This week’s set of elections across England will be a series of firsts: it will be the first big ballot box test of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership and Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative Party.
We will have the first by-election of this parliament in Labour-held Runcorn, the inaugural elections for the mayoralty of Hull and East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and our first chance to see if Reform’s surge in the polls since the general election can translate into seats.
In play are over 1,600 council seats, six mayoralties and the Labour-held seat of Runcorn and Helsby after a by-election was triggered by the Labour MP Mike Amesbury punching a constituent on a night out.
And there is plenty at stake for the party leaders with all the upside in the hands of Nigel Farage, who has barely any council seats to defend and hundreds in his sights, as he looks to translate his poll leads into proper governing – be it through mayoral wins or council control.
Sir Keir is bracing for an early verdict on his leadership, with the Runcorn by-election a test of nerves for a Labour Party that will be loathed to lose a seat in the northwest of England to a surging Reform Party.
Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons
For the Conservatives, the pressure is obvious and acute.
Of the 23 councils up for grabs, 16 are currently controlled by the Conservative Party and when they last fought these seats in 2021, the Conservatives were riding high on the back of a then popular Boris Johnson and COVID vaccine bounce.
Back then, the party’s national equivalent vote share – an estimate of how the country would have voted if everywhere had had a local election – was at 40%, with Labour at 30%, the Lib Dems at 15%, and other parties at 15%.
Their…
