Politics
Labour on track for ‘worst local elections’ in modern history
As we all know, things are looking dire for Labour in the upcoming local elections. On a positive note, however, they may do so badly that they end up winning a Guinness World Record:
“Anything north of 1500 seats lost would trigger a collective nervous breakdown”
Exclusive data from Lord Hayward suggests Labour may lose 1850 English councils in the upcoming local elections, the worst midterm results by any modern government#Peston pic.twitter.com/0JXXTLrYMk — Peston (@itvpeston) April 29, 2026
Labour: record breakers
First things first, we want to apologise on behalf of Peston for the word ‘midterm’:
why is the phrase ‘midterm’ eeking its way into British politics pic.twitter.com/BbFnJhER4S
— DX (@diggingmad) April 29, 2026
They’re not ‘midterm elections’; they’re ‘local elections’. In the American midterms, they vote for national politicians; in the British locals, we vote for local politicians. You may not know this if you watch the mainstream news, of course, because they refuse to engage with local issues.
The Peston team made another mistake too – namely by stating Labour is set to lose 1,850 “councils”. There actually aren’t that many councils in the UK, and what they meant to say was ‘seats’. In other words, Labour are potentially set to lose 1,850 councillors.
In the clip at the top, Pippa Crerar says:
I want to show you a projection by the elections expert Robert Hayward shared exclusively with the Preston Show which shows just how bad it could get. Now he predicts… that Labour could lose as many as 1,850 seats. That’s of the 2,500 they’re defending so pretty terrible prediction.
And you can see also that the Tories lose almost half their seats that are up for grabs, with the Greens and Reform the big winners.
This is the poll in question:
Peston asked:
Now, Heywood has a formidable reputation for getting these things right. Now, this might be an occasion when he’s not, but if it were 1,850 losses for Labour, Is that worse than Labour campaigners’ fears?
Crerar responded:
I think, in short, yes. I mean, ministers tell me that anything north of 1,500 seats lost would trigger a collective nervous breakdown in the Cabinet and potentially a revolt. And that’s obviously very dangerous territory for Starmer.
. … This comes, of course, on top of results in Scotland and Wales, which are also expected to be pretty dire for the government, the UK government, and that inevitably creates yet more danger for Starmer.
Things look equally bad in other polls too (albeit better for the Greens):
Median estimate via @Moreincommon_, April '26 pic.twitter.com/OFxPMxmoUV
— Stats for Lefties
Median estimate via @Moreincommon_, April '26 pic.twitter.com/OFxPMxmoUV
— Stats for Lefties
Time to go
At this point, it seems that Starmer has to go after the local elections. The only reason it’s not entirely certain is because this current crop of Labour MPs are so weak and directionless that they might just go with the flow all the way down the electoral drain.
Featured image via Peston
By Willem Moore
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