Only pollster to correctly predict 2015 General Election result warns the PM about getting too comfortable
FOR the many thousands of candidates who were hoping to be elected in Thursday’s elections, the outcome was, of course, of great personal significance.
But for everyone else there was just one question on their lips – what did they tell us about the prospect for the general election on June 8?
At first glance the answer to that question is obvious. The Tories gained 563 seats.
They won four of the six new city region mayor races, even though most of them took place in normally strong Labour territory.
The BBC said the results meant that if the local voting had been replicated in a general election Mrs May would have been 11 points ahead.
Not much then for Mrs May to worry about it would seem. She will, of course, have to go through the campaign motions - kissing babies, hitting back at Brussels, even eating chips and ice cream in the sun!
But, privately, she can think about whether she wants to keep as Foreign Secretary and whether should remain in charge of the crucial talks with the EU.
And yet. Let us go back to that 11 point lead again. It is rather less than the opinion polls have been saying. In the last week these have on average put the Conservatives as much as 17 points ahead.
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Even so, we might wonder whether the difference matters. After all, would not a 11-point lead still put Theresa May back in Downing Street?
It would – but not as comfortably as she would like.
The Prime Minister wants to win a landslide so that she can deliver the “strong and stable” leadership that is the central message of her campaign.
And, big though it might seem, an 11-point lead might not be enough. Sky News estimated that the party’s local election performance would only bring her a 48-seat majority.
Such a result would, in truth, come as a bit of a disappointment.
Still, not everyone will have voted last Thursday in the way they would have done in a general election.
The 18 per cent performance by the Liberal Democrats, in particular, probably flatters to deceive.
Some Labour supporters may have stayed loyal to their party’s local council candidate despite what they think of Mr Corbyn.
And even then, with a projected vote of just 27 per cent in Thursday’s boxes, Labour turned in its worst local election performance since it lost power in 2010.
Meanwhile, there was little sign in the many hours of broadcasting that accompanied the local election results that Jeremy Corbyn and his senior colleagues have any better ideas for “getting their message across” – or that his critics within the party are going to stop criticising him because an election is going on.
So maybe the real reason Mrs May can relax in the next four weeks is that she faces an ineffective opposition.
Still, the message from the local elections on Thursday is that she should not take voters for granted.
- John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University.