I find it interesting that whilst there is political turmoil across most of London, the south-west Lib Dem stronghold doesn’t budge.
I think the competent performance of those councils to date is part of it. Whilst across the rest of London the message was ‘change’, the message in the SW was about staying on course.
There may have been some rallying around keeping reform out, but in the end that hardly seemed a threat.
I guess that and it’s the stronghold of the ‘centrist dad’ as Reddit would say!
Perhaps its also about the relative wealth in those areas? If you're well off you're generally more insulated from knocks on cost of living or dependency on subpar local services as theres always an option to buy in services yourself?
The Greens were four votes away from a majority in Haringey - with Labour candidate Hasret Bodozgan elected in Woodside ward with 1,337 votes and Green candidate Hayley Jukes on 1,334.
They didn't run a full slate in West Green ward and their one candidate won *convincingly* there (2,009 votes for the one Green candidate and 1,727 for the next highest), so that's another one where it might have made it a majority
The three winning candidates in that ward have surnames starting with B, D and H. It’s tempting to think that ballot order effect was very costly here.
Something notable from Islington's results is it's clear that Corbyn missed his moment. None of his people were elected. Somebody he endorsed in a 2024 by-election jumped ship from "Islington Independent" to Green and won. The Greens are the party of the left and he should stop pretending there's an alternative.
Would you consider having a look at the impact of First past the post on London results? In Bexley where i live it lead to some whacky results.
Tory 37%, 29 seats
Reform 32%, only 7 seats
...Labour 20%, 9 seats
Surely its more time for a proportional system than ever? And i say this as a green party candidate and member knowing that a proportional system would've lead to way more reform candidates being elected.
I wonder if Bexley and Bromley remained Conservative, despite credible predictions of a Reform swing, because residents can more easily see what’s been happening on the other side of the M25 in Kent…
Interesting that in Richmond Borough, The Greens increased their vote share from 5.3% to 16.11%, so three times as many votes 2022 ->2026.
The impact of this and AND the drop in Lib Dem vote share was that... the Greens lost all of their seats 🙃. Make that make sense, without mentioning FPTP 🙄.
Tbf it was because last time the lib dems stood aside and endorsed them in certain seats (legacy of a brexit era deal) and that agreement wasn’t renewed. The greens that won last time all won as Lib Dem backed candidates
And they increased their vote because under the old arrangement they only ran in a handful of seats the LDs gave them (and won them), now they ran and lost everywhere!
Credit where it’s due…it wasn’t just a school sports day at The Oval, it was Surrey County Cricket’s Annual Disability for Special Schools like the one I work out. It’s a terrific (free) event that our kids attend every year and always have a great time
Wandsworth Council results were a wild example of how FPTP harms the progressive vote in London.
Progressive parties got more than 60% of the vote, and Labour came first in vote share on 34%, to the Tories 31%, yet the Tories have very narrowly got most seats there. Because reform don't have a foothold, they had a clear field on the right.
The Arsenal ward in Islington also exhibited ballot order effect, with the 2 green and 1 Labour candidate whose names appeared first getting elected. It was close though!
The Australians, rightly, in my opinion, randomise the order of candidates on ballot papers - their ballot papers are very long - to obviate ballot order effect. It can't be too complicated for us to do the same.
What happened in Wandsworth is that Labour had huge majorities in its strongholds in the south of the borough while the Conservatives had narrower majorities in the seats they won. What got the Conservatives over the line was a 15 vote win in St. Mary Park. A reminder that every vote counts.
I wonder what Malcolm Grimston (the independent who was kicked out by the Tories in 2014) will do. Will he put the Tories in? Remember the Tories ran Wandsworth for several years on the Mayor’s casting vote.
I wonder if a similar analysis could be made for candidates whose address was listed as outside the borough vs inside the borough. I suspect, even within a single party’s candidates, there’d be a difference as a result of this.
Also interesting that the Greens seemed overstretched. Winning sometimes where they didn’t campaign or coming a close second (and they’d probably have edged it over the line if they had). Where they allied with local socialist independents, the Green-branded candidates often did much better than them in the same ward and took their seats whilst the socialist independents did not with Labour managing to bag some as a result.
Also interesting to see the wards where the Greens took some seats in a ward but not all simply because they didn’t run a full slate of candidates so likely weren’t expecting to win there (and probably indicates they might not have even concentrated resources on the ward).
I am quite amazed they did not have a 3rd green candidate in Forest hill, the numbers there they'd probably have bagged yet another seat (they got 2 of the 3 by a big margin). Feels like in Lewisham at least they maybe just plain ran out of people and focused their attention on the relentless door knocking etc instead
The Sadiq Khan question at the end is the one I keep coming back to. My view is the London mayoral election in two years is the canary for whether Labour can rebuild its urban coalition before 2029. If Khan stands again, Labour would avoid an internal selection fight and fields their strongest available candidate. If he doesn't, whoever they run faces exactly the same structural squeeze - Greens on the left, Reform in the suburbs - but with national visibility and a single seat. That battle could end up being as important as the current PM succession dispute for where Labour ends up in 2029.
In the Kennington ward of Lambeth, Peter Evans picked up 62 votes for TUSC. In the past, Evans was deputy leader of the Tory group on Lambeth council. (He left Labour a few weeks before the elections).
I find it interesting that whilst there is political turmoil across most of London, the south-west Lib Dem stronghold doesn’t budge.
I think the competent performance of those councils to date is part of it. Whilst across the rest of London the message was ‘change’, the message in the SW was about staying on course.
There may have been some rallying around keeping reform out, but in the end that hardly seemed a threat.
I guess that and it’s the stronghold of the ‘centrist dad’ as Reddit would say!
Also sometimes things are just a bit random and legacies of when the Lib Dems ended up as the non-Conservative default option!
It’s a very weird map for them, though.
Perhaps its also about the relative wealth in those areas? If you're well off you're generally more insulated from knocks on cost of living or dependency on subpar local services as theres always an option to buy in services yourself?
The Greens were four votes away from a majority in Haringey - with Labour candidate Hasret Bodozgan elected in Woodside ward with 1,337 votes and Green candidate Hayley Jukes on 1,334.
They didn't run a full slate in West Green ward and their one candidate won *convincingly* there (2,009 votes for the one Green candidate and 1,727 for the next highest), so that's another one where it might have made it a majority
Lots of places where the Greens would have more councillors, even though they didn’t campaign, because they didn’t stand a full slate of candidates.
The three winning candidates in that ward have surnames starting with B, D and H. It’s tempting to think that ballot order effect was very costly here.
Something notable from Islington's results is it's clear that Corbyn missed his moment. None of his people were elected. Somebody he endorsed in a 2024 by-election jumped ship from "Islington Independent" to Green and won. The Greens are the party of the left and he should stop pretending there's an alternative.
Would you consider having a look at the impact of First past the post on London results? In Bexley where i live it lead to some whacky results.
Tory 37%, 29 seats
Reform 32%, only 7 seats
...Labour 20%, 9 seats
Surely its more time for a proportional system than ever? And i say this as a green party candidate and member knowing that a proportional system would've lead to way more reform candidates being elected.
I wonder if Bexley and Bromley remained Conservative, despite credible predictions of a Reform swing, because residents can more easily see what’s been happening on the other side of the M25 in Kent…
Great analysis thank you 🙏.
Interesting that in Richmond Borough, The Greens increased their vote share from 5.3% to 16.11%, so three times as many votes 2022 ->2026.
The impact of this and AND the drop in Lib Dem vote share was that... the Greens lost all of their seats 🙃. Make that make sense, without mentioning FPTP 🙄.
Tbf it was because last time the lib dems stood aside and endorsed them in certain seats (legacy of a brexit era deal) and that agreement wasn’t renewed. The greens that won last time all won as Lib Dem backed candidates
And they increased their vote because under the old arrangement they only ran in a handful of seats the LDs gave them (and won them), now they ran and lost everywhere!
Credit where it’s due…it wasn’t just a school sports day at The Oval, it was Surrey County Cricket’s Annual Disability for Special Schools like the one I work out. It’s a terrific (free) event that our kids attend every year and always have a great time
Oh that’s brilliant - had no idea they did that!
Wandsworth Council results were a wild example of how FPTP harms the progressive vote in London.
Progressive parties got more than 60% of the vote, and Labour came first in vote share on 34%, to the Tories 31%, yet the Tories have very narrowly got most seats there. Because reform don't have a foothold, they had a clear field on the right.
The Arsenal ward in Islington also exhibited ballot order effect, with the 2 green and 1 Labour candidate whose names appeared first getting elected. It was close though!
The Australians, rightly, in my opinion, randomise the order of candidates on ballot papers - their ballot papers are very long - to obviate ballot order effect. It can't be too complicated for us to do the same.
What happened in Wandsworth is that Labour had huge majorities in its strongholds in the south of the borough while the Conservatives had narrower majorities in the seats they won. What got the Conservatives over the line was a 15 vote win in St. Mary Park. A reminder that every vote counts.
I wonder what Malcolm Grimston (the independent who was kicked out by the Tories in 2014) will do. Will he put the Tories in? Remember the Tories ran Wandsworth for several years on the Mayor’s casting vote.
I wonder if a similar analysis could be made for candidates whose address was listed as outside the borough vs inside the borough. I suspect, even within a single party’s candidates, there’d be a difference as a result of this.
Also interesting that the Greens seemed overstretched. Winning sometimes where they didn’t campaign or coming a close second (and they’d probably have edged it over the line if they had). Where they allied with local socialist independents, the Green-branded candidates often did much better than them in the same ward and took their seats whilst the socialist independents did not with Labour managing to bag some as a result.
Also interesting to see the wards where the Greens took some seats in a ward but not all simply because they didn’t run a full slate of candidates so likely weren’t expecting to win there (and probably indicates they might not have even concentrated resources on the ward).
I am quite amazed they did not have a 3rd green candidate in Forest hill, the numbers there they'd probably have bagged yet another seat (they got 2 of the 3 by a big margin). Feels like in Lewisham at least they maybe just plain ran out of people and focused their attention on the relentless door knocking etc instead
My niece has changed her surname, for professional purposes, to mine as it's higher up the alphabet
The Sadiq Khan question at the end is the one I keep coming back to. My view is the London mayoral election in two years is the canary for whether Labour can rebuild its urban coalition before 2029. If Khan stands again, Labour would avoid an internal selection fight and fields their strongest available candidate. If he doesn't, whoever they run faces exactly the same structural squeeze - Greens on the left, Reform in the suburbs - but with national visibility and a single seat. That battle could end up being as important as the current PM succession dispute for where Labour ends up in 2029.
What you might have missed?
In the Kennington ward of Lambeth, Peter Evans picked up 62 votes for TUSC. In the past, Evans was deputy leader of the Tory group on Lambeth council. (He left Labour a few weeks before the elections).
“Vote Reform, lose your Freedom Pass” would seem like a somewhat bold policy for the MP for Upminster to run on at the next election.
Hadn’t considered that!
Surely 'We will count them on the beaches' should be 'We will count them on the benches'!