Local elections: ‘Four clear yardsticks for how Labour did – and how we scored’

Every year since 2011, I have written a preview of the local elections and a scorecard after the elections referring back to it. You can see my preview article here.

Some years, it is difficult to gauge the bigger picture because different indicators are pointing in different directions, or Labour’s performance is different in different regions. This year, as in 2023, it is a bit easier to write, as all the indicators point in the same direction.

Projected national vote share was the least impressive indicator

Projected national vote share was the least impressive indicator this time around, with Labour on 34%. This is down one percentage point from 2022 and 2023, but the Labour lead over the Tories remains nine percentage points, the same as in 2023, as their share was also down.

There was therefore no national swing since the already very impressive results in 2023, but since most of the seats contested were last fought in 2021, Labour has gone up five percentage points and the Tories have gone down 15 percentage points, so the swing from Conservative to Labour since 2021 is ten percentage points.

National vote share in local elections for Labour is always lower than the Westminster opinion polls, because the Greens, Lib Dems and Independents perform better in local than in general elections, when they get squeezed.

It is not a prediction of general election performance; it’s a way of comparing local elections in different years to each other, needed because different councils come up in each year.

One important caveat though is that, just as Labour will almost certainly squeeze the Green, Lib Dem and urban Independent vote back to it in the general election, the Tories will be able to do the same thing with people who voted for Reform or rural Independent candidates in these elections.

We now have the highest number of Labour councillors since 2016

Raw number of councillors is the national (Great Britain) total figure, including all the thousands of councillors not up for election (by-elections and changes of party make it difficult to track the exact figure).

I estimate this to be 6,600 now. Looking at the following table, that’s the highest number of Labour councillors since 2016, and during that period, the total number of councillors available to win has declined sharply due to the abolition of many district and county councils and their reorganisation into single-tier unitary authorities:

• 2010: 4,831
• 2011: 5,691
• 2012: 6,559
• 2013: 6,850
• 2014: 7,098
• 2015: 6,895
• 2016: 6,859
• 2017: 6,297
• 2018: 6,468
• 2019: 6,323
• 2021: 5,656
• 2022: 5,904
• 2023: 6,415
• 2024: 6,600

Note that in the cycle since 2021 as a whole, Labour has gained a total of almost 1,000 councillors.

Labour gained an impressive number of councillors this year

Looking next at number of councillors gained, Labour made 185 net gains. This is impressive given that this is the smallest set of local elections in the four-year cycle, and proportionately a bit higher than the 536 gains last year, when nearly four times as many seats were fought. The table below shows all the years since 1979 in which Labour has made net gains (in the other 18 years not listed, we lost seats):

• 1980: +601 Labour councillors
• 1981: +988
• 1983: +8
• 1984: +88
• 1986: +13
• 1988: +76
• 1989: +35
• 1990: +284
• 1991: +584
• 1993: +111
• 1994: +44
• 1995: +1,204
• 1996: +468
• 2010: +372
• 2011: +860
• 2012: +847
• 2013: +288
• 2014: +256
• 2018: +79
• 2022: +108
• 2023: +536
• 2024: +185

Labour now controls more councils than at any time since 2002

In terms of control of councils, Labour made eight net gains (ten gains and two losses), but the table below has been adjusted to take account of Labour also losing control of Burnley, Norwich and Oxford during the last year due to defections. The number of councils that Labour has controlled has been as follows:

• 2002 – 136
• 2003 – 103
• 2004 – 94
• 2005 – 92
• 2006 – 75
• 2007 – 58
• 2008 – 46
• 2009 – 37
• 2010 – 54
• 2011 – 81
• 2012 – 114
• 2013 – 117
• 2014 – 120
• 2015 – 114
• 2016 – 114
• 2017 – 107
• 2018 – 105
• 2019 – 99
• 2021 – 91
• 2022 – 96
• 2023 – 116
• 2024 – 121

Thus, Labour now controls more councils than at any time since 2002, despite many district councils having been abolished during this period.

Labour’s gains of control were Adur, Cannock Chase, Hartlepool, Hyndburn, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Redditch, Rushmoor, Tamworth and Thurrock. These map quite closely to parliamentary marginal seats and include a number of heavily Leave-voting areas where we had underperformed for a long time, as well as cut through into southern, traditionally very Tory areas in Adur and Rushmoor.

How did Labour do in other key councils?

Of the councils I listed to watch, but that we didn’t gain overall control of, Harlow saw five Labour gains and the Tories hold on by one seat; Bolton saw Labour go back by one seat; Burnley saw one net gain and Labour the largest party; Dudley saw seven Labour gains and the party emerge with the same number of seats as the Tories; Worcester saw three gains and Labour one short of a majority; whilst Hastings saw Labour fall back by two seats due to an unexpected significant advance by the Greens.

In Oxford (where I declare an interest as a local activist), Labour did not recapture overall control following the Gaza-related defections due to multiple seats being lost to Independents running on a primarily anti-low traffic neighbourhood platform, and two to the Greens.

Of the defensive priorities I listed, Labour lost five seats and overall control in Oldham, but actually gained a seat and held control in Rotherham. Sheffield remains with no overall control, but Labour gained a net two seats, and in Bristol, Labour gains from the Tories offset losses to the Greens to produce a net three Labour losses and the Greens failing to take control. An unexpected Labour loss of control was Kirklees, where a net five seats were lost.

Labour nearly swept the board in the metro mayor contests

In the nine combined authority mayors, Labour nearly swept the board, only missing out on Teesside where Tory incumbent Ben Houchen started with more than 70% of the vote last time, so survived a 16.7% swing from Con to Lab that would be enough to see Labour gain all the local Tory parliamentary seats.

Notably, Richard Parker gained the West Midlands mayoralty off popular Tory incumbent Andy Street by a narrow margin; Claire Ward won the new East Midlands mayoralty by a landslide; Kim McGuinness easily saw off a challenge from former Labour left-winger Jamie Driscoll in the new North East mayoralty despite his incumbency in part of the region; Sadiq Khan was reelected for an unprecedented third term as mayor of London with a swing in his favour; and most unexpectedly Labour’s David Skaith won the new York and North Yorkshire mayor, an area that includes some very rural, safe Tory parliamentary seats including the Prime Minister’s.

The London Assembly election results are seldom dramatic as the mixed constituency and top-up list voting system often sees constituency gains and losses offset by compensatory changes in the list results. This was the case this time where Labour’s constituency gain in West Central was simply offset by the system giving us one fewer list AM, for the same total of 11.

More PCC gains for Labour if the electoral system hadn’t changed

Finally, the often-overlooked police and crime commissioner elections were afflicted by low turnout in those areas without any other ballot on Thursday. Labour made uneven gains around the country.

We picked up Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Avon and Somerset, Cheshire, Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, six of the ten PCCs with Tory majorities last time of under 15 percentage points, but missed taking the other four in that list: Humberside, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Thames Valley.

But beyond that list, in even safer Tory seats last time, additional gains were made in Cleveland, Cumbria, Norfolk and Northamptonshire, for a total of ten Labour gains. Had the Tories not switched the electoral system from supplementary vote to first past the post, many more Labour gains would have happened, as we fell short by tiny margins in many places where there was a substantial Lib Dem vote in third place.

Lewis Baston has done the number crunching to show what happened on Thursday in council wards in potential Labour parliamentary gains beyond the 326 seat mark needed for an overall majority. His table shows a pleasing amount of red, all the way down to Cannock Chase and Tamworth, which have notional Tory majorities of around 43 percentage points.

So, a lot done, a lot to do, but these results are important gains for Labour in and of themselves, putting us into power locally in more areas of the country, as well as being a useful staging-post on the road to the general election.

Read more of our coverage of the 2024 local elections here.

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