This issue has also been pushed by Stuart King’s Southern Front website, and by Harriet Harman as deputy leader.
Nominations for local council elections in most areas of England outside London closed on Monday. The lists of nominations must be published by councils by noon on Wednesday.
Quite a few have published early so the Labour Party has been focusing on getting what information it can about what’s happening in the south of England.
The numbers show that Labour’s national HQ, regional offices and local CLPs have done a magnificent job in increasing the number of candidates we are fielding.
Every year Labour HQ centrally monitors selection progress across the country, but this year the Party prioritised candidate selection as a task, with three clear key aims:
- Maximise Labour’s national share of the vote
- Expand Labour’s local government base in marginal areas across the country and in our target areas
- Expand Labour’s local government base across the South of England (South East, South West and Eastern regions) where we performed badly in the General Election
Regional Directors worked with local parties and local affiliates and sent regional summaries to HQ. Head office provided information on where to target candidate selection so that the party could achieve these aims.
So far these are the totals for the three southern regions compared to 2007:
| 2007 | 2011 | ||||||
| Region | Lab | LD | Con | How much data is available for 2011 so far? | Lab | LD | Con |
| Eastern | 60.2% | 67.0% | 96.2% | 65% of wards | 76% | 56% | 97% |
| South-east | 52.8% | 77.6% | 98.5% | 50% of wards | 64% | 69% | 96% |
| South-west | 34.5% | 77.2% | 88.5% | 95% of wards | 50% | 72% | 93% |
Across the south the pattern appears to show an increase in the number of Labour candidates running, with the Liberal Democrats down everywhere and the Tories still strong.
There is information for all but six councils in the south-west now. From what is already in the party expects that Labour will stand in approximately 50% of vacancies in the region: this is up from 34.5% in 2007. The number of Liberal Democrat candidates in the south-west is likely to be around 4-5% less than in 2007, and the Tories’ number of candidates looks to have increased.
In the north and midlands the party has less information, but it appears the pattern of declining numbers of Liberal Democrats candidates is even starker the further north you go. In the north-west they look likely to be contesting less than 50% of seats, compared to 66% in 2007.
The Liberal Democrats have failed to stand any candidates in North Warwickshire: they stood nine in 2007. They have failed to stand any candidates in Rossendale: in 2007 they stood in all 13 vacancies. Their group leader, in a ward where the Liberal Democrats got more than 50% of the vote in 2007, has stood down: now this ward (Greenfield) is a straight fight between Labour and Tory with no Liberal Democrat candidate. In Tameside they are down from five to none, in Wyre down from 11 to none and in South Staffordshire down from three to none.
Authorities with increased numbers of Labour candidates since 2007 include Surrey Heath, with 20 candidates up from nine; 12 more in Forest of Dean; eight more in Mendip; 10 more in North Somerset; 13 more in Taunton Deane; and 15 up from none in Mid Devon.
Across the board we can be very confident that Labour will have more candidates overall than the Liberal Democrats – whereas in 2007 they contested 63.7% of seats compared to 60.4% for us – though it looks likely that the Tories will still have the most.
Thanks to a lot of hard work locally, regionally and nationally it looks likely that many more people will have the chance to vote Labour in this set of local elections than in 2007.