Could the 'observed' 'trend' in Council election voting behaviour [as projected] be translated into a correlated 'No' result in Tower Hamlets?

2000 Hrs GMT
London
[Bank Holiday]
Monday
03 May 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque




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BIRMINGHAM POST web site:

Why Labour could enjoy good results in the forgotten local elections
May 2 2010 By Chris Game



Could Labour emerge as a clear winner in the local elections? University of Birmingham lecturer Chris Game sees clear advantages for the party in the near-forgotten local government elections.

Can you imagine: New Labour, never knowingly underspun, missing a chance to spin any set of election results, let alone a favourable set? Hard to believe, yet it might just happen with this year’s near-forgotten local elections.

The 2007 Councillors Commission felt strongly that Prime Ministers’ recent habit of picking local election days for their General Elections was one more demonstration of their disregard for local government and local democracy. Local elections need a higher, not lower, profile.

First, therefore, we should remove the confusion from the present electoral cycle. London boroughs elect all their councillors in one go every four years – this year. County councils did likewise last year, following a campaign similarly overshadowed by the Euro-elections. But metropolitan boroughs like Birmingham elect their councillors by thirds, with elections in three years out of four.

It gets worse. Unitary and district councils can choose cycles. In Warwickshire, two districts – Warwick and North Warwickshire – have whole-council elections, in 2011.

Rugby and Stratford-on-Avon elect by thirds, but, unlike Birmingham, not all their wards have three councillors. So electors in smaller wards may or may not have a local vote on May 6. Finally, apparently to be different, Nuneaton and Bedworth voters will elect half their council.

Generally, I’m all for local choice, but choice of electoral cycles is senseless, confusing and discriminatory. It means some voters having three times as much say in the election of their local government as their neighbours even in the same council area.

Both systems have their merits, but whole-council elections have an appealing clarity. Voters can judge the performance and four-year record of the whole council and, if they choose, ‘throw the rascals out’ – all the rascals, rather than just some, which may well leave their fellow rascals still in office.

Records suggest that voters themselves prefer this system: one reason why turnout in London borough elections is usually higher than in our city council elections. This year, of course, all local turnouts will be higher, but almost entirely due to the General Election.

Far better would be for those increased turnouts to stem from voters participating in exclusively local elections, following campaigns focused on the records and manifestos of local parties and politicians, with an electoral system that enabled as many electors as possible to feel that casting their vote might actually count for something.

A proportional representation system would help with the incentivisation, especially if reinforced by an LED. No, not a low-energy diet, although I guess that might arouse the seriously sofa-bound, but a Local Elections Day. All local authorities would have whole-council elections every four years, and all on the same Local Elections Day, which should not coincide with national or Euro-parliamentary elections.

This year, it will be amazing if the local election results, let alone ours in the West Midlands, get any serious media attention – what with the parliamentary results, the likely hung parliament speculations, and the London borough elections stealing any local mini-headlines going.

Which returns us to my opening paragraph, because, in the absence of the General Election, this was finally going to be Labour’s local election year – the end of the decade-long decline and disintegration, the beginning of the fight-back.

In 1996, the year before Labour came into office, the party dominated GB local government, with more councils and councillors than all other parties combined: nearly 11,000 councillors to the Liberal Democrats’ 5,000 and the Conservatives’ 4,300; over 200 councils to the Lib Dems’ 50 and the Conservatives’ 23. Birmingham’s 117 council seats were split: Labour 87, Lib Dems 17, Conservatives 13.

Since then, in every single year, Labour’s total of councillors declined, so that today the Conservatives have more than 10,000 councillors and control 222 councils, compared to Labour’s 4,700 councillors and 43 councils. Likewise in Birmingham, where the now 120 seats are split: Conservatives 49, Labour 36, Lib Dems 32, Respect 3.

This year, Labour was confident it would see this awful trend reversed. For the first time since 1996, it would gain seats and councils – for two big reasons. First, the seats contested this year are those won and lost in 2006, a bad year even by Labour’s recent standards.