Results wrap
According to Wikipedia, Reform won 30% of the BBC’s Projected National Share (up 28 from the 2024 council elections), Labour 20% (down 14), the Lib Dems 17% (steady), the Tories 15% (down 10) and the Greens 11% (down two). If changes are measured from the last time these wards were contested in 2021, Reform is up 30, the Tories down 21, Labour down nine and the Lib Dems steady. It’s the first council elections where the combined share for the Tories and Labour has been below 50%.
With all 23 councils that held elections declared, Reform won 677 councillors (all new), the Lib Dems 370 (up 163), the Tories 317 (down 676), Labour 99 (down 186) and the Greens 80 (up 45). Councils controlled are 10 Reform (new), three Lib Dems (up three), zero Tories (down 16), zero Labour (down one) and ten with no overall control (up four). Of the six mayoralties contested, Labour won three, Reform two and the Tories one.
Live Commentary
8:48pm Slow progress in the council elections, with just over 150 out of over 1,600 total seats declared so far. Reform has 81 councillors (up 81), the Tories 42 (down 66), Labour 14 (down 13) and the Lib Dems nine (up five).
3:14pm Reform has GAINED Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by just six votes.
2:35pm Labour won the West of England and Doncaster mayoralties. In Doncaster, Labour was down 11 points to 32.6%, just ahead of Reform on 31.6% with 26.0% for the Tories. In W of England, Labour won25%, Reform 22%, the Greens 20%, the Tories 17% and the Lib Dems 14%.
1:55pm Labour won the North Tyneside mayoralty by 30.2-29.4 over Reform with 20.5% for the Tories. But Labour’s vote was down 23 points from 2021, while the Tories were down 11.
1:49pm There’s a recount in Runcorn and Helsby. It appears Reform were leading Labour by four votes going into the recount.
10:59am John Curtice says in nine wards that had the same boundaries as in 2021, the Tory vote is down 23 points and Labour down 10. The by-election declaration is expected about 12pm, which I’ll miss.
10:46am Friday So far Reform has won 15 councillors (up 15), the Tories six (down five) and Labour one (down nine).
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
A UK parliamentary by-election will occur today for the Labour-held Runcorn and Helsby, with polls closing at 7am AEST Friday. Labour MP Mike Amesbury resigned in March after being sentenced for assault. At the 2024 election, Labour defeated the far-right Reform in this seat by 52.9-18.1 with 16.0% for the Conservatives, 6.4% for the Greens and 5.1% for the Liberal Democrats. Two seat polls conducted in March gave Reform 3-5 point leads over Labour. Elections covered in this article all use first past the post.
UK local government elections will also be held today. These are held every May, but on a four-year cycle, so most seats up at these elections last faced election in 2021. The BBC calculates a Projected National Share (PNS) for each year’s elections, which allows results for a particular election to be compared to the previous year’s election, and also to the election four years ago. Only English councils are included in this year’s elections.
In 2021, the last time these seats were contested, Boris Johnson was popular, and the Conservatives won the PNS by 36-29 over Labour with 17% for the Lib Dems. In the 2024 local elections, held two months before the general election where Labour won a landslide, Labour won the PNS by 34-25 over the Conservatives, with 17% for the Lib Dems and 12% for the Greens. Usually, PNS only gives vote shares for Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems, but Reform should be included this year.
The Election Maps UK national poll aggregate gives Reform 25.4% of the vote (up 1.5 since my April 19 article), Labour 23.9% (down 0.5), the Conservatives 21.3% (down 1.2), the Lib Dems 13.7% (up 0.1) and the Greens 8.9% (down 0.1). Reform has overtaken Labour to lead. If these vote shares are reflected at the local elections, Reform will make massive gains at the expense of the Conservatives, with Labour also slumping. Polls conducted in April gave Labour leader and PM Keir Starmer a net approval below -30.
We are unlikely to see results from the parliamentary by-election until several hours after polls close. I will be out for two hours from 11am Friday. Given the proximity to the Australian election, I don’t intend to follow these elections as closely as I normally would.
Canadian election wrap
At Monday’s Canadian federal election, the centre-left Liberals won 169 of the 343 seats (up nine from 160 of 338 in 2021), the Conservatives won 144 seats (up 25), the separatist left-wing Quebec Bloc (BQ) 22 (down ten), the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) seven (down 18) and the Greens one (down one). The Liberals were three seats short of the 172 needed for a majority.
Vote shares were 43.7% Liberals (up 11.1%), 41.3% Conservatives (up 7.6), 6.3% BQ (down 1.3%) (27.9% in Quebec), 6.3% NDP (down 11.5%), 1.3% Greens (down 1.0%) and 0.7% for the far-right People’s (down 4.2%). Turnout was 68.7% (up 6.4%).
This election was far more proportional than in 2021. FPTP can be roughly proportional, but only if the two biggest parties get a high combined vote share, and there’s a small gap between these two parties. This election had the highest two-party share since 1958. It resembles the UK 2017 election, when the big two parties also surged.
The CBC Poll Tracker’s final aggregate of national polls gave the Liberals a 42.8-39.2 lead over the Conservatives, so the 3.6-point margin slightly overstated the Liberals’ 2.4-point election margin. Two of the three polls that had one-day surveys conducted the day before the election were very accurate, with Liaison giving the Liberals a two-point lead and Nanos a 2.7-point lead.
Seat estimates overstated the Liberals with the Tracker’s point estimate giving the Liberals a 189-125 seat lead. I said previously that I expected the Liberals’ vote efficiency to drop because of the crash in NDP support.
I believe the Liberals slid from a peak lead of 7.1 points in the Tracker on April 8 due to Mark Carney’s fading honeymoon from replacing Justin Trudeau as PM on March 14. Labor in Australia is not affected by a fading honeymoon.
Those National UK polls remind me of 2014-2015 when Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and UKIP were all around 20-25%. Which in FPTP can go anywhere in an election – thus the panic by PM Cameron at the time to promise a Brexit Referendum to get UKIP supporters back and save his own hide.
Well he won the election but didn’t save his own hide after all! If the Tories continue to fade maybe the thought of European dual citizen Nigel Farage in number 10 won’t sound so absurd.
Thanks for the coverage of these elections – a bit of constructive feedback on the Canadian coverage, to those of us with only vague knowledge of their politics it would be useful to briefly indicate which minor parties would be expected to suit which major party to make sense of the seat numbers.
The other big difference between Canada and Australia is the ALP isn’t a 10 year old govt.
Patrick, I identify the Liberals as centre-left, the BQ as separatist left-wing and the NDP as left-wing. I hadn’t originally identified the People’s as far-right, but have now fixed this. They didn’t win any seats and got just 0.7% of the national vote.
Rocket Rocket says:
Thursday, May 1, 2025 at 2:33 pm
“… If the Tories continue to fade maybe the thought of European dual citizen Nigel Farage in number 10 won’t sound so absurd.”
Yes it does!!
CANADA
“Two of the three polls that had one-day surveys conducted the day before the election were very accurate, with Liaison giving the Liberals a two-point lead and Nanos a 2.7-point lead.”
Liaison yes, but Nanos were simply out for both Liberal and Conservative – which doesn’t make them accurate – they were 2.4% out for Cons and 1.1% for Lib, whereas Liaison’s poll was vg for the actual numbers not just the gap.
You also fail to mention Mainstreet Research, the other daily pollster, which was every bit as good or better than anyone else with its final numbers being literally almost bang on for Lib and Con (you have to go to their website-dashboard to get the decimal points, Wikipedia only gives the rounded numbers – which match the actual rounded numbers of the election result in any case – the ONLY POLLSTER who achieves this).
Mainstreet also got NDP, BQ, PPC and Green correct so they definitely get an A+!!!
Angus Reid also deserve a mention – their final poll was 44-40-6-7.
Adrian
“. . .the BQ as separatist left-wing. . .”
I did cover this on one of the earlier threads, but this is a poor characterisation. The Bloc Quebecois is a conglomeration of left-to-right separatist elements, although mostly very socially liberal/socially leftwing.
Wikipedia is not always very precise in these things, but it claims:
“The Bloc has strong informal ties to the Parti Québécois (PQ, whose members are known as Péquistes), a provincial party that advocates for the secession of Quebec from Canada and its independence, but the two are not linked organizationally. As with its provincial counterpart, the Bloc Québécois has been supported by a wide range of voters in Quebec, from sections of organized labour to more conservative rural voters.”
“Those National UK polls remind me of 2014-2015 when Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and UKIP were all around 20-25%.”
There was never anything like that in that time period. Lib Dems were toxic and toast by then, unfairly or otherwise, due to their participation in the coalition government. UKIP were not at 20-25, perhaps 15-20% briefly and did achieve 12.7% in the 2015 GE.
The closest to what you describe would be Summer of 2019 around the Tory leadership election, the aftermath of the last Euro elections to be held in the UK and the state of flux around getting Brexit done or reversing it etc. As I recall, The Brexit Party came 1st in the Euro elections followed by the Lib Dems – who I believe did actually come first in a handful of polls thereafter, hard to believe when you see the final 2019 result.
UK Mayor polling by YouGov 9-23 April
GREATER LINCOLNSHIRE
Andrea Jenkyns, Reform UK 40%
Rob Waltham, Conservative 25%
Jason Stockwood, Labour 15%
Sally Horscroft, Green 8%
Marianne Overton, Lincolnshire Independents 7%
Trevor Young, Lib Dem 5%
HULL and EAST YORKSHIRE
Luke Campbell, Reform UK 35%
Mike Ross, Lib Dem 21%
Margaret Pinder, Labour 20%
Anne Handley, Conservative 15%
Kerry Harrison, Green 7%
Rowan Halstead, Yorkshire Party 3%
WEST of ENGLAND
Mary Page, Green 27%
Helen Godwin, Labour 23%
Arron Banks, Reform UK 18%
Steve Smith, Conservative 17%
Oli Henman, Lib Dem 13%
Ian Scott, Independent 2%
CAMBRIDGESHIRE & PETERBOROUGH
Paul Bristow, Conservative 32%
Ryan Coogan, Reform UK 20%
Anna Smith, Labour 19%
Lorna Dupre, Lib Dem 18%
Bob Ensch, Green 10%
So, clear leads for Reform in 2 and Conservative in 1, and a narrower Green lead over three other parties in the other. I can’t see Conservative winning West of Eng but none of the other three above him would amaze me, although I expect Greens will actually win and it would cause shockwaves if Reform actually won that one due to differential turnout or something.
Turnout in local government elections here is appalling and candidates will win or lose depending on their get out the vote machines and the enthusiasm of their electors.
The established parties also have good postal vote systems and will chase up their promised voters who have postal votes to send them in early or take them to a polling station today.
Reform doesn’t really have a GOTV machine so is relying o the motivation of its voters actually turning out. And remembering they need ID to vote. If they are turned away they may not return to the polling station with it later.
And here’s the UK Elects previews of the local elections
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-english-local-elections
It’s important to note that the seats up for election this year are just a sub-set of the 2021 elections as it included elections cancelled due to Covid in 2020 so were much bigger due to that.
And the parliamentary
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/a-bridge-too-far-previewing-the-runcorn
Polls are open in Runcorn and Helsby.
Personally I feel the way to think about the Canadian Liberals is as a political party that would be Malcolm Turnbull’s natural home. The sort of political home that eluded him in Australia
I think you are right.
Runcorn & Helsby by-election
Nationally, Labour average c.24% and Reform c.26% in the polls.
If UNS is applied to this by-election using those numbers as the basis for change in support since the July 2024 GE, then we get:
Labour 42% (-11)
Reform 29% (+11)
Everyone else 29%
In practice, Reform will hoover up more of the anti-Labour vote, especially Conservatives voting tactically.
Then you have the distortions that you get from the much lower turnout that occurs at by-elections compared to the GE – there is no obligation to vote, and Reform are widely considered to be the most motivated. There would be some ‘anti-Reform’ motivation that will get some people out to vote for Labour as well, but I doubt if it’s equivalent.
Another way of calculating changes from the last GE is to use PNS (proportional national swing, instead of uniform n s) based on today’s average polling, this would give much closer vote shares of:
Labour 36.6%
Reform 32.0%
Everyone else 31.4%
The above is still without tactical voting, remember.
Taking into account the usual factors with by-elections, only partly alluded to above, and the specific circumstances of this by-election, you have to conclude that Reform are clear favourites and may win by double-digit % too. Although predicted, it will cause some ripples if they win, and the publicity – combined with that of winning 2 mayoralties and lots of council seats – will likely give a further bump to their lead in the national polls.
But it would hardly be amazing if Labour retain the seat either, especially if they’ve been playing a good ground game based on long-held local knowledge. Even those polls from March only gave Reform a narrow lead.
UK council elections link.
Reform forging ahead and Labour and Tories are getting smashed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c39jedewxp8t
Reform @38%
Labour is down (-)14%
Tories down (-)11%
I just realised there’s only one by-election happening and not two. Stupid Poms and their double-barreled constituency names.
@Ante – don’t look at Canadian riding names then!
Some of them have three or four locations / areas in them
And they also have them in French as well.
But just because constituency names are double barrelled doesn’t make them stupid just different.
Labour won the North Tyneside Mayoralty with a majority of 444.
% of Labour vote dropped by 23%, Tories by 11% and Reform up 29%
A Swing of 26% from Labour to Reform.
@Ven
It really is far too early to say any party has been “smashed” yet with 1,600 seats to declare out of 1641!
ChrisC says:
Friday, May 2, 2025 at 11:23 am
@Ante – don’t look at Canadian riding …..
But just because constituency names are double barrelled doesn’t make them stupid just different
*******
Like the Greens then 🙂
We even have one of our own double-barrelled electorates, Eden-Monaro.
Kirsdarke, true but at least it doesn’t have the word ‘and’ in it.
It can be really confusing to see a list like, Beckenham and Penge and Blyth and Ashington and Bootle and Bracknell and Brentford and Isleworth. Even if they put some commas in there you have to hope they put them in the right places, and then still wonder if they used an Oxford comma at the end or not.
Ante Meridian @ #23 Friday, May 2nd, 2025 – 12:08 pm
Heh, true, that would be more logical.
I’m reminded of comedy shows like Monty Python and I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again coming up with silly village names like “Nibbling-on-the-Bone”, “Jam-on-the-Sconewithcream” and “Wombat-on-the-Boil”, not to mention “Dunny-on-the-Wode” from Blackadder.
Apparently 4 votes in it at Runcorn
Full recount will start shortly.
(And since it’s 4am I’m taking to my bed)
So far with 70 councillors declared,
Reform: 44 (+44)
Conservative: 21 (-31)
Labour: 4 (-12)
Independent: 1 (0)
Lib Dem: 0 (-1)
Green: 0 (0)
Other: 0 (0)
Looks like Reform is tearing right through Conservative heartlands. Labour not going very well either.
Kirsdarke says:
Friday, May 2, 2025 at 1:03 pm
“So far with 70 councillors declared,
Reform: 44 (+44)
Conservative: 21 (-31)
Labour: 4 (-12)
Independent: 1 (0)
Lib Dem: 0 (-1)
Green: 0 (0)
Other: 0 (0)
Looks like Reform is tearing right through Conservative heartlands. Labour not going very well either”
If you look at the “Election maps UK” twitter page you can see that there are many more results declared than shown above.
I don’t know why the BBC is showing so few. Perhaps they only include results for a council once ALL that council votes are declared.
However, the general pattern is that Reform are performing well, taking many seats from Labour and Tories alike.
From The Guardian
************
“In Doncaster, Reform’s candidate Alex Jones said it was still “too early to say” whether he would win, with 10 minutes to go until declaration.
“It’s looking good,” he added. “Even if we run them a close second, it shows our message is getting through to the populace.”
Has he got big ideas for if he gets in? “Yeah a few. You’ll find out.”
***********
Nothing like telling people your policies AFTER you win!
BBC
Damian Grammaticas
Reporting from Widnes
I’ve just been told something interesting from one of the parties involved – it’s being said there are just four votes separating the Runcorn and Helsby race.
This hasn’t been officially confirmed, but indications are that Reform are four votes ahead of Labour in this by-election.
Reform is smashing Tories and Labour.
This is what happens when Major parties fail and are smashed.
A far-right party will rise to power like it did in 1932 Germany, like it happened in 2024 US and like it is happening in UK. After that everything will be smashed.
Smash. Smash. Smash.
Latest from The Guardian –
Ven 2.16pm
Do stop talking hyperbolic nonsense, it achieves nothing. These threads are normally ‘nice’ threads, not like the main threads.
Doncaster is a surprise Labour win for me, obviously there’s still a big swing to Reform but I am mildly impressed that Labour actually won still in key Reform territory (though I’ve no idea the exact boundaries of this).
Lab 32.6% (-11)
Reform 31.6%
Con 26.0% (-2.5)
Green 3.4%
Yorkshire 1.6%
SDP 1.3%
Lib Dem 1.2%
Mildly impressed by the Con vote too given their dire national ratings currently.
Ante Meridian
“Stupid Poms and their double-barreled constituency names.”
Oi, watch what you say.
Plus you don’t know what double-barrelled means!
Don’t blame others for your own ignorance/irritation. If it were 2 by-elections, there would be an ‘s’ on the end of ‘by-election’. 🙂
BTSays says:
Friday, May 2, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Ven 2.16pm
“Do stop talking hyperbolic nonsense, it achieves nothing. These threads are normally ‘nice’ threads, not like the main threads.”
Which highlights the problems with the main threads.
West of England Mayor
Greens failed to live up to the poll there showing them ahead:
Labour 25% (winner)
Reform 22%
Green 20%
Con 17%
Lib Dem 14%
Reform coming so close in West of England of all places (Bristol being the main population centre) is funny. Greens will be humiliated that they were beaten by Reform in a heartland area of theirs (1 of their 4 MPs is in Bristol and they are strong on the council etc)
PaulTu @ #27 Friday, May 2nd, 2025 – 1:49 pm
I see. I don’t know why the council vote is so slow this year, normally they fly in about 10-20 at a time every 5 minutes.
The Guardian is only reporting the mayoral results, no council seats up so far.
Apparently Reform has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by 6 votes.
Reform win Runcorn & Helsby by just 6 votes!! (after a recount, they were 4 votes ahead the first count)
Prof John Curtice (UK’s Antony Green) says:
“Reform’s success in the Runcorn by-election is a big moment for the party.
In winning 38.7% of the vote, the party has matched the highest share of the vote for any Eurosceptic party in a by-election ever (Heywood and Middleton 2014), other than in the two occasions in 2014 when a defecting Tory MP won in UKIP colours.
Meanwhile, there are only 17 previous by-elections in which a majority as big as the 35% majority Labour enjoyed has been overturned.
It will be difficult for Labour to argue that this was anything other than a serious defeat for the party.”
Unfortunately for Labour the by-election result will overshadow their mayoralty wins.
What a difference 6 votes makes to the narrative. Labour’s 38.7% vote share, down from 52.9% at the GE, was actually a very respectable result for a governing party in the context of a by-election -and many times would be a winning one.
On another note, Sarah Pochin becomes Reform’s first ever female MP, and brings their total tally back up to 5 again (they dumped Rupert Lowe a few weeks ago, seems like there wasn’t room for him and Farage. . .).
Kirsdarke says:
Friday, May 2, 2025 at 3:03 pm
“Apparently Reform has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by 6 votes.”
So I read. The UK think Farage is the answer? Wrong question.
I wouldn’t deny that Reform are doing very well in the council elections, but the results shown on BBC so far are based on just a small fraction of council areas.
Some probably only starting counting today, I don’t know.
From the reports, it seems the issues were reducing the “winter fuel” rebate (it is the UK!) and the “personal independence payment” being more difficult to get.
So, it’s “survival’ issues for those effected.
The Labour vote fell by more that 14 percentage points, from 52.9 at the general election to 38.7 today.
That’s the sort of drop normally associated with decade-old governments on their last legs, not one barely out of honeymoon mode.
Ante Meridian says:
Friday, May 2, 2025 at 3:38 pm
“The Labour vote fell by more that 14 percentage points, from 52.9 at the general election to 38.7 today.
That’s the sort of drop normally associated with decade-old governments on their last legs, not one barely out of honeymoon mode.”
True, but if you woke up on your Honeymoon next to Keir Starmer…..
Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns wins as Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2025/england/mayors/E47000017
Winning with 42% of the vote over 26.1% for the Conservative candidate. It’s a new mayoral seat so there was no incumbent.
“From the reports, it seems the issues were reducing the “winter fuel” rebate (it is the UK!) and the “personal independence payment” being more difficult to get.
So, it’s “survival’ issues for those effected.”
That may be an element, but not sure where that vote would have gone? (other than ‘stay at home’ of course). But those ‘reports’ are more the Labour (grassroots) narrative, and issues such as crime/justice, immigration and economic competence, will have been major drivers here.
Labour have their core vote/true believers of course, but there is a widespread perception of their being a disappointment and no improvement on the discredited Conservative government who lost last year. The above issues are driving that with voters ‘in the middle’ and the right, and things like the PIP with the leftwing. Winter fuel issue caused outrage across the spectrum, though some support the case for its removal as well. (the issue was that it wasn’t just removed from well-off pensioners, it was removed from those ‘just about getting by’ and only the very, very poorest were spared).
“The Labour vote fell by more that 14 percentage points, from 52.9 at the general election to 38.7 today.
That’s the sort of drop normally associated with decade-old governments on their last legs, not one barely out of honeymoon mode.”
Nope. Not in the UK it isn’t. That’s a respectable result for an incumbent government, though admittedly they can do much better this early in their term. But they already knew they had become unpopular quickly.
Then add to the fact that the (ex) Labour MP beat a constituent up (all on CCTV), and apparently got off lightly in court, and really this wasn’t a bad performance at all.
Conservatives were losing 40% of the vote (2/3 of what they had previously) in the by-elections they lost to the Lib Dems in the last parliament in their ‘safe’ seats.
But sure, it’s not a great look for Labour – for the hold-outs who still didn’t believe that Farage & co could seriously do well in Labour seats / areas, the penny will finally have dropped. And that can create further ripples, it’s all about the narrative and those 6 votes made all the difference.
BTSays @ #49 Friday, May 2nd, 2025 – 4:38 pm
Agreed with that. Reform is getting solid victories on the board from both this by-election and the local elections, so unless Starmer wants his legacy to be as toxic as Blair’s, he’d better change tactics fast, since what he’s doing now is not going over well.