The Conservatives will lose overall control of South Gloucestershire Council at Thursday’s local elections, an expert predicts. Independent statistician Nigel Marriott, from Bath, who made the most accurate forecast of the 2019 General Election, says the Tories’ eight-year hold on power is likely to end on May 4.
And he has pinpointed six key wards – all in the north fringe, between Bristol’s city boundaries and the M4/M5 – where the results could not only swing the result one way or the other but also indicate whether Labour or the Conservatives are having a very good or bad night nationally.
Nigel said that although Labour was the smallest of the three parties represented in the council chamber, behind the Lib Dems and the ruling Tories, the potential for gains from the Conservatives could well be the decisive factor. He said the Tories and Liberal Democrats were largely unchanged in national polling compared with 2019 but that Labour was up eight points, with “Other” groups, such as UKIP and independents, down by the same margin.
