KEMI Badenoch is braced for a pasting at the ballot box tomorrow at the hands of Nigel Farage.
Thursday’s local elections are set to be gruelling for the Tories who could lose up to 500 councillors across England.
Kemi Badenoch is bracing for a bruising night in the local elections[/caption]
Reform are tipped to be the big winners of the night, with a predicted haul of as many as 450 local authority seats.
The right-wing insurgents are also favourites to claim the hotly-contested Runcorn by-election – taking what would be their first seat off Labour in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer.
The PM is in for a disappointing night as an expected underwhelming result would confirm his honeymoon from last year’s thumping general election win is truly over.
As all party leaders ramp up campaigning with hours until polling day, here is what they will be looking at on the night.
Tory council bloodbath
More than 1,600 council seats are in play across 23 local authorities in England, making it the biggest first electoral test since last July’s general election.
The Tories go into the elections defending the most seats and are therefore equally expected to lose the most.
Pollster Lord Hayward reckons Ms Badenoch will land on around 375-435 councillors – down a mammoth 475-525 from 2021 when these seats were last contested.
Bracing for a bruising night, Ms Badenoch has played down impending losses as a mere “correction” to the heights reached four years ago under Boris Johnson.
Riding high in the polls following a Covid vaccine bounce, it was an emphatic victory last time that led Mr Johnson daring to dream he could have a decade in power.
Nigel Farage is hoping for a good night in the local elections[/caption]
The main beneficiary of the Tory slump is set to be Mr Farage, who is forecast to snaffle between 400 to 450 council seats largely in the Midlands and the North.
Kent council is also one to watch, with Reform hoping to pick up a decent chunk of disaffected Tories as they did in the general election.
Labour are predicted to bag 280 seats, which is essentially no change although they would have hoped to have won some of the seats expected to fall to Reform.
Party strategists have been managing expectations by insisting the council seats up for grabs are not their naturally fertile terrain.
But keep an eye on Doncaster – the only council Labour is defending this time round. The party currently commands a sizeable majority on the authority, and losing that would be big.
By-election test
A by-election in an historically-safe Labour seat is the last thing Sir Keir needed this early in his premiership.
But the die was cast when Runcorn MP Mike Amesbury floored one of his constituents with a right hook during a fit of rage.
It has teed up a spectacular showdown between Labour and Reform, who are eyeing a major upset.
Despite needing to overturn a 14,696 majority, the bookies have Mr Farage’s party as the favourites.
Eyebrows have been raised that Sir Keir has not visited the constituency during the entire campaign – typically a sign that his advisers are privately readying for a bad result.
Defeat in Runcorn would confirm the PM’s worst nightmare: that Reform are just as dangerous to Labour as they are to the Tories.
The by-election result is also due to be declared in the early hours of Friday morning, meaning it will set the tone for the rest of the day’s council results.
Fantastic for Mr Farage, grim for Sir Keir.
Alternatively, even if a wafer-thin Labour victory would see the PM breathe a big sigh of relief.
Mayoral battles
Keep an eye on a handful of high-profile skirmishes as several mayoralties are contested.
The most closely-watched election is in Lincolnshire, where Reform is hoping to strike another blow on the Tories.
Former Conservative minister-turned-defector Dame Andrea Jenkyns is currently the bookies’ favourite in a traditionally true blue shire.
Victory for Reform would be seized upon by Mr Farage as a shifting of the sands in Brexit-voting heartlands, with disaffected Tory voters turning to his party.
Also interesting pollsters is the five-horse race that is shaping up in the West of England mayoral election.
In a sign off our new fractured political landscape, Labour, the Tories, Reform, the Greens and Lib Dems are all in with a shot.
Smaller parties
As ever, ballots outside of general elections are fertile ground for smaller parties to do well.
Seizing on disaffection with the main parties, it is the minnows who often come up trumps.
The Lib Dems – who have a strong grassroots campaign machine and good track record in local elections – are expected to make up to 80 gains.
They are hoping to seize control of Gloucestershire County Council in areas formerly won by Conservatives.
Meanwhile the Greens are also in for a good night after becoming the natural home for disillusioned Labour lefties.
While smaller parties doing well is part and parcel of local elections, strong showings will still concern the two main parties, as the old two-party system seems increasingly under threat.