UK local elections, May 2012

[Gary J]

I can give some details for the election of a third of Slough Borough Council (Slough is the area to the west of London Heathrow Airport to those unfamiliar with it).

There is one vacancy in each of the 14 wards. The Council has a total of 41 members (as one ward has 2 councillors). The current membership of the Council is Labour 27, Conservative 8 and Britwellian, Independent, Liberal and Liberal Democrat Group (BILLD) 5.

The 41st Councillor, not in any group, is the remarkable Councillor Pervez Choudhry. He was elected as a Labour Councillor from Central Ward in 2008. He was then blocked from becoming Labour group leader in 2008, as his factional opponents had better ties with the national party. Choudhry responded by defecting to the Conservatives and by 2010 had become their group leader. He was then charged with bigamy. As a result he was suspended from the Council group and resigned from the Conservative Party. Since then he has been sitting as an Independent. Recently Choudhry took the very unusual step, for a sitting Councillor for one ward, of contesting Baylis and Stoke ward as an Independent in a by-election. He polled quite well but was not close to winning the by-election. He is a candidate in the same ward in this year's ordinary election. After nominations closed, Choudhry's bigamy trial was heard at Reading Crown Court. At the last moment Chaudhry changed his plea to guilty. He will be sentenced next month, after the election. Surely he will not be re-elected, even though he does not have a Conservative opponent in the May election.

The seats up for election this year are held by 8 Labour, 3 Conservative, 4 BILLD (1 Lib Dem, 1 Independent Britwellian Residents, 1 Liberal and 1 Independent) and 1 Independent councillors.

The Labour Party should do well on national trends, but may be affected by some little, local difficulties. Another round of factional infighting saw the Labour leader of the Council and a cabinet commissioner (who is reputedly a very, very close friend of Fiona MacTaggart MP) de-selected in the wards they represented. They are now contesting opposition held seats. The local Labour Party itself is being investigated by the Labour Party nationally over what happened in candidate selection. Perhaps someone with influence on the national party was not amused by what happened. In any event the report on the investigation is being delayed until after the local election. Perhaps more seriously, the Heart of Slough project is over budget, over time and has caused traffic chaos. The new bus station is drafty and wet in bad weather and is not considered by bus users to be an improvement on the old bus station. The council seems to have a fixation on building prestige projects in the town centre and neglecting outlying areas. Some of these problems may enable some opposition candidates to survive.

The Conservative Party is weak in the town, but has gained ground as against the BILLD Group. In the 2004-2008 joint administration, the Conservatives were the smaller group but since then they have lost less than the other opposition group. The Tories seem reasonably safe in Langley St Mary's ward (where they hold all three seats) and Haymill ward (where they won from the Liberals in the last two cycles and the octogenarian Liberal incumbent is retiring this year). They may hold on to the one seat they have in Upton (Lab/Con marginal, where a well respected veteran Conservative veteran may hold on to the last Tory seat in the ward) and in Chalvey (energetic young Asian incumbent, whose election in 2008 was a surprise when he defeated a white Muslim in a hitherto Labour ward, facing the aforementioned friend of the MP who is of eastern European origin). The Tories surely have no hope of winning Central ward (where a former Conservative councillor and some of his associates went to jail for election fraud a few years ago) or any of the other seats in Slough.

Of the components of the BILLD group, the Liberals and Wexham Lea Independents are not contesting their seats. Labour had a large majority in Wexham Lea last year and the Conservatives have been winning Haymill from the Liberals in the last two cycles. The IBR incumbent in Britwell, facing the Labour Council leader in a ward which Labour has won in 2010 and 2011, may have an outside chance of retaining his seat and if he does it will cause an earthquake in Slough politics. The Lib Dem incumbent in Foxborough ward is seeking to retain his seat. Labour won the ward last year, but the Lib Dems retained the seat in 2010 (the only BILLD seat retained in that cycle) and the 2011 campaign was disrupted by the death of the then incumbent Councillor whose seat was up that year, so the contest may be close.

Labour and UKIP (re-launched in Slough this year) are contesting all 14 seats. The Conservatives have 11 candidates, as they are not splitting the anti-Labour vote for the three non Tory opposition councillors seeking re-election. There are four LibDem candidates as well as their BILLD ally in Britwell. There are three Independent nominees (including Pervez Choudhry). There are a total of 47 candidates for the 14 seats (an average of 3.36 candidates per seat).

The never dull caravan of Slough local politics rolls on.

[Gary J]

Slight correction on the seats up this year. I totalled 15 in the long post because one of the Labour Councillors elected in 2008 was returned in a two seat election, in Central ward, with the extra seat being to fill the vacancy caused by a Conservative councillor disqualified for electoral corruption. The four year term, up this year, was won by Pervez Choudhry.

[Gary J]

I produced a post on the prospects for the Slough local election. I can now report that the election was a triumph for the Labour Party. They won all fourteen seats up for election.

Labour won three seats from the Conservatives. That included one ward won by a majority of two, after four recounts. This is the second closest result since the present unitary authority council was first elected in 1997, before Slough became a unitary authority area in 1998. The closest result, in the same ward as this year's close result (Langley St Mary's), was a tie for the third seat in a whole council election. After a roll of dice, the Conservative candidate was credited with a casting vote to defeat his Independent Langley Resident rival.

Labour won the Central ward seat, held by Independent councillor Pervez Choudhry (originally elected for Labour in 2008). Choudhry tried to be re-elected in Baylis and Stoke ward. Despite his recent bigamy conviction, the councillor was the runner up in his new ward with 426 votes (21.57 per cent).

Labour also won four seats from the Britwellian, Independent, Liberal and Liberal Democrat group (one each won from Independent Britwellian Resident and Liberal Democrat incumbents and gains from retiring Liberal and Independent councillors). The BILLD group is no more. Only one Liberal Democrat councillor remains, from the non Labour or Conservative councillors who were the largest group on the council in 2004.

The party breakdown of the council is Labour 35, Conservative 5 and Liberal Democrat 1. The Labour overall majority of 29 is the largest from 1997 (when the majority was 27 - 34 Labour councillors opposed by 4 Conservative and 3 Liberal members).

Labour's vote in 2012 was 14,811. This was 56.38%, beating the previous record in 1997 of 53.82%.

The Conservative vote of 6,215 (23.66%), was the second lowest percentage vote for them from 1997 when they got 21.46%.

The Liberal Democrat vote of 1,186 (4.51%) was the worst from 1997. Three of the four Lib Dem candidates finished behind a UKIP rival in the ward results.

UKIP jumped from nowhere to 2,822 votes (10.74% of the borough wide poll). However none of the UKIP candidates was anywhere near being elected. All fourteen of them finished third with a vote range from 5.33% to 19.48%