Localism and development
Gabriel Abalafia, Director at Green Issues Communique reviews the results of the 2011 elections.
W
ell, that’s it for another year. Another period of (mini) election fever over. It doesn’t generate quite the same excitement as the General Election, granted, but the UK electorate has cast its vote in the local elections, elections for the Welsh Assembly,
Northern Ireland Assembly and Scottish Parliament and, of course, the AV referendum, leaving politicians and political pundits to pick through the results and decide what it all means. The media and blogosphere have been full of analysis – Lib Dem
meltdown, disaster for Labour in Scotland, Cameron emerges strengthened and so on. But do the headlines tell the whole story, and what does all this mean for the property development industry?
The Labour ParTy How was it for Labour? Well, it was good for them in the English Council elections, gaining 800 councillors overall and control of 26 councils which, before, were held by opponents or under no overall control. That is a positive result for them although it took place against a very low base – Labour held few councils after 13 years in power at Westminster. Of note, however, is that most of the
councils gained were in the north of England. Gravesham, which they won from the Conservatives, was one of a very few in the south that fell to Labour. Are we
26 JUNE 2011 PROPERTYdrum
looking at a 1980s-style north-south divide opening up where those areas that bear the brunt of public spending cuts turn to their traditional Labour representatives and those richer (mainly southern) areas vote Tory? What does it tell us about Ed Miliband and the way voters
perceive him? We must be careful about the assumption that votes in local elections are cast as a judgement on the national Government; true, many are, but people also vote on local issues. Even so, the verdict must be that Ed Miliband did ‘all right’
though there is clearly no sign, as yet, of a major Labour breakthrough. The return of northern councils to the Labour fold must be welcome, but southern voters are not warming to him in the way they did to Tony Blair in the mid- to late-90s. On the Celtic fringes the party’s taking control in Wales (albeit with a minority administration) will be welcome but its annihilation at the hands of Alex Salmond’s SNP shows there is a lot of work to do. While Ed Miliband still has to show he
Southern voters aren’t warming to Miliband as they did to Blair in the mid-late 1990s.’
can wound the Conservatives it must be remembered that much of the electorate still regards Labour as the party that was thrown out at the General Election, which bears some responsibility for the economic crisis and which needs to ‘do its time’ out of power before it can be seriously considered as a Party of Government. Polls during last year’s General Election showed that the electorate had largely stopped listening to Gordon Brown; I think the party is still
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