Local Elections in the UK

First, a disclaimer. There isn’t much of an argument in this post. There isn’t even much of a narrative arc. What I do promise are some words strung together somewhat coherently to form paragraphs. Individual paragraphs might be a satisfying à la carte experience, but the aggregate meal will probably disappoint as it’s largely autobiographical. I’m shaking the rust off of the blogging thing following a lengthy hiatus. If you take anything away from this post beyond light food poisoning, it should be the video on the Plymouth city council elections put together by The Guardian’s John Harris (link below).

On May 5th, the United Kingdom enjoyed an electoral orgy in what sort of passes for ‘off year’ elections here. Some mayors were elected in some of the municipalities than have such things (and the one municipality in Devon that has an elected mayor voted 62% to eliminate the position in a referendum), the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Irish assembly had elections, and the patchwork of local government also had elections. This is quite varied in England; geographically, England is divided into metropolitan counties, non-metropolitan counties, and London. These are all dual-tiered. To use the example of a non-metropolitan county, district councils are nested within county councils, and the two of them divide the administration of services. Alongside all these are “unitary authorities”, which combine all responsibilities under one body. The City of Plymouth is a unitary authority. To make matters more complex, some of these bodies elect a third of their council in any given year, some half, and some elect the entire council once every four years. Plymouth is elected on the thirds system, so we have elections to the city council three out of every four years.  (Incidentally, to the social scientist this makes for a brilliant data source, and I have a paper under review that pitches this as as close to a natural experiment as I can achieve). Some national media took to calling the 2016 election here “Super Thursday”, which is apt I guess given that this is the largest election day in the UK outside of a general parliamentary election.

Readers who remember who I am might know that I’ve been active in the local Labour Party for the past several years (and I also do a lot of media as an academic, which makes for a fine line) and this year was no different. The photo at the top was taken on election day a week ago, at our traditional morning breakfast before our targeted, data-driven GOTV effort begins. I’m sat in the center of the picture, discussing the day’s plan with the canvassing team I cobbled together and led throughout this electoral cycle, the campaign coordinator for the southern wards in the city (Luke Pollard, also the parliamentary candidate for the southern constituency last year who lost by only 523 votes) and Tudor Evans, the leader of Plymouth City Council. (Photo credit to Cllr. Jonny Morris, the campaign coordinator for the northern wards of the city). One thing I appreciate about this picture is that Jonny’s shot visually inflates my centrality to events, so I’m running with it.

In all last Thursday, I walked 15 miles between 7am and 9:30pm (and still had time to drop in on the university to deliver a scheduled lecture). Then it was home for a quick shower and nibbling on some fish & chips before heading to the formal count, where I was from 10:30pm until the final declarations; I think we left the count at 4:45am.  This was my third election running as a verification agent; I wrote about my first experience in the role two years ago here at LGM. Unlike the past two years, where I was assigned to one candidate in one ward, this year I was more of a trouble-shooter, allocated where needed on the fly, and in the end I worked five different wards throughout the evening.

In the end, Labour won 11 of the seats up for election to the Conservatives eight (Wikipedia overview here; note the swing was from the last time these specific seats were up for election in 2012, not last year). However, given only a third of the council was up for election, we ultimately lost a net one seat, thus resulting in a city council deadlocked on 27 Labour councillors, 27 Conservatives, and three UKIPers. That said, we “won” the vote. Plymouth consists of 20 wards, and in the 19 up for election city-wide, the result was Labour 36.5% Conservative 35.5% UKIP 16.3% Liberal Democrat 4.4% Green 2.5% Others (TUSC & PISWUK) 4.8%.  Two parliamentary constituencies are located wholly in Plymouth, and Thursday’s results, normed to those two constituencies had Plymouth Sutton & Devonport: Labour 43.3%, Conservative 30.2%. Plymouth Moor View: Labour 38.2%, Conservatives 30.6%. The five remaining wards in the east of the city form 60% of the population of South West Devon, which is a Conservative stronghold. Note, we lost both of the marginal parliamentary constituencies last year, so the Count featured the attendance of all three Conservative MPs representing Plymouth (all of whom I know, which makes for interesting conversations on election night).

There was a decent media presence as well, and I had what was an off-the-record chat with a local print journalist that found its way into the paper as a “Labour source”. What I didn’t know is that the highly regarded John Harris of The Guardian was down from London, and he put together an excellent ten minute video on the Plymouth elections. It opens in the count late Thursday night, and gives a decent idea what it’s like. When this was released the next day it spread through our circles quickly, and it was pointed out to me that I have brief cameos at 35 seconds in (blurry, in the background, doing verification on Stoke ward’s table; taking our samples, the Conservative and I would help each other out on ballots either of us missed) and then a three second closeup from 8:09.  The latter, I was on the Southway ward table, the last ward to call on the night, furiously chewing my nicotine gum. We had to win, given we lost Eggbuckland, thus at best putting us level with the Conservatives. Since I wasn’t on that ward for the initial sample I was flying blind (we had some numbers, but I didn’t have a sense how reliable they were), and it was close. Very close. I’m watching not only the Labour count just to my right, but the Conservative count two tables to my left (I also had someone on that table I trusted) while stood immediately next to the Conservative candidate for the ward (pleasant conversation ensued). In the end, we held Southway by only 88 votes, but it was probably the tensest moment I’ve had in three elections of doing this. Following the counts, it was time to settle in for 19 speeches by winning candidates. My favorite was Darren Winter’s, newly elected to St. Budeaux ward, directly critiquing the Conservative MP for the north of the city (while looking right at him on occasion).

Direct participation in local politics has been educational, and my lecturing on both British and American politics is richer for it. It’s also been a lot of exercise, both physical and mental.  And this should serve as a warning: LGM’s Senior Analyst for British Politics is coming out of extended hibernation, dammit.  I’ll get around to writing about some of the reasons for this extended hiatus, but the next few weeks I’ll likely be solely occupied with the UK’s European Union referendum, to be held on the 23rd of June.