How much does the monarch actually do in the UK political system?

As a teacher of History and Politics it can often be the case that I find myself correcting misconceptions about the role of the monarchy in students (of all ages). These come in two forms: those that think the Queen is utterly irrelevant politically, and those who believed her to have been immensely powerful. In both of these cases, they are incorrect.

 

Writing, as I am, in the week following the passing of Elizabeth II, I am not offering any viewpoint about the monarchy itself, but it is interesting to have seen some points raised by commentators offering constitutional monarchy as a somewhat ideal form of system. That is to say, that by having a neutral, non-political monarch the system is superior to one where a head of state can attract loyalty and/or division. Ian Leslie quoted Clement Attlee in saying that "the monarchy attracts to itself the kind of sentimental loyalty that might otherwise to the leader of a faction." I am not 100% certain that this is always the case, or rather that one needs a constitutional monarchy, or a monarchy at all, for a head of state to rise above day to day politics.

The traditional view of the role of the monarch in modern British politics is that they 'reign but do not rule'. That is to say, they are notionally in charge but not involved in the day-to-day running of the country. The Queen is constitutionally bound to follow the advice of the government in almost all areas, with her principle role being the appointment of Prime Ministers/governments, and the granting of royal assent to legislation. Whilst the Queen has performed other roles, such as the chairing of meetings of the Privy Council, her other role was that of being a figurehead for the nation.

It should also be said that papers released in recent years have suggested that the Queen may have applied more pressure than some would have imagined on legislation. Newsweek reported in 2021 about 4 laws where the Queen allegedly threatened to withhold consent from signing new legislation, including one about revealing the extent of her personal wealth. This isn't quite the same as vetoing laws, something that hasn't happened since Queen Anne in 1708 with the Scottish Militia Bill. However, this would appear that the Queen did apply pressure occasionally, though obviously on a tiny fraction of those she saw overall. The new King Charles III when still Prince of Wales was comparatively more involved in the affairs of government, regularly contacting the government on a range of issues, from the Iraq War to organic farming. This could raise question about how likely he is to remain silent about government policies with which he disagrees.

Edit: after writing this post, I found an interview with David Cameron where he said that he had help weekly meetings with the then Prince Charles in order to prepare him for the throne, and that Charles never overstepped in terms of influencing governmental affairs.

Stephen Bush in the Financial Times, however, makes the point that the Queen was an outstanding political operator. She had weekly meetings with 14 Prime Ministers, with a 15th recently sworn in, and with only very rare and very limited comments about any ongoing issues. Ultimately the question of whether to have a monarchy is a political one, but she managed to normalise the idea of this and in fact increase support for the monarchy over the course of her time as Queen. Elizabeth II performed a stabilising role for the country which, since 1952, has been through many tumultuous times. It has been an age since the UK has experienced any other monarch, and it will be interesting to see the way that the new king views his role.

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/1fb11fc2-7884-40af-a6e9-e68382f07c3f

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/explainers/what-role-monarchy

https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1568538324180107264?t=85irUEsG_vrMw9dWIe__rQ&s=09

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/11/entirely-right-for-charles-to-have-lobbied-ministers-says-david-cameron

Thoughts on Roe vs Wade and the recent decisions of the Supreme Court

 This week has been one of the most momentous (and for many, devastating) in a long time in US politics. The Supreme Court, in their case Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organisation, have lifted restrictions on US states that have in effect guaranteed the right to abortion in all states since 1973 and the court case Roe vs Wade. 

Already some states have put restrictions in place, including some that had 'trigger laws' that were designed to come into effect the second that Roe was lifted. You can track the situtation here, but there are already bans in states such as Alabama, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, and even, surprisingly, Wyoming, a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and which has reverted to a 173-year-old ban. A law in Florida that would have prevented abortion after 15 weeks has been struck down by a judge, though it is likely that this will be reviewed by higher courts. Restrictions on abortion now exist in 21 states, at the time of writing.

(As an aside, it should be noted that there are still limited rights for women in the UK, as Northern Ireland has only recently decriminalised abortion and still only up to 12 weeks)

The quest to overturn Roe is part of a long game by the GOP. It is worth remembering that the Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 out of the last 8 presidential elections, and only one current Supreme Court justice predates that time (Clarence Thomas). Through election victories with a minority of the vote, in 2000 and 2016, the Republicans have appointed 6 of the 9 current justices, and though Democrats have been in power for far longer over that period they have only been able to appoint 3. In one case, that of Merrick Garland, Barack Obama was prevented from appointing him by the spurious reasoning from Senate Majority Leader of the time, Mitch McConnell, that it was the last year of his term, and therefore he should not be able to appoint a SC justice. Republican senators refused to even meet with Garland, in order to begin the process. Of course, in 2016 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died the Republicans rushed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barratt in record time.

What this goes to show is that the Republicans have been consistently willing to play hardball, in a way that Democrats have not been. Republicans have been willing to use the system within Congress to block the Democrat agenda at every turn (the famous 'victory of no') and Democrats haven't reallty had an answer, being unwilling to remove the filibuster, acting in a less united way, and failing to fully take stock of the new political reality. Jamie Bouie, writing in the New York Times this week, said that the Democratic leadership didn't seem to understand the consequences of this, primarily using this as a funding opporunity for candidates, and pointing out that Biden (a famously centrist operator, who has friendships with many of those perpetrating the recent conservative revolution) recently praised Mitch McConnell, The article has one striking section: “Thank you for being my friend,” Biden said to a man who is almost singularly responsible for the destruction of the Senate as a functional lawmaking body and whose chief accomplishment in public life is the creation of a far-right Supreme Court majority that is now poised to roll American jurisprudence back to the 19th century." In short, Democrats continue to bring knives to a gun fight.

The overturning of Roe is not the only culture-war issue that has been taken on by the court. This week, they also overturned New York's handgun ban (NY State Rifle and Pistol Association vs Bruen), which has already led to changes in the state's system. Additionally, the court, in Kennedy vs Bremerton School District, has now decreed that school prayer should now be allowed, dramatically stripping back the separation of church and state. And in another case, the court has determined that Biden's environmental aims go beyond the powers granted to the Environmental Protection Agency. All told, this is a huge set of precedents, that could change the landscape in the US for years to come.

By-election woes and tactical voting in FPTP

Boris Johnson's tenure as Prime Minister took another knock last week, with the loss of two very different seats in by-elections, each with somewhat different significance. The first I will discuss, that of Wakefield, is interesting because it is one of the Conservative seats in the historic 'red wall', where Boris Johnson's Conservatives did very well on their route to a majority in 2019. The other, Tiverton and Honiton, in Devon, has been Conservative ever since it was created in 1997, and was won with a majority of 24,000 votes last time.

The loss of each of these will hurt, but the Tiverton and Honiton seat represents the largest majority ever overturned in a by-election, and will hurt the Conservatives hugely. One of the large factors in the victory of the Liberal Democrats in Devon and Labour in Wakefield was that of tactical voting, with Labour doing very poorly in Tiverton and the Liberal Democrats gaining a very low share of the vote in Wakefield. Indeed, it is clear that the disdain held for the Lib Dems by many after the coalition years has started to disappear, and that anti-Conservative voters of all parties are increasingly willing to hold their noses and vote for another opposition party with the best possible chance of defeating them. In fact the Daily Mail was very unhappy about this last week, as you can see below (though in 2019 they did actively encourage the Brexit Party to stand aside in Conservative held seats).

 By-elections are useful tools for understanding the current position of the government and all of the parties. In a comment to the BBC the elections guru Sir John Curtice said that it can, however be an exaggerated indicator, as governments always do badly in the mid-term of a parliament. That said, it does also look like the Conservatives have declined somewhat, by as much as 20%, and that no government since that of John Major's from 1992-1997 has had such difficulties. Part of this is, of course, explained by what I said above, and the willingness of Lib Dem and Labour supporters to back each other's candidates.

Tactical voting is, of course, a normal feature of First Past the Post voting systems. Labour tend to do better when the Lib Dem vote is higher, as this tends to be in Conservative areas, and can remove seats from them which hinders Conservative chances of a majority or of being the largest party. For example, Labour got 6,800 votes in Cheadle in 2019, a seat the Conservatives won by 2,300 votes. Likewise, the Conservatives won the High Peak by 590 votes from Labour, where the Lib Dems received 2,800 votes. As you can see, tactical voting would massively assist both parties in these instances. A reduction in Green Party votes in US states such as Michigan may have hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the reduction of these numbers in 2020 may be a recognition of the inevitable impact of First Past the Post.

The problem of strikes

 One of the major impacts of the difficult economic circumstances that the UK and other countries are currently going through is that of increasing public section discontent. Inflation, at the time of writing, is 9.1%, with the net impact being a real terms decrease in pay for workers. Unlike private sector workers, whose pay is obviously set without limits by their employer, the government has some sort of role in public sector pay, even if it is (in some cases) less direct. For instance, Network Rail is currently negotiating with the RMT union, whose Secretary-General has become somewhat of a cult media personalty in recent days.

It may seem counter-intuitive in some ways, but many have argued that Labour is actually at greater risk due to these strikes than the government. The Labour Party was formed out of unions and other similar bodies, and has always maintained close links (though less so under Starmer, as seen by his strained relations with Unite, Labour's biggest donor). The Conservatives will be hoping that the strikes are hugely unpopular and that the population associate these with Labour. Starmer has tried to distance himself from these to some extent, which has created some unease within the party, with 25 MPs joining picket lines of strikers, against central party instructions. The line of the party has been that they are a government in waiting, and as such would not be taking a side in the dispute. How well this works will remain to be seen.

However, there are clear risks for the government in this strategy. Firstly, people will often blame the government for everything under their watch, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. When their transport is bad, the chances are that many people will roll it in with other things that have happened recently and blame the government anyway. Also, it seems likely that many more strikes are likely. Teachers and nurses may be likely to go on strike later this year due to their pay offers, so the government's line that Labour will take us 'back to the 70s' may be true of what is happening under their watch, with a huge level of strikes and an economic crisis. The public may also be somewhat more in favour of strikes than the government believes, as a recent survey (above) suggests.

The situation will be likely to change further in the next few months, but the fallout could be different than one would expect.

Roe vs Wade - judicial activism, or back to normality?

There has been a firestorm in the US over a leaked memo from the Supreme Court which appears to suggest that SCOTUS may well issue a decision that will effectively overturn Roe vs Wade, and has since been confirmed as genuine. Roe vs Wade, the case from 1973, means that all states must allow abortion in some form. This case opens the door for states to pass draconian legislation, and in the case of Michigan would mean that they would revert to a 1931 law that makes no exception for rape, incest, or medical emergencies. Other laws, such as Texas's 2021 'Heartbeat Law', which banned abortion after 6 weeks and criminalised those who assist women seeking terminations.

The Supreme Court of the United States.

The rationale behind Alito's decision in the case is that abortion is not mentioned in the constitution. This fits in with the dominant thread of conservative justices in recent times of strict constructionism, or textualism. This judicial ideology, simply put, means that decisions should be based on the specific text of the constitution, as it is written. For example, Antonin Scalia said that although he was personally against flag burning as a form of protest, and would have allowed it as a legislator, it also should be allowed under the constitution due to the clear wording of the 1st Amendment, where it would be considered protected speech.

So, abortion, the right to which is based on a small aspect of the 14th Amendment (that of the right to privacy), is now under threat in the biggest of all Western democracies. The removal of the precedent set in Roe, which has been chipped away at for years, means that the principle of states' rights is being pushed by conservative justices and legislators. This is certainly consistent, and is one of the key tenets of modern Republican thought. However, it is also true to say that there are a range of issues where conservatives have been less keen on states' rights, such as in cases of marijuana legalisation or assisted dying (euthanasia). Many are now asking, given that other rights such as same sex marriage and aspects of racial equality such as integrated schooling are based on the 14th Amendment, could Supreme Court action on these be forthcoming?

Sign held by a protester. Obergefell refers to Obergefell vs Hodges, and Lawrence refers to Lawrence vs Texas, which struct down restrictions on male homosexual sexual relations.

In fact, John Hart Ely, the constitutional scholar, went so far as to say that strict constructionism wasn't really a philosphy of law, but was really about reaching popular political decisions for a specific party. A clear example of this is the famous Supreme Court case, FEC vs Citizens United, struck down decades of electoral law, in favour of virtually uninhibited donations in politics. Therefore, far from preserving the text of the constitution, and applying it in a limited fashion, such justices are truly conservative activists.

 The justices who look set to strike down Roe have also been appointed in a hyperpartisan fashion. Three were appointed by Trump, who won with 3 million fewer votes, and two by Bush, whose first win was also won with a minority of the popular vote. Additionally, Senate Republicans have certainly pushed the approval process to its very limit, in the form of holding up the approval of Merrick Garland in 2016, and pushing through Amy Coney Barratt in 2020. Now, this long game of Republican legislators looks set to pay off in a way that is devastating for women in America and around the world.

Comparing the protection of rights in the US and UK

 I intend to write something good about this at SOME POINT, but Helen Lewis, who writes for the Atlantic and others, has done my job for me.

In this piece she compares the protections in the UK Equalities Act 2010 with the judicial protections in the US, most obviously Roe vs Wade, Brown vs Board and Obergefell vs Hodges. One of the key passages is "this is what you get when you can’t pass new primary legislation: endless judicial chicanery and sleight of hand. Across the US, there is majority support for gay marriage, for abortion rights, for laws to prohibit firing people for being gay. But under the current system, these rights are fragile, and will always be fragile—the whim of a handful of lifetime appointees."

So, the US political system and the level of gridlock, hyperpartisanship, and systems such as the filibuster, mean that judges are handed enormous power. And the stakes being so high, with this huge power being handed to, in effect, a minority of the US population, means that this will continue to be a huge battleground.

You can, and should, read the whole piece here. 

Representative democracy vs direct democracy

 One of the topics listed for AQA's UK Politics paper this year is the vaguely titled 'nature of democracy' section. A glance at the mammoth UK/US textbook reveals that this is referring to the section on representative democracy and direct democracy, what constitutes them, how effective they are, and whether the UK would benefit from a move towards direct democracy.

A thing that is worth challenging, although not technically a mistake, comes about when students consider how effectively representative democracy actually provides representation to its citizens. Most students seem to look at this *only* through the lens of descriptive representation; that is to say, whether parliament looks like the electorate. A good place to look at this would be parliament's own numbers, which state that there are 220 women MPs  out of 650, so just over a third (about half for Labour), with about 10% of MPs being from an ethnic minority vs 14% of the population. HOWEVER, this is not the main point of representation! What this means is how good are UK MPs at representing their constituents? UK citizens enjoy remarkable access to their MPs compared to a lot of countries, and politicians routinely travel back to their constituencies on Friday to deal with constituency issues. Political betting (quite a long time ago) pointed out that whilst people on the whole disliked MPs, they often liked their MP, in this article.

- As an aside the UK has JUST changed voter ID laws, making it the case that approximately 1.1 million people will lose the right to vote. Also, the Electoral Commission has lost its independence, putting it under direct government control. This is very relevant!

Here are some points about representative democracy that are worth remembering:

- Edmund Burke is probably the key person an examiner wants you to know, as the proponent of the trustee model of representation (as opposed to the delegate model). He said that " his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living." This means that an MP should make their own judgement on your behalf - NOT just doing what you think.

- You should look at how effectively our system encourages participation. What are recent general election turnouts? What are recent figures regarding political party membership?

- What is the level of education in our political system? How well informed are voters about political issues? Do they understand how UK democracy works?

- What is the level of accountability of our politicians? Between our (up to 5-yearly) elections MPs have very limited levels of accountability, and of course the overwhelming majority of them represent safe seats that means the chances of them losing are virtually nil.

- Other factors you might want to consider are legitimacy, civil rights, and the rule of law. More information about these can be found on page 146 of the excellent AQA Politics textbook (Lemiuex, Hammal, Fairclough and Bennett).

So would using a system with greater direct democracy improve on any of these areas. To know this it is important to know what we already have that includes this, and what else it could include.

Firstly, we should certainly know the results and details of referendums that have occurred in the UK. Some of these seem to demonstrate very positively about direct democracy, such as the high participation levels achieved in the EU referendum, as well as the 84% turnout in the Scottish Independence referendum. However, there are many examples of issues with referendums. This includes the 34% turnout of the London mayoral referendum, and 42% for the Alternative Vote referendum. Also, the Welsh Assembly referendum only passed with 50.3% of the vote, with a turnout of 50.2% - hardly a ringing endorsement, with only just over a quarter of the country voting for it. 

Another aside - Farage and others are now pushing for a referendum of 'net zero' (the push for zero net carbon emissions). Hopefully this never happens.

It should be remembered that the government controls what we have referendums on and when we have them. As such, this is an informal add-on to our system, rather than a formal system such as in Switzerland, where they have frequent referendums, which can be gained via citizen petitions. 

Voter information send out in Swiss referendums.

Other forms of direct democracy in the UK include:

- e-petitions, such as the one that led to a government enquiry into the Hillsborough disaster. This is an example of a genuine form of direct democracy that has been bolted on to the UK's system in a formal way. It should be noted that the government does, however, have no requirement to hold a debate on issues that gain sufficient signatures, such as the petition to cancel Brexit.

- Recall petitions. In certain circumstances, such as where an MP has received a criminal conviction, a petition that gets over 10% of votes in a given period can result in a recall election. Labour MP Fiona Onasanya and Conservative Christopher Davies have both been ousted from their seats in this manner.

- We now have directly elected mayors in a large number of locations, such as Liverpool where Labour Joe Anderson was succeeded by Jo Anderson. However, in Bristol they have voted to get rid of their directly elected mayor!

- Police and Crime Commissioners. These were supposed to give some local control over policing. I suppose it has, but when the turnout in 2018 was 26% it can hardly be said to have animated anyone.

- in the US they have some other things, like ballot initiatives which are local or state referendums on new laws. Some of them have led to major changes on issues like drugs or euthanasia. Anyone can get something on the ballot with enough signatures. They also have elections for all sorts of things, like school board members, giving voters direct control over all sorts of areas (which isn't always a good thing). Some states also have their own system of referendums, which effectively enables them to veto laws.

We seem to be moving towards some piecemeal mixture of direct and representative democracy. However, the prospects of citizen determined referendums are unlikely, or at least a long way off.

Hopefully whatever comes up is in some part answered by this post!

Are you better off? The impact of personal finances on elections

This Thursday sees a raft of local elections in the UK. As I have explained already, there are a lot of factors at play in these, with only *some* of them being local issues themselves. For a start, sometimes it has more to do with which specific areas are up for grabs (i.e. if it is in an area you did well in 4 years previously, it could be that you make limited gains, and the headlines become about a lack of success for your party). The saying is that all politics is local, and that is partially true, but to an extent this locality may be more about individual experiences, as I will go on to explain.

Recent polling has found the Conservatives behind in every area of policy and Boris Johnson trailing Keir Starmer across almost every personal characteristic. This is, obviously, very bad news. Whilst the Conservatives have trailed in the polls before, their leaders have often had leads in polls like 'who would make a better Prime Minister?', and the Tories have generally, except for a while under Tony Blair, had a strong lead in terms of voters' views of the economic competence of the parties, while Labour have generally had a better reputation with voters for their handling of public services such as the NHS.

What may be making a huge difference is the personal impact that recent economic changes have had on ordinary voters. This can be most notably seen in two key ways - recent tax changes that increase the National Insurance payments for a huge proportion of the population, and more obviously the huge increase to the cost of gas and electricity that have come in from April. Often people may view the economy as good or bad, but these changes mean that everyone has had a direct impact from these changes, and, rightly or wrongly, many people will blame this impact on the government.

Ronald Reagan famously asked voters "are you better off than 4 years ago?" back in 1980. It was a powerful question, which cut through to how they felt the direction of the country was impacting them. Keiran Pedley in the New Statesman points out the huge level of pessimism voters are feeling about the economy. Most expect things to get worse, in terms of petrol and energy costs, and this includes 51% of those who voted Conservative in 2019. The Tories have to convince voters that they should back them, despite the current way they are perceived and despite the impacts that the general public are feeling. This, and other scandals surrounding Rishi Sunak, have already seemingly destroyed him as a potential successor to Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson, up to now, has been a consistent winner. Labour are not universally trusted on the economy (2019 Tory voters only marginally think Labour would do better), but are in a strong position. His record is going to be seriously tested on May 5th.

Should we have referendums on everything?

 

I taught a young man when I first came to my current school who was very passionate about politics. Eventually he would find his way to the Corbyn-era Labour Party, but before this he stood for election in 2015 in a local constituency, for a party whose main political idea was that we should have a none of the above option on ballot papers. When speaking to the candidate, my former student said that he felt there should be far greater levels of direct democracy in the UK, perhaps using apps or internet voting. In short, he wanted a referendum, or citizen input on everything.

Firstly, one interesting impact of such a policy would be to shift the nature of our political system completely. We currently have, as in most countries, a representative democracy, where your representative makes decisions based on their best judgement, rather than specifically adhering to what you, or their other constituents, want. Your representative would become a delegate, going back to their constituents to determine what they want.

There are certainly some points in favour of this - proponents of referendums would point out the high turnout in the Scottish independence referendum or of the vote to leave the EU. This increase in engagement could be very good for politics in general. Others may feel that politicians are out of touch, and on a range of issues the true views of the electorate aren't really shown. A good examples of this, other than Euroscepticism, may be the death penalty, where there are limited calls for it in general from politicians, but large numbers of the British population are in favour. This blog from the London School of Economics suggests that we would be well served by following the Swiss model, where voters are able to have referendums on any topic where they get sufficient signatures. Trevitt argues that this leads to an increase in citizen engagement and will make politicians more responsive to the public.

However, there is also evidence that referendums can have very low turnout, and lead to problematic results. Even in the 'golden era' of referendums in the late 1990s, some of the New Labour changes gained approval but on very low turnout. In London the turnout to approval the new mayoralty and assembly was only 34% and Wales approved its own assembly on a very low turnout of just over 50%, with just over 50% of that number voting yes, meaning barely a quarter of the Welsh population had approved the assembly. I remember, but have never been able to source, a cartoon from the time where a Welsh dragon mumbled a yes, while Tony Blair leaped for joy and shouted YES in the background. And this shows a further problem of referendums - that they are often open to manipulation, in terms of timing by those in power. Often, rather than being a symptom of a strong government, they are, in fact, a signal of a weak government without the authority to act.

Hugely varying turnout in elections.

There are far more referendums now, around the world, than ever before. They are a tool for pushes for independence, and according this Guardian article by Henley, Carroll, and Rice-Oxley, suggests that this is evidence of a pick and mix approach to modern politics, where people expect to be able to have their views heard on all issues. Whilst turnout in Switzerland has often been around 40-45%, Ireland has often had far higher turnout and has been successful in totally transforming the nature of the country. They are normally used on binary issues, with the theory being that you should use them to finalise binary issues. For example, when Ireland voted to legalise same-sex marriage, that was fairly cut and dried. However, issues can drag on, as seen by Brexit, which took (at least) 4 years after the vote to be at a point remotely close to being finalised.

Ultimately, despite their flaws many people may still support referendums due to them being a more 'democratic' form of electoral activity. I would disagree. The vagueness of Brexit meant that the actual nature of it took a long time to decide, and can hardly be in any realistic way be described as the will of the people. Finally, the best argument I've heard comes in the form of a question - the most Googled question in the UK the day after the EU, and one that shows that sometimes it may be better to leave decision making up to those with expertise. And what was the question? "What is the EU?"

I also used the following page in this blog: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/never-mind-ballots-referendums-uk 

UK Local Election Preview

Local elections in the UK are a bit... messy. Whilst the US has mid-term elections scheduled 2 years after a presidential election, in Britain they are a bit more variable. Firstly, as general elections are not at fixed times (sorry Fixed Term Parliament Act) it means that they can occur at various times throughout a parliamentary term. Secondly, there are a huge number of different types of council, with different term limits and type of election, and even a different electoral system in Scotland (STV, with votes for 16 year olds!). There are normally at least some council elections every year, but with some years having a far greater number.

Locations holding local elections in 2022, from this wikipedia article.

There are county councils, London Boroughs, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Authorities, District Councils, and mayoralties up for grabs. Some locations are electing all councillors, some half, some a third. It is certainly a confusing picture, and some may question their importance.

However, these elections are often seen as a important benchmark for how the government and opposition are performing at the time. In 1995 the Conservatives lost 2,000 local councillors in the first elections faced by Tony Blair as Labour leaders. Similarly, the Conservatives foreshadowed their 2010 electoral victory by being the largest party in local government for several years ahead of them gaining control of Number 10. For this reason, a lot of commentators have been considering whether, given the problems of the Conservative Party at present, this could be a damaging election for them. The Tories are behind in the polls, have had the partygate scandal dragging on from December, and have history against them, in the form of being a long standing party in power in the middle of their term.

Still, there are caveats to this. Turnout is often very low in council elections, and this can have odd effects. Whilst this can mean that those that turn up have more reason to dislike the government, it is also true that older voters, who have the highest turnout, have hugely favoured the Conservatives and Brexit in recent elections. As the elections are not in all boroughs it could mean that the results are also not fully reflective for the mood of the country. 

There are other things at play here. as well. A Conservative Party determined to keep Boris Johnson will likely play down any losses as being roughly what they expected. However, a Conservative Party determined to remove him may well see their opportunity to strike.