Local elections: much at stake for three main parties

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/02/may-elections-stake-main-parties

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On 3 May, all three parties will be under pressure to elicit from voters a response that will be seen to outperform their present unpromising standing.

The Conservatives badly need to steady nerves after their spate of unforced errors, Labour is recovering from its dreadful defeat in Bradford, and the Liberal Democrats will be fearful of another battering of the kind they got in last year's local elections.

At stake is voting for a third of the council seats in each of the 36 English metropolitan districts; a third of seats in 16 unitary authorities (plus two, Hartlepool and Swindon where all seats are voting, due to boundary changes); and various proportions of the seats in 74 shire districts (63 by thirds, seven for half the seats, and four all-out).

In Wales, 21 out of 22 unitary authorities vote (elections have been temporarily suspended in Anglesey). All 32 Scottish authorities also face elections. Within London, the mayoral contest is a re-run of 2008, Boris Johnson versus Ken Livingstone. The 25-member assembly is also up for election. There will be the first-ever polls for directly-elected mayors in Liverpool and Salford. Ten other major cities, including Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle Bristol, Sheffield and, fascinatingly, Bradford will hold referenda on whether or not to introduce mayors. Doncaster will vote on whether or not to keep their directly-elected mayoral system.

A number of voting systems will be used. Councils in England and Wales use first-past-the-post, while in Scottish local polls the single transferable vote has operated since 2007. For the London Assembly, the "additional member" form of PR is used. The London, Liverpool and Salford mayoral contests use the "supplementary vote" system.

In England, this round of council seats was last contested in 2008, when Labour was desperately unpopular; the national equivalent vote share as expressed in the local vote came out at Con: 43, Lab: 24, Lib Dem: 23. Recent polls imply that on 3 May we shall see a swing from the 2008 vote of 14% from Conservative to Labour, which should produce a major set of gains in seats and councils for Ed Miliband. Birmingham, run by a Tory-Lib Dem administration, is likely to fall to Labour and provide a totemic result. Plymouth could move directly from the Tories to Labour.

Other contests, such Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle and Cambridge will allow tests of Labour's strength against the Lib Dems. Elsewhere, including Stockport, Eastleigh, Three Rivers and Cheltenham, the balance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats can be analysed.

In Scotland, Labour will have to fight to hold Glasgow. Inevitably, Scotland's local elections will seen as a test of the relative strength of the SNP and Labour, and, to some extent, of any evidence about voting intentions in the forthcoming independence referendum. In Cardiff, the Liberal Democrat-Plaid Cymru coalition is under pressure, though it is almost certain no party will end up in overall control. The Conservatives will be hoping to maintain their reasonably good showing of recent years across the country.

There will be a second round of local elections on 15 November, when polling takes place for 41 police and crime commissioners in all parts of England and Wales outside London. On the same day, any cities which on 3 May vote to introduce mayors will hold their inaugural mayoral elections.

Democracy is, however haltingly, changing. Two rounds of local elections in 2012 will tell us how both the major parties and engagement (as measured by turnout) are affected. A mayoral contest in Bradford would arouse nationwide interest. For lovers of elections, 2012 will be a bumper year.

<em>Tony Travers is director of the Greater London group at the London School of Economics</em>