Voters in 107 town councils in England and Wales voted this Thursday for the renewal of their councilors and those registered in ten large regions did so for their mayors, in some cases for the first time. At the same time, 37 local police commissioners were elected. To round off the day, the new MP to represent them in Westminster was appointed in Blackpool after the resignation of the person elected in 2019.
The municipal elections are held three times each year, distributing areas in each of the elections. Such fragmentation does not offer a clear picture of the support that the main parties have at the national level, but these elections have been presented as dangerous for the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. It is the last survey of the general public before the general elections.
The Westminster lies have generated speculation about the possibility of an uprising by Conservative MPs, whose task would be to overthrow a prime minister whose management does not alter the twenty-point advantage that the Labor Party registers in the polls. The magnitude of the councillorships lost will be the measure of the danger Sunak is in. The results will be known on Friday and Saturday.
Penny Mordaunt, who is now minister responsible for relations with the House of Commons, and has been a leadership candidate in successive overthrows of Conservative prime ministers since the fall of Theresa May, was being promoted as the alternative to Sunak if the results are wreckers. “I am not going to be installed at number 10 Downing Street as if it were a new boiler,” Mordaunt declared before the polling stations closed at eleven at night, Spanish time.
act of sanity
It seems an act of sanity to announce that she has no interest in being prime minister after another overthrow – which would add discredit to this batch of conservative politicians – and with little time to amend the record.
John Curtice, the most popular poll analyst, stated this week in a dialogue with academics and students at King’s College University that the circumstances are unusual. Never in his memory has there been a contest between such unattractive party leaders. He also believes that the data are very similar to those that led to the landslide victory of Tony Blair’s Labor Party in 1997.
Sunak has encouraged the idea of calling a general election in July, and has not denied the possibility of doing so when asked in astonishment if it was real. He has said it is a ruse to appease rebels in his parliamentary group who do not want to lose their seat. The most likely thing, according to the media and the prime minister’s discreet collaborators, is that he will call them in the fall.
Councilor elections are important for local politics, but they also offer figures that can be projected on a national scale. Winning or losing councilors affects the size of the network of volunteers who, in the British system, travel through the constituencies during general election campaigns.
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