All parties struggle to invest local elections with meaning, because no party can alter the consequences of what is coming up to two decades of austerity. They can promise they’ll work hard for local people, and many of them will, but they can’t change the maths of inadequate funding and soaring social care costs. All they can do is hope to exist in an affluent enough area.
Instead, the results are taken as a popularity contest, which – if things go your way – will hopefully supply enough buoyancy to last into a general election, and, if things don’t, will hopefully evaporate.
