It’s not been a great night for the Tories. Labour have taken three symbolic London councils from the Conservatives – Westminster, Barnet and Wandsworth – while also making some gains outside the capital in key marginals like Southampton. And with Tory council defeats come defeated Tory council leaders. John Mallinson, who led his party on Carlisle City Council, was early out of the blocks, telling the BBC that he had ‘lost some very good colleagues’ in the election.
He said he had found it ‘difficult to drag the debate back to local issues’ while campaigning because of partygate and the cost-of-living crisis. Asked if he thought Conservative MPs should oust the PM, Mallinson said: ‘That would be my preference, yes.’ Mallinson specifically criticised Johnson and members of his cabinet saying:
I don’t think it was helping to get comments from people like George Eustice talking about people using value brands to ease their shopping bills. That just seems to have come over very patronising. I think it is not just partygate, there is the integrity issue. Basically I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the Prime Minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.
Other departing council leaders have been slightly more diplomatic in venting their frustrations with Johnson. Wandsworth, which was formally headed by the PM’s ally Eddie Lister, had been Tory since 1978 and was the only London borough to have its council tax this year. Its leader Ravi Govindia laid the blame of losing the flagship council to Labour squarely at the door of Boris Johnson and the national government, saying ‘inevitably other events have clouded the judgment of people in Wandsworth.’
Labour also took Barnet Council for the first time in its history. The defeated Tory leader there, Daniel Thomas, blamed the defeat on ‘a perfect storm of the cost of living crisis, 12 years of a Conservative government and redrawn boundaries’ adding ‘this is a warning shot from Conservative supporters – a fair number just stayed at home.’ In Sunderland, Conservative group leader Antony Mullen repeated his call for Johnson to resign, saying:
We’ve come close in a number of seats, and were it not for the national picture – Partygate – I think we would have won them. I can only put it down to that. I think a lot of Conservative voters were staying at home.
Simon Bosher, the most senior Tory in Portsmouth said the leadership in Westminster needed to ‘take a good, long hard look in the mirror’ to find out why it had lost four seats. In Rutland meanwhile the County Council leader Oliver Hemsley announced that he had resigned from the Conservative Party shortly after polls closed. And the top Tory in Worcester left the count early, saying people had judged the government’s performance and ‘found it wanting.’
With results still coming in, how many more council leaders will blame Boris for their defeats?
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