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Part of College Public Policy,
a College Hill Company

Local and General Election Analysis

The May 2008 local elections in England and Wales were Labour’s worst election results for 40 years. The Party lost over 330 councillors and captured only 24% of the vote, trailing third behind the Liberal Democrats with 25%. To cap a miserable night, Labour also lost control of London, where Boris Johnson triumphed over Ken Livingstone to win the capital’s Mayoralty. The Conservatives not only trumped Labour in London, but also gained over 350 councillors across England and Wales and picked up 44% of the popular vote.

Labour’s poor showing in the local elections was followed by further defeats for the Party at the hands of the Conservatives and SNP, respectively, at the Crewe & Nantwich and Glasgow East by-elections.  By the time the political conference season came around in September, some pundits were predicting that Gordon Brown was just weeks away from being bundled out of office by disgruntled colleagues.

But the global financial crisis changed all that.  An emboldened Prime Minister exceeded expectations of his speech at the Labour Party conference and then played a leading role in Labour’s successful campaign at the Glenrothes by–election, which had seemed a lost cause even a week or two before polling day.

The autumn was punctuated by a flurry of sure-footed steps to address the economic woes facing Britain.  While his slip of the tongue at a recent Prime Minister’s Questions in December when he claimed to have “saved the world” was an unfortunate over-statement, he can rightfully claim to have led the world in providing strong and decisive leadership at a time of international economic crisis.

The next major electoral test for Labour will come in further local elections and European Parliamentary elections in June 2009.  It is an indication of how big Gordon Brown’s bounce-back in recent months has been that there are some commentators now suggesting that he may even call a general election in 2009, rather than waiting until 2010.  This is an unlikely scenario, perhaps, but the fact that it is even being talked about as a possibility shows how far the Prime Minister has come since those dark days in the autumn.

But what do elections mean to you and your business?   Put quite simply, new councils and councillors mean new people which mean new policies.  At the local level, even slight changes in a council’s composition can make all the difference.  If a ruling party loses seats, it may lose power or have to share power; if it wins seats, it can become more dominant and less consensual.  This can affect everyone and every policy.

A change of control at the local council may bring in a new approach to planning issues and a new chairman of the Planning Committee.

Green Issues is a consultancy with a unique insight into the politics of Britain.  We help our clients make sense of changes to the national, regional and local political landscape brought about by elections. 

Our key services include:

• Interpretation and analysis of local and general election results.

• Identification of new and emerging political figures of influence

• Local analysis of specific planning authority areas

• A post-elections assessment of the likely implications for planning policy at a national and local level.