Thoughts on the Local Elections Nationally

So now the dust has started to settle on the local elections, I thought I'd write a few of my thoughts. Now I often feel conflicted about electoral politics, and its ability to actually change anything, especially without strong social movements and campaigns operating in tandem on the outside. However it's still fun as a spectator sport if nothing else. Other people have probably said the same or similar things elsewhere but I'm not concerned with that.

1. Labour actually did rather well
The official opposition picked up over 300 new seats and took control of 6 new councils. Even where they didn't make gains their share of the vote increased, especially in areas where they'd need to win at a General Election. They topped the vote in the locals with 31%. Based on the local election showing they probably aren't going to win a majority, but would be the largest party next year. But we kind of knew that already.

2. The "UKIP Earthquake" started to get less and less strong as Friday wore on
The strongest UKIP results appeared to be early on but as more and more results came, in the more Labour looked stronger, until we find that that they actually lost vote share compared to the local elections in 2013.

3. Tories actually did quite badly
I think how bad the Tory results were have been underplayed compared to how much Labour's disappointments are getting hyped up. Also a bad day for the Lib Dems  but everyone is saying that so don't really need to emphasise that point.

4 Green Party continued it's very slow progress
Greens continued to make gains overall, despite getting very little media coverage compared to UKIP. Some headline news notably being the official opposition on Solihull Council with 10 councillors in total. At this rate they'll be taking power in about 2115.

all of which brings me onto...

5. Election coverage was overhyped and disproportionate - especially at the BBC
In the run-up all outlets gave blanket media coverage to UKIP, in particular the BBC. In the past when small parties complained that they weren't getting any media coverage, the response was "but you don't have any MPs/many councillors" ie you're not news. So why this time did UKIP get so much (relatively easy) coverage as the "alternative" despite not having control of any councils or MPs? I wouldn't say that all of UKIP's votes were due to media coverage as opposed to local campaigns on the ground, but a good chuck of them would have been.

On election night this was even worse. The BBC decided the line was "UKIP earthquake" and "Labour does badly" after the first few results in Sunderland (where UKIP had some good 2nd places), and stuck to it religiously until London results shook them enough to say "London's different/weird". Which also shows the usual London bias as no other region where UKIP have done less well has been looked at in the same way.

It's onto the Euro results next, which will obviously be a different kettle of fish with everyone voting, a proportional system, and UKIP getting their usual Euro-inflated results.