Alan's Green Thoughts

As expected, the Scottish Parliament proved a slight setback for the SNP (Scottish National Party), whose ratings have been sliding since Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the office of First Minister and who endured a drubbing at the 2024 general election - but not as much as pollsters predicted. The SNP in fact only lost 6 seats, making them still the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by far, and they topped the poll in every single Scottish region, although in the Edinburgh & Lothians East region this was only by 0.6%. They also won every single constituency in the Central Belt region with no party coming close to winning any of them, although they did lose as many as 7 constituencies - 2 to the Greens (Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Southside, whilst holding the notionally more Green-inclined Glasgow Kelvin & Maryhill), 4 to the Liberal Democrats (Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, Edinburgh Northern, Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch and Strathkelvin & Bearsden) and most ...

  Readers, Sir Keir Starmer suffered a drubbing for Labour in this year's election similar to that the Conservatives endured in 2023 - and like Rishi Sunak back then, many of the political changes will be virtually irreversible. Like in 2025, the May 2026 local elections in England resulted in a breakdown in 2 party-politics. Although Labour won the second most seats up for election this year, this is only because they were defending (notionally, accounting for East and West Surrey's replacement of the 11 Surrey districts and Surrey County Council) as many as 2,564 seats, more than all the other parties, residents' associations and independents combined. They lost 1,496 of these - almost 60% of the seats they were defending, as well as control of 38 of the 66 councils they had overall control of, again an almost 60% decrease; in fact across England they gained just 3 council seats from other parties. By far their largest losses were in Greater London, where they lost contro...

  It has taken me a while to get around to this, unfortunately, but in terms of election predictions the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd in Wales must not be overlooked. In particular, the Senedd's switch from a Mixed Member Proportional system (40 single member constituencies, 20 list seats with 4 per region) to a closed list proportional representation system (96 seats, with election by 16 6-member constituencies) will result in a radical shake-up of the Senedd, especially with Plaid Cymru and Reform UK currently fighting to top the poll in Wales and Labour predicted to finish no better than 3rd, and possibly even 4th. Even with the shine coming off Reform UK in Wales just like in England and Scotland, Plaid Cymru is not guaranteed to top the poll because its appeal in English-speaking areas will always be somewhat limited by its key raison d'etre, even though it will undoubtedly win over more Labour voters than Reform UK will across Wales with the exception of Flintshire ...

This year, local elections are more unpredictable in Britain than ever before, especially with the the 29 district and borough councils whose elections were initially going to be postponed owing to local government reorganisation in those areas (which will convert all remaining 2-tier counties into 1 or more unitary authorities, thus ending the 2-tier system across the UK entirely), now in fact holding these elections on 7th May as planned; the postponements were rescinded in February following a legal challenge by Reform UK. Nevertheless, with local government reorganisation continuing its course with 2 new unitaries emerging as a result of said reorganisation (East and West Surrey) holding elections next month, this will be the final election for many authorities in the UK. The election map will also become more colourful with not only the Greens and Reform set to win record numbers of seats, but also other minor parties emerging, mainly at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives...

In what will likely be the last ever county council elections in the UK- the plan towards unitarisation of remaining 2-tier county councils is still in motion - there was a historic sea change. This came, first and foremost, in the Conservative Party- the traditionally dominant party of the shire counties - losing control of every single council it won control of in 2021; even in wealthy Buckinghamshire they failed to obtain overall control, if only by 1 seat, and in Buckinghamshire they did not poll 50% or above in any division, not even Beaconsfield or Gerrards Cross & Denham where detached houses with seven-figure values are the norm rather than the exception, and the only other council where they remained the largest party was Northumberland. The post-COVID bounce they experienced in 2021 when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister more than unravelled - in County Durham they only held 1 seat and in some councils, even those where they have been in control more often than not since t...

  This year's local elections in England are particularly notable since due to upcoming local government reorganisation, these elections will, if said reorganisation proceeds as planned, will be the last ever county council elections under the current two-tier system of local government, as introduced by the Local Government Act 1972.  Since 2007, many former county councils have already been replaced by one or more unitary authorities, and the remaining two-tier councils of Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Devon, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex and Worcestershire are set to follow suit by 2028, and some extant unitary authorities will likely be absorbed in the process. In fact, county council elections in East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and West Sussex that were due to take place this...