Local elections: A Labour bloodbath?
By Ian Dunt
Labour is on track to lose every county council at the upcoming local elections, bookmakers are predicting.
William Hill is offering odds of 2/1 that Labour will lose control of its four remaining county councils on June 4th.
Staffordshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire could all fall, but at least three of them are expected to go to the Conservatives.
“We would not be remotely surprised if they lost all four,” said William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe.
“We have certainly seen nothing at all at 4/11 for them to retain control of one or more.”
David Cameron has been busy turning the elections into a referendum on Gordon Brown’s leadership, telling audiences at the start of the Conservative campaign that “enough is enough”.
“We can make that glorious day of change arrive all the sooner if on June 4th you give this weak, useless and spineless government a message it won’t forget,” he added.
Labour has not gone without any county councils since Jim Callaghan’s troubled 1970s administration.
Lancashire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire are all ripe for the Tories, requiring a less than five per cent swing.
Derbyshire would be more difficult, requiring a swing of 12 per cent.
The elections could also see the remaining Labour councillors wiped out from county councils under Conservative or Lib Dem control.
Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, North Yorkshire, Surrey and Dorset councils, for instance, have only two to eight Labour councillors, who could easily be swept aside on a bad night for the government.
Many of the councils are used to having their local election on the same day as the general election, thereby upping the number of people voting and thereby improving Labour’s result.
David Cameron is visiting Derbyshire today for the local election campaign, where he will discuss the Conservative pledge to freeze council tax.
“Under Labour, council tax has soared across the country, pushing up the cost of living,” he said.
“Families and pensioners facing the economic squeeze cannot afford yet more tax rises from Gordon Brown. Yet, if Scotland can freeze council tax for its residents, we can do the same south of the border.”
The election takes place on June 4th.
