Tomorrow, voters go to the polls for the last set of local elections in this parliament. After five tumultuous years, Rishi Sunak and his party look set to suffer big losses – including up to half the 985 council seats which the Tories are trying to hold. Some 2,600 council seats are up for grabs across 107 local authorities in England, with much of the attention focused on areas containing key parliamentary marginals. Eleven councils are identified below as being particularly worth watching over the next few days, with results trickling in from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon.
Alongside the council elections are 11 mayoral elections in England, 37 police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales plus the London Assembly elections too. Sunak’s hopes of avoiding a leadership challenge in Westminster could rest on how he performs in the West Midlands and Tees Valley contests, where two popular Tory incumbents face difficult re-election battles. There will also be a parliamentary by-election in Blackpool South, following the resignation of Scott Benton in March. Below are fifteen battlegrounds to keep an eye on over the next three days:
Hartlepool Borough Council – expected Friday, 1:30 a.m
It was the symbol which summed up Boris Johnson’s conquest of the red wall: a giant floating inflatable of the Prime Minister, erected on the morning of the Tory triumph in the 2021 by-election here. Three years on, it is Labour who are now eyeing further gains. As it stands, the party is just two seats short of controlling the council, with a third of the council’s 36 seats up for grabs. Reform is standing a full slate of a dozen candidates, with Hartlepool one of three councils it is targeting alongside Lincoln and Plymouth. A good showing for Richard Tice’s troops here points to a bad night for Rishi Sunak’s party elsewhere.
Redditch Borough Council – expected Friday, 3:30 a.m
If Labour wins this Worcestershire authority then Keir Starmer is, in the words of one insider ‘very much on course for a general election majority.’ Following boundary changes, all of the council’s 27 seats here are up for election. This was traditionally a Labour council but has been Tory-controlled since 2018. They currently have a slim majority of just two seats, leaving Redditch on a knife-edge.
Harlow District Council – expected Friday, 3:30 a.m
This Essex authority has been a key bell-weather in recent council elections. Control of Harlow has swung back and forth for the past 25 years, being run by Labour from 1974 until 2002 and then again from 2012 to 2021. All 33 seats are up for election, following ward boundary changes. At a parliamentary level, Harlow has voted for the winning party at every election since 1983. With respected local MP Rob Halfon standing down here, Labour are keen to show that they are on track to take his seat at the general election by taking the council on Friday morning.
Blackpool South by-election – expected Friday, 4:00 a.m
All signs point to Blackpool South becoming the eleventh seat that the Conservatives have lost in a by-election in this parliament. There is a distinct lack of enthusiasm for a contest which Labour should win easily, given that Scott Benton only won it for the Tories by 3,690 votes in 2019. The real battle is not for first place but for second. Reform is keen to top the 13 per cent of the vote that they won in Wellingborough. If Tice’s party wants to truly be competitive in red wall seats, then they need to really be polling around 20 per cent of the vote here in Leave-voting Blackpool.
North East mayoral election – expected Friday, 12:00 p.m
This is the first of five key mayoral contests worth watching – and the only one where Labour is facing a serious challenge from the left. Jamie Driscoll, the incumbent Mayor of the North of Tyne, was barred from standing as Labour’s candidate here in June 2023. He has responded by standing as an independent against Starmer’s choice, Kim McGuinness, with the two candidates currently neck-and-neck in the polls. If Driscoll triumphs here, there will be questions as to whether Labour HQ was right to block him last summer.
Tees Valley mayoral election – expected Friday, 12:30 p.m
This is one of the two races being watched most keenly in Westminster. Ben Houchen won here in 2017 and again in 2021 with a Pyongyang-level vote share of 72.8 per cent. This time though his party is twenty points behind in the polls, he is facing questions about the Teesside regeneration and Labour is fielding a more formidable candidate in Chris McEwan. Can the so-called ‘Johnson of the north’ defy his party’s poor ratings to cling on here?
Cannock Chase District Council – expected Friday, 1:00 p.m
Staffordshire has not been kind to Labour since the end of New Labour. The party recorded a succession of bad results here from 2010 onwards until last year’s impressive set of county-wide results. Then in October, Labour won the Tamworth by-election with a whopping 23.9 pert cent swing: the second-biggest from Tory to Labour since 1945. From 2021 until 2023, Cannock Chase was Tory-controlled until it went into ‘no overall control’ last May. Sir Keir’s team are confident that they can take this council now, with all 36 of the authority’s seats up for election on Thursday.
Rochdale Borough Council – expected Friday, 2:30 p.m
Labour ought to make big gains over the next 48 hours. But one place they do face a tough fight is Rochdale against George Galloway’s Workers party of Britain. Following his shock triumph in the parliamentary by-election at the end of February, Galloway has done his best to cause headaches for Keir Starmer by endorsing pro-Palestinian independent candidates in Labour-held safe seats across the UK. A third of the 60 council wards are up for grabs here in Greater Manchester, with the Workers party standing in the majority of them.
Wokingham Borough Council – expected Friday, 4:00 p.m
The Liberal Democrats have been pouring resources into this Berkshire authority, as part of their efforts to make inroads in the so-called ‘blue wall.’ At last year’s local elections, they became the largest party here, overtaking the Tories by winning 26 seats to the latter’s 22. With all 54 wards up for election, they are hoping to make gains and take full control for the first time since 1997. Such a result would send a clear warning to Sir John Redwood, who represents the parliamentary constituency here with a precarious majority of just 7,383.
Bristol City Council – expected Friday, 6:30 p.m
The ‘battle for Bristol’ is likely to be one of the more exciting sub-plots of the general election later this year. Incumbent MP Thangam Debbonaire is facing a stiff re-election battle here against the local Greens, with one poll suggesting she could be the only member of the shadow cabinet to lose her seat. With that prospect in mind, the Greens are keen to win a majority of the 70 council seats up for election and take control of one of the UK’s biggest cities for the first time.
Dorset Council – expected Friday, 7:00 p.m
One of the last few councils to declare, Dorset is another top target for the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives currently hold 43 out of 82 seats here, with the Lib Dems boasting 27, Greens, five, and Labour on two. Sir Ed Davey’s party hopes success here at a local level could extend their West Country revival when a general election comes.
London mayoral election – expected Saturday, 1:30 p.m
Sadiq Khan is expected to win a historic third term here, barring a miracle from outsider Susan Hall. But all eyes will be on the extent to which he acts underperforms Labour across the capital and what kind of London Assembly he will be working with for the next four years.
West Midlands mayoral election – expected Saturday, 3:00 p.m
This, along with the Tees Valley contest, is one of two races on which all of Westminster is keeping a close eye. Andy Street has been a well-regarded mayor here but, in this climate, no Tory is safe of their re-election chances. The contest will also be worth watching to see how the Galloway-backed independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob fares in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict.
Greater Manchester mayoral election – expected Saturday, 4:00 p.m
Andy Burnham is set to win his third term here comfortably, thanks to public favourability ratings which rank him higher than Sadiq Khan in London and Andy Street in the West Midlands. But as well as ensuring we get four more years of infighting with Starmer, the more interesting aspect of this contest is who comes second. A poll this week by More in Common predicts that Reform’s Dan Barker could push the Tory candidate Laura Evans into fourth place.
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