The pundits' attempt to put a noose around the neck of the Conservative Party in the months immediately preceding the local elections in May 2006, by "talking up" council seat gains which, according to their analysis, would have to be achieved, were confounded by the Party's success in those elections. Undeterred, the Media is now having a second bite at the cherry even though on this occasion the cards are even more heavily stacked against the Conservatives, for various reasons.
In the north, particularly in the conurbations, any Conservative advance has to contend with a Liberal Democrat challenge. An unpopular Labour administration no longer leads to marginal council seats "going" Conservative because of floating voters changing allegiance and/or Labour core support remaining at home. The Liberal Democrats are ever present to accept votes against which ever of the main parties is the most unpopular. For many years it has been a three horse race in local elections. The Liberal Democrats are going to win sack loads of seats in the north generally and in northern conurbations in particular. The Conservatives on the other hand, will increase their vote but win few seats. At local level at the very least, the political landscape has changed and the lack of an obvious Conservative advance must be seen in that light.
In the south, the Conservatives already control a majority of the councils and have either reached or nearly reached their high-tide mark. The electorate often votes against incumbent councils. Since the Conservatives suffered a local election meltdown in 1995, in successive local elections they have been recovering gradually their natural strongholds such that in many areas they are the incumbents. In this way Conservative seats are vulnerable. The Liberal Democrats' ability to target seats in which they concentrate upon a very "localised" local issue, must not be lost sight of. An example is Woking Borough Council, where the Conservatives polled a significantly higher percentage of the overall vote in May 2006, but lost councillors in certain, targeted wards. The remaining Labour-held wards are now being targeted by the Liberal Democrats, so they will consolidate their control of Woking Borough Council on 3rd May, with the Conservatives being mere onlookers, unable to affect the outcome.
UKIP's impact on the Conservative vote must not be overlooked either. In numerous councils where the Conservatives are defending against the Liberal Democrats, just a few score votes transferring from the Conservative to UKIP candidate in marginal wards would hand seats to the Liberal Democrats.
Polls indicate that support for the Conservatives nationwide stands at about 38%, the same as the best poll result published immediately before the local elections in May 2006. The actual poll result in 2006 was just short of 40%, underlining the fact that polls tend to underestimate actual support for the Conservatives by between 1% and 2%. On a 38% vote, Rallings and Thrasher calculate that the Conservatives would achieve 300-400 seat gains. I would venture that support for the Conservatives has reached 40% though certainly not the 42% required for a clear election victory. I would suggest also that factoring in for instance, the manner in which the Liberal Democrat challenge functions "on the ground", the UKIP diversion and the aversion of disaffected, northern Labour voters to switch direct from Labour to Conservative, even with 40% of the vote, the Conservatives will still secure about 400 extra councillors only. It is reported that privately the aim of the Conservatives is to gain at least 800 seats. One can conjecture the source of this private briefing, which appears mischievous. Whilst nationwide the Conservatives are challenging for more seats than both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and might be hotly contesting thousands of marginal seats, this is not the same as expecting to win all of them. Even Labour strategists, who are expecting a hiding, calculate that they will lose between 400 to 500 seats. An ineffective showing by UKIP (possible) or the Liberal Democrats (highly implausible) and the Labour core vote remaining at home would hand eight hundred seats to the Conservatives, but the prerequisites for such a result are just not present.
That attempts will be made to extrapolate the results of the May 2007 local elections to show that the Conservative advance has stalled and that David Cameron will not win the 2009/10 election, should not trouble the Conseravtives. Following the defeat at the General election of 1997, most commentators agreed that the Conservatives would not be able to overturn the Labour majority in just one election. The Party could not even start to do so whilst its deep unpopularity remained, as evidenced by the result of the 2001 General Election. Whilst being still unpopular in some quarters, the 2005 election result was further distorted by the Liberal Democrats still being on a roll (largely achieved by the injection of funds from the now disgraced Michael Brown) which meant the Conservatives were often watching their backs whilst at the same time trying to attack Labour. The General Election in 2009/10 will be the first when Conservative fortunes are in the ascendency but yet commentators now seek to convince us that only spectacular success in the forecoming local elections and outright success at the next general Election will do, otherwise (it will be argued) the Conservatives are in a desperate position where, goes the inference, recovery becomes less and less likely. It is not so. It took four consecutive election defeats before the Labour Party rejuvenated. During that rejuvenation it did not have to contend with the Liberal Democrats bleeding a part of its core vote. Whilst it is correct that for a brief period the Social Democratic Party purported to be an alternative to Labour, the SDP realised quickly that there were more votes to be had from instinctively Conservative electors, hence the merger with the Liberal Party and the splitting of the non-Labour vote in every General Election since.
The Conservatives will not achieve any breakthrough until the Liberal Democrats are seen to be patently receding as a political force. The Conservatives, through eighteen years of Government and eight years of drift in opposition, enabled the Liberal Democrats to thrive and entrench themselves. In consequence the Liberal Democrats will not be dislodged in just one or two local elections. That the Liberal Democrats failed to make any impact during the local elections in 2006 was significant, but that lack of success could be (and was) brushed under the carpet before the Public absorbed what had happened. On 4th May 2007, after taking many Labour councillors' scalps (and a few from the Conservatives too) the Liberal Democrats will be crowing from the roof tops. The Media will echo the Liberal Democrat triumph. Commentators will burble and chatter about the Conservatives' lack of serious progress in "the north", the cities and elsewhere. Whatever is said, the Conservatives will possess a significant number of new councillors following the May 2007 local elections. Their advance will not have stalled. For their part, the Liberal Democrats still have to reap the whirlwind that they sowed by accepting the donation from Michael Brown, the donation that enabled them to so inflate their prospects in the 2005 General Election. The future is bright - and still blue.
New Labour’s local election plans are going pear shaped
Labour strolling to "victory" in the local elections in May 2006