UK local elections, May 2018

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YouGov/QM poll on London:

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/989452101473402880

Lab: 51% (-3 since Feb.)
Con: 29% (+1)
LD: 11% (-)
Green: 4% (-)
UKIP: 2% (lol)

Put in a larger perspective, this poll would put Labour 8 points ahead of their result in 2014 (the last London borough elections) and is the biggest lead any party has had in London local elections since 1998.

Adam Grey at SOAS has put together this handy and excellent primer on the ramifications of this and various other sorts of swings here.

It seems Labour is sucking up most of the third party votes, especially the Lib Dems; the Tory result is comparable to their returns in other years where they did poorly. FWIW, I think this is somewhat underestimating Labour, especially in the inner part of London where non-traditional voters, especially EU citizens, are more motivated than usual to turn out.

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Random thought, considering the Windrush scandal, and how this showed up how a large number of legal residents and UK citizens would regularly have no proof of citizenship/ID or whatever; and considering the governments drive to introduce ID requirements for voting, which is being trialled in a few local authorities today.

This is going to be a major problem isn't it?

I'm not too concerned about that. As you mention, the voter ID requirement is only being used in a few jurisdictions. More importantly, voting is organized via the electoral register which is operated by each council. Once you sign up the first time you're on for good (except in NI) and they send you a polling card in the post weeks before the election. Between that and the fact that I'm pretty sure it's possible to register on the day with only a few simple forms of ID (bank statements/gas bill to prove address; driver's license to prove identity), it's unlikely to deter or prevent any would-be voters.  

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Hmm, seems a bit underwhelming all around. No great gains for Labour and a few troubling losses. Tories do better than expected but still tenuous. Lib Dems have a good showing but not the anti-Brexit wave they hoped for.

For those wanting an idea of the larger significance of these results so far, the Thrasher Projection, which calculates what result the party's proportion of the local election vote seen tonight would result in if the whole country was voting in a GE, came up with these numbers:

Tories: 305
Labour: 261
SNP: 35
Lib Dem: 26
Others: 23

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/992287533600948229

This would mean the Tories would lose the ability to govern with a majority by teaming up with the DUP. Labour, however, would still be a few seats short, even with all the other non-Tory/DUP parties' support. In essence, the hungiest of hung parliaments.