“These Local Elections will be quite difficult for us.” These aren’t the words of the increasingly unpopular Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer but instead the words of the still fairly fresh-faced Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
Despite presiding over one of the shortest-lived honeymoon periods in British political history and being compared to Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, Starmer’s attention is certainly not fixated on May 1.
Local Elections tend not to deliver good headlines for sitting Prime Ministers. Tony Blair suffered setback after setback following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Theresa May faced a shellacking just weeks before being forced to resign as Prime Minister and the writing was on the wall for Rishi Sunak by the time Britons voted in the 2024 Local Elections.
Even Nick Clegg, admittedly only Deputy Prime Minister, suffered horrifically in 2011 after getting into bed with the Tories just a year earlier.
In fact, Local Elections provide such little respite for sitting Prime Ministers that Boris Johnson’s 2021 triumph was hailed as an unprecedented victory for a No10 occupant, leaving Starmer contemplating his future as Labour leader and political commentators squawking about another term of Tory rule.
Fast forward four years and those very same councils were seemingly up for grabs yet again. Or so we thought? Under Labour’s plans to revamp devolution, 18 out of 32 authorities requested a voting delay, with nine being granted.
Out of the nine cancelled councils, which represent more than five million voters, Thurrock is the only one controlled by Labour, with the Tories running a staggering six and being the single largest party in the remaining two.
With Labour defending those areas from an already awfully low base, just 67 out of 599 wards given by-election defeats since 2021, it was nigh-on impossible for Britons to inflict any damaging verdict on Starmer’s first year in No10.
Map of wards being defended if all contest went ahead in the 2025 Local Elections
ElectionMapsUK
In fact, research conducted by Electoral Calculus paints a reasonably pretty picture for a Prime Minister who sparked such a backlash that three million people signed a petition demanding an immediate General Election.
Rather than losing wards, Labour was predicted to gain 290 seats if all contests were given the go-ahead.
The Liberal Democrats would also jump from 313 to 362, leaving Sir Ed Davey fuming about a Labour-Tory “stitch-up”.
However, Reform UK, who won zero seats in 2021 and have snatched 10 in by-elections held since, looked set to deal a fatal blow for Badenoch.
Nigel FaragePAElectoral Calculus was suggesting Farage could win 275 wards, with the populist party taking control of Thurrock and holding the balance of power in another seven authorities.
Meanwhile, Badenoch looked poised to suffer net losses of around 400, confounding the Conservatives to yet more trouble at the ballot box.
Tory losses would have roughly equated to those suffered by Johnson following partygate and immediately before a Cabinet cabal forced him out of Downing Street.
The now cancelled elections contained 350 Tory-held wards out of just 599 up for grabs.
Emerging from a North London dinner party like a knight in shining armour, Starmer looks poised to save Badenoch from potential regicide.