On 1 May, there were local elections across parts of England. But this was mainly in counties which have traditionally leaned towards the Conservatives, so the results are not a reliable guide to national patterns. Across England, local government is still dominated by Labour, with 34% of all councillors, compared to the Conservatives 24%.
In the Eastern region, there were elections in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire county councils, and for the mayor in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. In Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, county council elections were postponed for a year because of planned local government reorganisation.
The national picture
Two features are notable in the results: the splitting of the Conservative vote with Reform, but also a modest overall swing to the broad left, which has received much less attention from the media.
Across England, 1,600 Councillors were elected. Reform split the Conservative vote, to take 677 seats, while the Conservatives lost 674. Labour lost far fewer (187), and Liberal Democrats and Greens gained (163 and 44). So, overall, the number of seats held by parties on the broad left – Labour, Liberal Democrat and Greens – increased by 4%, while the number of seats held by Conservative and Reform remained unchanged (the gap is accounted for by a drop in Independents).
A disproportional election
All these elections were conducted on a first past the post basis (FPP). This works if there are only two parties standing, since the winner will have been supported by at least half the voters.
However, we are no longer in a two-party world, and the result is now much less democratic. This time, a record number of candidates stood, with at least three, and sometimes five, standing in most areas, and the parties fairly evenly divided. If the vote splits five ways in a FPP election, a candidate can win with less than a quarter of the votes cast, and a handful of votes can change the result. And since, in most local elections, only one elector in three actually votes, it can be that only one elector in ten actually votes for the winner.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayor
The one mayoral election in the East of England was in Cambridgeshire, a divided county, leaning to the broad left in Cambridge and the South, and to the right in the North and West. The result demonstrates the problems of FPP in a multi-party landscape.
The previous mayor was elected in 2021 on a proportional Supplementary Vote system. This gives voters two votes, for first and second preference. If no candidate gets over 50% on the first count, the first two candidates go forward, and the second preference votes of all the discarded candidates transfer to them. This guarantees that at least half of all voters gave a vote to the winner. So, in 2021, there were only three candidates. The Conservative led on first preferences with 40%, followed by Labour on 33%. But when the second preference votes of the discarded Liberal Democrat mostly transferred to Labour, their candidate won, with 51% of the final total.
But in 2023, the last Conservative government changed the voting system for mayoral elections to FPP. And this time, there were five parties. Four of them each received over 19% of the vote. So, by a narrow margin, the Conservative candidate won, with only 28% of the votes. This is 12% less than the Conservative losing vote in 2021.
Under the previous Supplementary Vote system, the result would probably have been the same, because the two highest vote shares were for Conservative (28%) and Reform (23%), and it is unlikely that second preferences would have changed the outcome.
But there are other proportional systems. Under the Alternative Vote system, where voters rank all candidates, the count goes through several rounds. Each time, the last candidate is eliminated, and their second preferences are transferred to the remaining candidates. On this basis, the Liberal Democrat would probably have passed the 50% threshold with the second preferences of Labour and Green voters.
Hertfordshire County Council
Hertfordshire County Council has long been solidly Conservative. Before this election they held 46 of the 78 council seats, though with a significant Liberal Democrat presence. St Albans has a Liberal Democrat District council and MP.
This time, the vote split much more evenly between the parties. Liberal Democrats and Conservatives each received 26% of the vote, followed by Reform on 24% and Labour on 14%. The diagram, from the Election 2029 website, shows the changes in seats. The overall swing was to the left, with the parties of the right losing 10 seats to the parties of the broad left.The Liberal Democrats became the largest party on the council for the first time.
But disaffection with the two mainstream parties is very clear. Both Conservative and Labour voters lost half their previous support, but because Labour had so few seats beforehand, the impact of the Conservative split was much more significant. The seats lost by the Conservatives divided nearly equally between Liberal Democrats and Reform, while most of Labour’s went to Reform. So, the Liberal Democrats success comes from Reform splitting the Conservative vote.
Cambridgeshire
In Cambridgeshire, the Liberal Democrats were the largest party before this election, and they strengthened their position, achieving an absolute majority of one seat, though some of those seats were won with tiny majorities.
The chart shows that the Conservative collapse was even greater here. They held barely a third of their 2021 seats, with rather more swinging to Reform than to the Liberal Democrats.
Conclusion
But two things are clear from these results. First, and neglected by the media, is that there is no swing to the political right. But on the right, despite their tiny number of MPs, at local level, Reform are becoming the main challenger to parties of the broad left.
It is clear that the political landscape has changed, though whether this is a permanent change or not remains to be seen. It is also clear that FPP delivers some strange and undemocratic results.
And there will certainly be more voices in Labour calling for electoral reform.
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