 Last week saw one of the biggest exercises in electoral politics in Britain this year with local elections across England and Northern Ireland The other of course being European elections set to take place later this month The number of seats up for grabs was more than 8,500 many many seats and the last time these precise seats were contested Was in 2015's local elections They took place on the same night as that year's general election which meant they had an Unnaturally high turnout and that we could presume all things being equal that certain things would happen One was that the conservatives would lose Counselors because of course in 2015 David Cameron defied all the odds to form a majority at Westminster Another was the liberal Democrats would bounce back somewhat again in 2015 They were punished by the electorate for being in the coalition government for five years That was their nadir or so we thought and so you would expect them to win some council seats this time round Conversely with UKIP their best-ever general election result was of course in 2015. They won almost four million votes and Obviously as an outgrowth of that they gained many councillors on the night of the 2015 local elections So it was widely anticipated that they would lose councillors at the same time People generally presumed Labour would pick up councillors at the cost of the conservatives and at the Greens because they'd done pretty well in 2015 will probably stay still now Some of that happened some didn't the Tories lost 1330 councillors that was more than they were expecting they were trying to engage in Expectations management by saying 500 would be neutral. What that tells us is that 1330 is an utter catastrophe Even by what they were preparing the media for and the Liddems, of course one more than 700 councillors the Greens 194 the big story of the night for the media though was Labour's inability to gain from Tory defeat and the prism Quite expectedly was Brexit because of their inability to decide whether they were for against the second referendum They were being punished by the electorate or so we were told But I think that's only half the story and while Labour did lose 80 councillors If you look at where they lost them and where they gained them things begin to look a bit more Optimistic in regards to them forming the next government at Westminster Here's an image of the councils where they lost the most councillors as you can see they're Overwhelmingly in northern safe seats which voted leave now they won't stay safe forever I'll talk about that later But it's fair to say that most of them will be Labour come the next general election and where did they make gains? Well, those were in marginals generally speaking in the southeast some in the Midlands as well So while Labour suffered in Barnsley Bolsover and Sunderland They gained seats in Folkstone in Worthing in Rother So where are these places Rother includes Hastings and Rye Amber Rudd's constituency. It's a key Labour target seat Elsewhere you had Johnny Mercer and Plymouth Plymouth, of course saw Labour gain one councillor Then you've got Brock Stowe formerly the seat of Anna Subri MP as a conservative now Of course her seat as MP4 changed UK Labour did well there and in Mansfield they won the Mayor's race for the town in Swindon They lost to councillor, but their share of the vote went up by 8% then we look at other places Sherwood South Thunnett. There's a really interesting story to tell as I say generally in the southeast But across the south and some of the Midlands to you've also got Amber Valley So in terms of forming a government in terms of being the largest party after the next general election if not forming a majority government These were pretty decent set of results for Labour Now what do they mean for the Liberal Democrats? Of course at face value winning more than 700 councillors can only be good news But when you dig a bit deeper and look at their share of the vote It's not perhaps as good as one might initially suspect They won 19% of the votes less than both the Tories and Labour But what's interesting is that that's only a percentage point more than what they won in the 2017 local elections and as history tells us they were only little over a month before the 2017 general election Where their share of the vote actually went down on 2015 so in of itself these local elections shouldn't be much of a guide for the prospects of a lived-em hashtag fight back But if we situate them within a broader historic context things get even more interesting between 1997 and 2010 the Liberal Democrats averaged around 25 26% in local elections So even four years out from being punished by the electorate for being in that coalition government and with the rocket fuel of Brexit They're still not going back that historic trend That means I suspect that they will never will and a major reason why is the Green Party as I've said the Greens won 194 new councillors doubly impressive given their results in 2015 were good because it was on the same night as a general election where they did very well now historically or at least between the late 1980s and 2010 basically Almost all of my life if you weren't gonna vote Labour or Conservative you would vote Liberal Democrat Which is why in local elections they tended to do very well 2003 in fact just a few months after Britain invaded Iraq the Liberal Democrats got 30% in local elections results So they're only marginally above half that now and that like I say is with Brexit arguably the biggest Constitutional question of my life what the Greens now seemingly change in all of this is that the Liberal Democrats are no longer the default neither of the big two party It seems that many voters whether it be around left-wing issues anger austerity or wishing to remain in the European Union No longer look at the Liberal Democrats as the default actually Considerably large numbers think that the Greens are where they wish to go now if the Liberal Democrats want to win 2030 seats the next general election go back to what they view as their historical norm for the late 1990s and much of the 2000s they'll have to stop that from happening because as it seems to me the Greens in places like the Southwest Where the Liberal Democrats want to win back to a receipt? Maybe we'll stop them getting over the line and like I say I don't think that's going to turn around anytime soon because it's not just Brexit Which is powering the rise the Green Party its climate change too and as we've seen with extinction rebellion and Parliament passing emergency Legislation to call a climate crisis that will only be a bigger issue over time And I think the Greens will benefit primarily at the cost of the Liberal Democrats when it comes to local elections Then we've got the Conservatives in any year losing 1330 councillors would be bad news But I think even those numbers don't quite tell you how bad a story it is a Tory seeking to defend those results might point to 1995 when John Major's Tories lost 2000 councillors two years ahead of Labour's momentous 1997 general election victory 2000 that's bigger than 1300 sure, but there's something else going on here as well The Conservatives are losing places. They've never really lost before so in Bournemouth for instance where I grew up Bournemouth Paul and Christ Church Until last week 51 of its 54 councillors were Tories now It's moved into no overall control that means they're not just confronting the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats But also the Greens and independence to that is to say a significant part of their historic base Former Conservative activists and voters are moving away from them because of Brexit They're being pincid from both the left primarily on austerity on Brexit on falling living standards But also from their right. That's gonna be a very difficult challenge for them to address There's a similar story in a bunch of other Councillors you had of course traffic council one by Labour, but what I find really interesting is the places where Labour would just beginning to break through so for instance in Waverley council which includes Jeremy Hunt's constituency to Labour councillors were elected to Godelman. These aren't places historically where Labour councillors win Similar story in Chichester. Labour picked up a couple of councillors there They picked up I think one or two councillors in Guilford now I'm not saying that these are going to be Labour targets anytime soon But what I think is happening there is a slow motion version of what's happening in places like Chingford Currently home to in Duncan Smith Torrey MP a target for Labour and fires a Shaheen Labour are looking to win those seats because of people leaving London because of growing BAME communities because of young people there Maybe university educated not feeling they have real prospects in the area can't afford to buy the kinds of homes that their parents raise them in There are similar trends happening in places like Guilford Places like Chichester all bit far more slowly and far less intensely But what it does mean if not the next general election in 10 15 years time is that the Conservatives are going to have very few safe seats left Now I view that as the third variable amongst three a Triptych of variables that really seem to me is posing an existential challenge to the Conservative Party The first is of course their membership. It's getting older. It's shrinking the same as of course true for their electorate, but in a Age of populist people powered politics having a small older membership is Difficult secondly their bastion of media power has historically been in the print media That of course is declining You only need to look at the sales of the Sun newspaper in the Daily Mail To know as much and of course some of that power is reproduced in their online output and it's amplified by broadcast particularly the BBC But it's clearly not going to win elections like some claim it did in 1992 when the Sun had that iconic front page. It was the Sun. What won it? Thirdly is this third variable I think it's as big as the other two if not bigger of there not really being because of Long-term sociological shifts that many safe seats in the South in particular now I've said that Labour had a surprisingly good election I think it's interesting how the media is failing to report some really big and positive stories for them and also how the Tories seem to be in free fall to a greater extent than even the numbers show But there are obviously some bad stories for Labour as well for years into the Corbyn project It still doesn't have much of a vision for locally-based municipal socialism Yes There's the Preston model and that really should be at the forefront of the public conversation far more than it is But generally speaking Labour and particularly Corbynism's theory of change is winning power at Westminster and using the national centralized state To affect socialism. I don't think that will work It's useful and it as I've said is increasingly likely but in isolation. It's insufficient a Good place to look here by comparisons perhaps Barrack Obama's United States Obama of course won his first presidency in 2008 his second in 2012 That decade or eight years was presumed by many to mark a shift in American public life changing public attitudes around same-sex marriage abortion narcotics drugs Even foreign policy and yet Donald Trump wins in 2016 a major reason Why is that the Democrats got high off their own? Propaganda fundamentally they had executive power, but they didn't control the house the Congress at the same time the Democratic Party was being hollowed out across the country at a local level and Corbynism cannot work if the Labour Party Just has a small majority in the House of Parliament in the House of Commons It can't work it will need a very large majority simply by virtue of resistance from within the party because the establishment runs as much through Labourers through anything else, but also it will need to have Examples of how to create a 21st century socialism at the local level which offer prototypes for elsewhere much like how the NHS was based on Public insurance programs amongst minors in Wales So I think a Corbynism without a local aspect will inevitably fail and as I've said What these local election results tell us is that four years into Corbynism? We still don't really have a model of what 21st century local socialism looks and feels like an addendum to that is Seats like Barnsley-Sundland Bolsova and as I've said these are going to not be Labour the next election Bolsova's quite close but generally speaking they're safe Labour seats and Yes, they skew the picture a bit in terms of national performances time round But it doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them Craig Jenner a great piece of Navarro Medio about Barnsley And I agreed with much of what it said We need to win these places over on the left by transforming their economies by flooding money into public services Transforming high streets transforming ownership of course all of these things, but as much as an economic offer They also need a social and political offer and where they sit and fit in 21st century Britain This is a country which has had an over-centralized tendency now for centuries and London plays an ever-larger part in National conversation and popular psyche But that's increasingly dissonant from the everyday lived experiences of tens of millions of people And that's something which often goes over the head of commentators based in London So I think Labour needs a vision for municipal socialism It still hasn't got one and I also think it needs to create a story for places Which might be referred to as its historic heartlands, which is very much a modern one Which isn't nostalgic and which is optimistic about a better tomorrow The good news is I think the Tories really are facing Annihilation at the next general election they might lose big they might lose small But as I've said the longer term shifts in regards to print media in regards to voter demographics And as we've seen last week in regards to a ever-shrinking cluster of safe seats Doesn't bode well for one of the most successful political parties in modern European history So conclusion is this Mixed bag for Labour far more positive than the media is saying particularly if we want to look at who's going to form the next Government at the same time It's clear that one of the biggest challenges Labour faces is building a compelling vision of 21st century socialism At a local level and one that is also culturally resonant with places which aren't London and which aren't the Southeast