The headline results of the local elections in England are clearly bleak for Labour and rosy for the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats are, in effect treading water, while the Greens and independents have made some gains in terms of numbers of councillors.
But these are the aggregate council results. The top-level masks so many discrepancies. When listening to so much of the media coverage about these local elections, many candidates and councillors must get disheartened. They campaign as vigorously as possible, only for everyone to obsess about what the results mean for Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson.
The focus has been on how the “red wall” in the north of England is continuing to crumble. Labour lost control of Sheffield City Council and of Durham County Council for the first time, while the Conservatives have gained control of Northumberland County Council. But by zoning in on these, we miss that Labour had either no or only small losses in Gateshead Council, Liverpool C
FORMER Stroud MP David Drew made a dramatic return to the political arena yesterday by seizing a county election seat from the Greens. Labour s Mr Drew won Stroud Central - a Green stronghold held by the party for 12 years - in the Shire Hall count. He beat Green political adversary Molly Scott Cato - who stood for the ward after incumbent Eva Ward stepped down - by a comfortable majority of nearly 600 votes. Ms Scott Cato - a former MEP - stood in the 2019 general election against Mr Drew in a hotly contested battle which saw Conservative Siobhan Baillie take Stroud from Labour.