Severe electoral defeats for the Thatcher government THE LOCAL government elections and two parliamentary by-elections held in Britain on May 8 were a kick in the teeth for the Tory government. The results were the biggest electoral setback suffered by Thatcher's government since 1981 when the split from the Labour Party to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP) took place.
This article presents the facts and figures of the election results, and how they affect each of the main parties. In the next issue of International Viewpoint a second article will look at the wider implications of the elections for the political scene in Britain. PETER GREEN
BRITAIN the Tories are already literally a fringe party in local politics. In Scotland the Conservatives received only 16 per cent of the vote, compared to 44 per cent for Labour and 18 per cent for the Scottish National Party (SNP). The Tories now hold only 64 council seats in Scotland compared to 227 for Labour, 41 for the Alliance and 37 for the SNP.
In Liverpool the Tories gained only 13 per cent of the vote. In the north west of England only a single town, Macclesfield, is controlled by the Tories.
These are literally catastrophic collapses of support for the Tories in local politics. The Conservative Party at one time, in 1955, reached a post-war peak of 50 per cent of the vote in Scotland and 53 per cent of the vote in Liverpool. In Scotland and the big cities the Tory vote is now literally disintegrating: the Tory vote is down 34 per cent in Seotland, 40 per cent in Liverpool, 17 per cent in Leeds, and 16 per cent in Birmingham. In the Strathelyde area of Scotland, containing Glasgow, the Tories gained less than 10 per cent of the vote. Alliance cuts into Tory vote
If Labour advanced strongly in the big cities, however, the Alliance cut drastically into the Tory vote in the suburbs and the rural areas.
In the by-election in West Derbyshire the Tory vote fell from 56 per cent in the general election to 40 per cent and they held the seat by less than 100 votes from the Alliance. In Ryedale the Tory vote fell from 59 per cent to 41 per cent, and a 16,000 Tory majority in the general election was turned into an Alliance majority of 5,000. These disastrous Tory results in rural constituencies confirmed the same trend seen in last years' country district elections.
The Alliance has now gained 652 council seats in the last four years. As the Alliance were in second place in 265 Tory parliamentary seats at the last general election, there is no doubt that the Liberals and SDP are poised to make major inroads into Conservative support at the next general election, which has to be held before June 1988.
It is difficult to project the local government results into the vote at a general election. But all the differing calculations roughly project Labour with 38 per cent of the vote, the Tories 34 per cent, and the Alliance with 26 per cent. Given the British electoral system, such a vote would leave Labour just short of an overall majority in parliament. L
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Opposition to the Thatcher government was shown throughout the country. The Labour Party advanced strongly compared to its electoral defeat at the last general election of 1983. But the SP/Liberal Alliance retained its support at a level still sufficient to head off the formation of a majority Labour government.
The single most striking feature of the election for the Labour Party, and the most important for the future, was the strong consolidation of Labour's support in the big cities against both the Tories and the challenge of the Alliance. Equally in the rural areas the Alliance smashed into the Tory vote - this being shown particularly dramatically in the two parliamentary by-elections.
Taken overall the Tories lost 705 seats in the local government elections - a disastrous result. Labour gained 484 seats and the Alliance 270.
Labour gained control of 17 local councils. The Tories lost 29, although in some cases they will be able to put together administrations supported by the Alliance or independents. The SDP/Liberal Alliance gained control of three councils.
If the results are looked at in detail they show that the situation in local government in Britain is becoming almost catastrophic for the Conservative Party, confirming the long term decline of its support. The Tories now control only half as many local councils as Labour - 91 for Labour and 46 for the Tories. There are almost as many councils with no overall majority as there are Tory controlled ones - 42 councils
International Viewpoint 2 June 1986 with no overall majority compared to 46 controlled by the Tories.
Of the 36 metropolitan (urban) districts in England the Tories now only control one - Solihull in the West Midlands. In terms of local government the Tories are rapidly becoming a secondary, or even fringe, party. The process has gone even further in certain areas of the country, where Black councillors
A MAJOR feature of the election results was the powerful advance of Black Labour Party (LP) candidates - in general supporters of the LP's Black Section. In London, over 200
Black Labour councillors were elected - tripling the previous total. Ten out of 45 members of the Labour Group on the Inner London Education Authority are now Black.
In Brent, north-west London, there are 19 Black councillors making up a third of the Labour Group. Birmingham in the Midlands has five new Black councillors, all supporters of the Black Section.
Three Black council leaders were elected in London constituencies: Merle Amory in Brent, Linda
Bellos in Lambeth and Bernie Grant in Haringey. The re-election of Bernie Grant with an increased majority was a particular success. The Tories had mounted a vicious racist campaign against him following his defence of the local Black community after an uprising against police harassment last autumn.