Localis thoughts on the local election

Author: Mike Morgan-Giles, Localis - Jun 5, 2009

Today’s local election has produced few surprises as yet. Labour have been hit particularly hard, but that should come as no great shock. Whilst all the major parties have been tarnished with the expenses affair, David Cameron’s perceived decisiveness after the troubles broke has helped the Conservatives through some of the mud. In addition, the chaos which the Government has found itself in this week from various resignations within the Cabinet has further influenced public opinion.

However, whilst it did seem that Gordon Brown was on his last legs at the beginning of the day in the wake of James Purnell’s resignation, he has so far managed to hold the Cabinet together with a series of strategic promotions, including bizarrely the promotion of relative unknown Bob Ainsworth to Defence Secretary. How long these short term changes will keep together a Labour Government who polled in the region of just 23% in the local elections no-one can be completely sure. In fact, only this morning William Hill slashed the odds on Gordon Brown not surviving past 13th June from 4/1 to just 5/4.

But who are the real winners and losers from the local elections? The Local Government Secretary, John Healey attempted to dismiss concerns over Labour’s results stating that "this is Tory England at the ballot box", but these comments hold little weight considering Labour has lost Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire. Nick Clegg was beaming only a few hours ago having won Bristol, describing it as a "complete transformation of city politics". However, Clegg is likely to have lost some of this enthusiasm having seen the Tories make strides throughout the country, taking Councils off both the Liberal Democrats and Labour. They have undoubtedly come through the last few weeks stronger than the other parties.

However, perhaps the clear winner of the recent political chaos and the elections is localism. In the past week or two, we have seen politicians from all three major parties advocating the need for greater devolution of power away from central government. Of course it is easy for them to say this, but this is exactly why local government and local people must take this chance to seize some of the initiative back.

Taken from the monthly Localis Newsletter