Ben Gamblin Online - Blog: Local Elections 2007

Local Elections 2007

04 May '07, 17:41

Interesting results are coming out from the local elections which took place across England yesterday.

After looking at the BBC's map showing which party controls which council, my conclusion is that Labour must secretly be quite worried. Of course MPs are trying to put a good spin on it by saying they didn't get as hammered as expected, but there is no denying that for them to lose 8 councils and 460 councillors is not good news.

In comparison, so far the Conservatives have gained 37 councils and 839 councillors.

It's quite clear from the map that there is still quite a divide in the country with the south and east being predominantly Conservative with a splatter of Lib Dem councils. Further north, Labour have a fair few more councils and a lot have no party with overall control. No real suprises there though. Interestingly the East of England, where Essex falls, currently has only 2 Labour councils - Stevenage and Luton, and 4 Lib Dem councils - Three Rivers, Watford, Cambridge and North Norfolk. However there are still 4 to call - Dacorum, Mid Bedfordshire, Bedford and Breckland.

The thing to remember though is that these elections were based around local issues. In theory people should not have been voting against Labour because they don't like Tony Blair, but because the council might abolish weekly bin collections. However everyone knows that the general public is stupid so I bet a lot of the votes didn't work like that.

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