Looking more closely at the full breakdown of results locally, they are even worse for the Tories than they look on the surface. They lost nearly every seat where there was any opponent not from Labour or UKIP.
If, next time out, the Lib Dems, Greens and independents could coordinate to put up candidates on the ballots that only had Tory/Labour (or Tory/Labour/UKIP) this time around, they could conceivably wipe out the Tories as any kind of force around here. And this is an area that has been almost pure blue for as long as anyone can remember.
Thanks for letting us know that. I’d heard there was an attempt at a Remain coalition for the EU Parliament elections which failed, but hadn’t heard any such thing about the local elections. It certainly does put a different spin on my analysis, which should now be taken with a huge chunk of salt.
Yeah, this may very well not translate to national-scale electoral politics, but there is a definite sense that local groups are coalescing around their mutual loathing of the big two and their century-long stitch-up of British politics. With the leadership of both parties being manifestly incompetent, and the atmosphere of each increasingly dominated by narrowly ideological bigots, there is definitely an opening for a broader pragmatic coalition, and that would surely need the Lib Dems at its core. Whether the national leadership is up to the task, I’m not sure.