrepressible leader in Medway, as his team took this key Kent council from the Tories in a straight fight. Let there be no doubt this is the totemic win of the night. This unitary authority covers three key parliamentary marginals – in 1997 and 2001 Blair’s Labour won every single one of them. Since 2005 it has been downhill all the way for Labour in this corner of Kent.

I well remember the 2014 by-election in one of those key seats – Rochester and Strood, when I was working for then leader Ed Miliband. We were just about ahead in the national polls, challenging for power and the Tories were in trouble. Yet when I accompanied Ed on his visit to Rochester even Vince’s exuberance couldn’t hide the fact that Labour was out of the game. This was a straight fight between the Tories and Ukip. Our visit was an under the radar effort, a box-ticking exercise to try and head of any charge that Labour wasn’t up for the fight, whilst hoping no-one much noticed.

Last night Labour wasn’t just back in the game, it was delivering a knock-out blow. Make no mistake Labour only won in Medway by winning back those elusive, but pivotal, ‘switchers’ straight from the Tories, not many Lib Dems or Greens to be squeezed here. And remember we are talking Brexit country. This is the clearest evidence yet that Starmer is managing to convince a good number of those Blair backers who turned to the Tories in the twenty-tens to give Labour another chance.

The same applies to the other two headline victories from the overnight counts – Plymouth and Stoke on Trent. Plymouth Tories weren’t helped by their own local difficulties, but the national Conservative machine threw all it had at Stoke. However much Starmer sceptics may try and tweet it in Stoke it was a case of job-done in terms of getting classic red-wall, white working class voters to come home to Labour.

So, Team Starmer can and should take comfort that real votes, in real contests are breaking in their direction. A lot done.

But before any complacency intrudes into Labour thinking it is also painfully clear that there is still a lot to do. Yes, the pattern of local politics has changed irrevocably since Blair held all before him in the 1995 local elections that the Tories are trying to use as a benchmark. The rise of independents and hyper-local parties has been stunning in that half a century – from under five, to over twenty percent. This makes the picture more complicated for both big parties in many places. Yet, it would be a mistake for Labour not to take heed.

Take Ashfield, a collection of former mining towns in North Nottinghamshire that was once as rock-solid Labour as it gets but has now given us Lee Anderson. Last night, once again, the local independents held all before them. The Tories got nowhere. But neither did Labour, actually losing a seat. If Starmer was setting the heather alight Labour should be sweeping back in places like Ashfield, or at the very least be winning a few seats.

In many ways, though, these are the best possible results for Starmer. Clear victories in the right places with the right voters. But enough chinks in the good-news to show that there is no room for complacency and give grist to his strategy that the whole party needs to get behind his road-map to Number Ten.

Sorry … We Need to Talk About the Lib Dems

Since their implosion in 2015 the Lib Dems have, mostly, been happily absent from Labour minds. The bitter battles between the two centre-left parties in the big cities of the North that marked much of the local election story when Labour was in power fell away to nothing as progressive voters punished the liberals for getting into bed with the Tories.

Those urban Lib Dems are down, but not out. Last night they remained in firm control of Hull. Later on we’ll learn if Labour’s mis-steps in power in Liverpool have helped the Lib Dems increase their foothold in all out election with new, single member wards. Labour will need to factor in the slow rebirth of the Lib Dem/ Labour fight, especially if and when Starmer is in power.

It isn’t the urban Lib Dems that Labour needs to think about most urgently. As Ed Davey’s party have struggled to get into double figures in national polls the prospect of them breaking the ‘blue wall’ at the next Westminster election looked little more than a photo-stunt pipe dream. But as the results come in from the leafier corners of the southern shires it is clear that, with the targeting for which they are famous, the Lib Dems are taking votes, seats and councils from the Tories.

With a Scottish Labour comeback a real possibility Starmer strategists have been hoping that the ‘coalition of chaos’ trop would die a rapid death. This set of local results shows that Labour is on firmly on course to be the largest party in parliament but may not quite make it across the line to secure a majority, even with a decent showing in Scotland. Which means that the question of ‘will you do a deal with Labour’ will be the first question on every interviewer’s lips as they sit down to quiz a delighted Ed Davey. And when the dust settles Labour will have to do some very private, very deep thinking about what it would offer the Lib Dems in any of the likely scenarios of general election 2024. When I worked for Ed we had the room booked and the set built to announce our ‘open and comprehensive’ offer. Starmer’s advisers will need to work out what theirs might need to be.

We Should Worry (a bit) about the West Midlands

So far, with the main exception of Stoke which whilst in the West Midlands region is also in the orbit of Manchester, Labour seems to have something of a problem in the Birmingham belt.

It is a complex picture for sure, but several of the West Midlands’ results seem distinctly underwhelming, worryingly in places with plenty of those key parliamentary marginals Starmer has to win. A solitary net-gain in Dudley, progress but not power in Redditch which once elected former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, no gains in Walsall and a single net gain in Worcester as the Greens take for. None of these point to easy victories in a set of seats Labour can’t get it power without winning.

Expect ‘Worcester Woman’, the shorthand for those voters who kept Blair in power, to make a firm reappearance on the political radar.

It’s All About Aldershot

Last year it was the Worthing wonder. This year it is all about Aldershot.

I have to confess that even an election geek like me had to turn to Wiki to double check-in where Rushmoor borough actually was. And at first glance it may seem perplexing that arguably Labour’s single most striking result is in a council still showing ‘Conservative Hold’. Turns out Rushmoor is actually Aldershot and Farnborough. Not exactly natural Labour territory. In fact, the ‘home of the British army’ has never returned a red to Westminster. Yet, last night Labour took five seats straight from the Tories and elected twice as many councillors as Sunak’s party.

If these results are repeated when the other thirds of this council come up for election the red flag will be flying alongside the army standard in this part of Hampshire. Cynics dismissed Labour’s coming from nowhere to power in just a couple of years in Worthing as merely caused by boho voters priced out of Brighton moving along the coast. Trust me, there aren’t many urban trendies in Aldershot and Farnborough.

Local Labour parties across the Tory heartlands will be eagerly asking Rushmoor comrades what the secret is of their success. And I’m sure Labour List will be hoping on a train soon to find out. But in Conservative Campaign HQ, believe me, they will be worried that Starmer is unexpectedly winning support from a demographic a very long way from North London and with voters who even Blair never reached.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Peeved at last year’s unexpected Labour victories in the mayoral elections in the combined authorities of the West of England and Peterborough and Cambridgeshire then home secretary Priti Patel decided to change the rules to stop it happening again. Labour had won both of these southern prizes on the back of Lib Dem transfers. In the political equivalent of ‘taking your ball home’ the Tories decided that they would push through a law to switch ALL mayoral elections, including the biggest prize of all London, from ranked voting to first past the post.

But as the old adage goes be careful what you wish for. In the law of unintended consequences this fiddling with goalposts has delivered Labour an important emblematic victory in the red wall. Chris Cooke won the top job in Middlesborough with forty percent of the vote, just a few points ahead of independent incumbent Andy Preston. With another independent at the tory getting over twenty percent between them under the previous PR system Preston may well have held on via transfers. Instead, the new rules helped Labour. Let that be a warning to those trying to rig the rules for partisan purposes.