The key theme for May’s council elections may be the scale of Labour’s continuing local recovery at the expense of the two coalition parties, suggests Chris Game

There are hardly any iron laws in political science but, picking a rather more floppy metal, we do have what might qualify as a few ‘tin truths’.

One is that parties in national government do badly at local elections, a ‘law’ which worked almost perfectly with New Labour – with the party’s tally of local seats falling each year from 1998 to 2009.

But then come the tinny bits – the exceptions, such as the – equally floppy – ‘law of the premature comeback’. The main proposition stops working precisely when least expected.

When the governing party’s unpopularity plumbs such depths that it is voted out of office, it simultaneously starts winning back council seats.

Thus, in 1979, Labour made its first net gain of council seats since 1974. In 1992, when former prime minister, John Major, was expected to lose, the Conservatives gained seats. They did so again in 1997, as did Labour last year. Although overshadowed by the general election, Labour’s local comeback had already begun, with a net gain of almost 400 seats.

Local elections, of course, are primarily about determining local governments and the policies they will implement. They are not mock parliamentary elections.

That does not mean, though, that there are no underlying themes to their results, and 2011’s key theme will undoubtedly be the scale of Labour’s continuing local recovery and, with the two parties in national government, its principal victims.

Last spring, even before ‘Cleggmania’, life for local government Liberal Democrats was good. They had comfortably out polled Labour at the 2009 county elections. They had more English councillors, ran many of Labour’s erstwhile urban strongholds – Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Oldham, Rochdale, Bristol – and were in minority or shared control in numerous others – Birmingham, Leeds, Kirklees, St Helens, Wolverhampton, Derby, Cardiff, Swansea.

In London, polls suggested they could add to the eight boroughs they already governed either singly or jointly.

That, however, was as good as it got. Gains of seats and councils were outweighed by losses, with Labour the chief beneficiary. Councillor defections, again mainly to Labour, began immediately, and increased through the year, as did disaffection, with the coalition government’s policies, or simply its existence. Poll ratings plummeted and currently flounder on the brink of single figures – representing a swing to Labour of almost 12% since the pre-election polls in 2007, when most of this year’s seats were last contested.

The comparable swing to Labour from the Conservatives has been around 6%, and between them those two swing percentages provide the statistical backdrop to the English local elections, summarised in the table (see right). Both parties are frantically spinning down expectations – deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, preparing his troops for a ‘remorseless battering’, and Conservatives talking of losing at least the 900-plus seats they gained in 2007.

As noted, Labour’s recovery started last year. In addition to 10 London boroughs, Labour regained Liverpool – last Labour majority in 1998 – from the Liberal Democrats, plus Coventry (2003) and St Helens (2004) from no overall control, while the Liberal Democrats lost their majority control of Sheffield (2007) and Rochdale (2003).

This May, it will again be control changes in the bigger urban authorities that will attract most attention, even though all the mets and many unitaries are electing only one-third of their councillors.

The Liberal Democrats’ big remaining northern bridgehead is Newcastle (2004). The Conservatives’ 12 to 15% vote leaves them unrepresented on the 78-seat council, so arithmetic is easy. With the 12% swing since 2007 showing in the polls, Labour would gain the five seats needed to give them an overall majority – but only just. To hold on, therefore, the Liberal Democrats must out-perform the polls, as they habitually did before they joined the coalition government.

Stockport, the Liberal Democrats’ long-standing metropolitan flagship, has lately developed leaks – of both defecting councillors and internal strategy documents (‘Stockileaks’ perhaps).

If Labour is ever to become the largest party, it must be now, but it is challenging from third place in most of the 13 seats Liberal Democrats are defending.

Of the Conservatives’ three mets – Walsall (2000), Dudley (2003) and Trafford (2003) – Trafford may prove the most secure, with the least Conservative-held marginals. There are fewer safe wards for anyone in the two West Midlands’ boroughs, and the Conservatives could lose overall control in both on swings of well under 10%.

Of the 15 metropolitan councils under no overall control, seven are run by minority administrations – one Liberal Democrat, one Conservative, and five Labour – and the rest by assorted coalitions.

Labour’s tastiest prize would surely be Sheffield – Liberal Democrat since 2007 and parliamentary home of Mr Clegg. A 5% swing would win it.

Conservative Bury (2006) is bidding to become the ultimate enabler, with no services at all provided from the town hall, but by a combination of private companies, voluntary groups and possibly other councils. A two-seat switch (401 votes in 2007) would make Labour the largest party, so shame on any stay-at-home voters claiming it makes no difference who runs their council.

Labour’s minority-run mets include two very recent acquisitions. Almost simultaneously last December, Labour displaced Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalitions in both Rochdale, following no fewer than eight Liberal Democrat resignations, and then Wolverhampton (2008), with Liberal Democrat assistance, in a vote of no confidence. Labour must hope, through election or defection, to regain majority control of both, Wolverhampton being the safer bet.

In Bolton smaller parties – such as Greens and BNP – and majority control there would need at least a 10% swing from the Conservatives. Kirklees (1999) has become a rare, genuinely three-party council, and is likely to remain so.

Of the glorious array of power-sharing arrangements, those Labour will be most confident of ending by winning majority control are probably Leeds (2004 – now Labour/Green), and Oldham (2000 – Liberal Democrat/Conservative).

Birmingham (2003 – Liberal Democrat/Conservative) seems out of reach, this year anyway, and as for the compositions of some of the others – Calderdale (1998) and Solihull (both Liberal Democrat/Labour), and Sefton (Liberal Democrat/Labour/Conservative) – well, it is just pleasing to know they exist and are still talking.

The ‘all-out’ unitaries most likely to change control include Redcar and Cleveland (2003), which Labour will hope once again to run on its own, without Independent assistance; York (2003), where eight years of Liberal Democrat rule look set to end; and Brighton and Hove (2003), where both Labour and the Greens will be aiming to overturn the Conservatives’ minority control.

These all-out unitaries also stage four of the five mayoral elections, the fifth being in Mansfield (present mayor, Tony Egginton, Independent). The four are Bedford (Dave Hodgson, Liberal Democrat), Middlesbrough (Ray Mallon, Independent), Torbay (Nicholas Bye, Conservative – but not reselected as Conservative candidate, and will run as an Independent), and, most interestingly, Leicester.

Anticipating the Localism Bill’s proposals for mayors in England’s 12 biggest cities, Leicester will become the biggest provincial city so far with an elected mayor, with the clear front-runner being former council leader, Sir Peter Soulsby, who stood down as MP for Leicester South after selection as Labour’s candidate.

The single group of councils of greatest concern to the Liberal Democrat may well be the 19 unitaries elected by thirds. Their three majority-controlled councils are Bristol (2003), Hull (2002), and Portsmouth (2000). In the first two, Labour is the main challenger, with Hull being probably the most vulnerable, due to the dearth of Conservatives.

Of the two Conservative/Liberal Democrat partnerships, the Liberal Democrat-led alliance in Warrington (2006) could go with the loss of a single seat to Labour.

But Reading (2008), with its location in the South, must make it the greater prize.

Its Conservative-led administration is a near replica of the national coalition government, even including a formal, downloadable coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.

Having run the council for more than 20 years until 2008, Labour ought to find it easy to recapture, but the party faces in miniature the problem confronting it across so much of southern England. Labour’s presence has become so sparse – fewer than 10 seats in at least three-quarters of 194 districts with elections – that in seats it needs to win it is often no longer even the main challenger.

Chris Game is a visiting lecturer at the INLOGOV, the Institute of Local Government Studies at Birmingham University