Election news dominated British headlines on Friday, May 3, 2024 and will continue to do so over the weekend.

In Scotland, news concerned an SNP leadership contest following Humza Yousaf’s resignation on Monday, April 29 (see here, here and here).

South of the border in England, the Conservatives had a local wipeout at Thursday’s council elections.

Let’s look at both.

Scotland: more of the same

There seems to be little appetite for another SNP leadership election in just over a year.

The hapless John Swinney, a past Deputy First Leader, is the fourth ‘continuity candidate’ as the MSP and former finance minister Kate Forbes has decided not to run.

On Thursday, May 2, Guido Fawkes gave us the short version of the Scottish situation (red emphases and italics his):

UPDATE: On Kate Forbes, Swinney says: “I want her to play a significant part in the team” in a“very involved, senior position”.

UPDATE II: Kate Forbes announces she won’t stand for leader, saying:

I have concluded that the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish Government. I can therefore today announce that I will not be seeking nomination as the next SNP leader. John will therefore have my support and endorsement in any campaign to follow.

Well, that settles that.

That day, The Times told us ‘Why Kate Forbes pulled out of the SNP leadership race’ (purple emphases mine):

The sun was streaming through the window of Kate Forbes’s Edinburgh flat as she sat with her family and watched John Swinney outline his pitch to be first minister.

By that point the deal between the pair was already done and she knew she was not going to stand. She just needed to hear it from him …

That confirmation, alongside his pledge to prioritise economic growth and listen to alternative voices across the party, was what she needed to make her decision final.

Swinney laid it on thick, about Forbes …

“She is an intelligent, creative, thoughtful person who has much to contribute to our national life and if elected I will make sure that Kate is able to make that contribution,” Swinney, 60, said of Forbes.

… and himself:

“And that will be part of a united team that draws together our whole party, which given my deep, deep devotion to the SNP I think I am best placed to put together.”

Forbes said later:

… the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish government.

She also tweeted:

Forbes did not make any media appearances because of a family emergency:

… as she was making her final decision on Wednesday evening her daughter, Naomi, had a minor accident which led to the pair having to visit Edinburgh’s Sick Kids hospital.

That institution used to be the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital. The hospital administration changed the name to ‘Sick Kids’ to make it more user-friendly. I have news for them: no one, including a child, gets admitted to a hospital if he or she is well.

The article continues, telling us about what has been going on behind the scenes this week:

Her decision was the culmination of days of backroom talks through intermediaries, the ultimate conclusions of which had already filtered through into government.

Civil servants were told on Wednesday to prepare for a new first minister being sworn in next week. This suggests there was knowledge that a contest to be SNP leader was unlikely and Swinney would be the only person on the ballot at noon on Monday when nominations close.

That doesn’t mean that getting to this point has been easy. Swinney and Forbes had a face-to-face conversation on Tuesday aimed at ensuring there was understanding and respect between the pair.

Other conversations took place between two MPs serving as links between Swinney and Forbes. Sources said that Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, and Stewart McDonald, the former defence spokesman at Westminster, played a role as go-betweens for each camp.

Discussions between proxies for Swinney and Forbes started tentatively on Sunday — before Humza Yousaf had even announced his resignation — and intensified throughout Wednesday.

Not only was time an issue but so was money:

It is also understood that it could cost the party up to £180,000 to run an election, an additional strain that it does not need given it is currently struggling to attract cash.

Not surprising, considering no one knows what happened to the £600,000 in SNP donations, missing since at least 2021.

I question the ethics of Forbes remaining a member of the SNP, given their crooked revelations that have come to light over the past three years.

The consensus is that Forbes can run again in the next leadership contest:

… she lives to fight another day and avoids a potentially bruising general election with Labour projected to win more seats than the SNP in Scotland.

“It is in her interests to play a slightly longer game,” said a source.

More of the same.

The Spectator‘s and the Telegraph‘s Fraser Nelson said that she has brought Christianity back into political conversation, ‘Kate Forbes has still won a significant victory — for religion in public life’:

It’s not just that she was born into the Free Church of Scotland: she converted into it, leaving the more liberal Presbyterian church. She disagrees with gay marriage, sex outside of marriage and even women [religious] ministers. She’d uphold everyone’s rights, she says – but her faith is real. And far more important to her than politics.

In 2023:

Forbes went on to almost beat Humza Yousaf, winning 48 per cent of the vote. She decided not to run this time and instead cut a deal with John Swinney, who will be seen as a caretaker first minister with her as the heir apparent.

She has unabashedly defended her faith:

A Cambridge graduate, appointed Nicola Sturgeon’s finance minister at the age of 29, Forbes has long stood out. Brought up in India to missionary parents, she first followed the normal pattern of dodging questions about her faith.

Three years ago, she changed tack. “To be straight, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ,” she told an astonished Nick Robinson [BBC presenter]. “I believe that he died for me, he saved me. And that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbours with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.”

Many politicians think this, but none would dream of saying so in public – not in such language. Talking about religion can only alienate and damage your prospects, it’s argued: faith needs to be kept as a dirty secret. Not just in politics but the workplace or any public space. You’ll be accused of bigotry and it’s best just to keep quiet.

This is the quiet-Christian consensus that Forbes wanted to challenge with her campaign, even if it cost her the race. But in the end, she ended up drawing more admiration than condemnation …

Forbes may well never end up as first minister and, if she does, the SNP may still be doomed. But she has proven an important point: it’s OK, now, to do God.

There’s a hymn sung in her church about the need to “dare to be a Daniel / dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose / dare to make it known.”

Adding the word “don’t” in front of each of these lines would have seemed useful advice to any politician in recent years but it seems Forbes has written a new rule book. She won’t be the last to use it.

Well, we’ll see. As of now, Forbes is still an outlier, albeit a welcome one.

The Conservatives’ historic losses

Moving on to England, the trend in the emerging election results from Thursday — as I write in the afternoon, final counts are not in — shows that Rishi Sunak and his Conservatives are in deep, deep trouble with losses of 122 councillors thus far:

Guido Fawkes told us that Conservatives were downplaying what could happen, e.g. in the London mayoral race:

The main Conservative talking point of the past 24 hours has been that London is looking closer than thought …

Really? There was no campaign. The Conservatives did not support their candidate, Susan Hall, at all!

Guido adds:

… it seems very unlikely Susan Hall will ultimately beat Sadiq Khan clinching a third term.

Too right.

Here’s another Conservative delusion that Guido reported:

The Tories are pushing hard that these are ‘mid term’ results so are irrelevant for a general election – an odd choice of defence given it’s the end of the parliamentary term and a general election year. Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…

The ‘mid term’ local election was in 2021!

Guido explained Thursday’s elections:

Voters head to the polls for local elections today to elect eleven mayors, 2,600 councillors, 37 police and crime commissioners, as well as a new Blackpool South MP. The results will be significant, setting the mood music for the upcoming general election – and how internal Tory politics plays out over the summer …

Labour is streaking ahead by a solid and consistent 20 points in the national polls. On that basis, it is fair to say the Tories are going to struggle almost everywhere …

The government is spinning hard that winning just one of the Tees Valley or West Midlands mayoralties would be an incredible success. Both are in doubt in the final polling. Labour is managing down expectations on both – a sign that they are attempting to increase the damage should the Tories lose them. A mayoral wipeout would trigger major incoming flak for Team Sunak – but holding Tees Valley alone (Ben Houchen is the least Sunakite of the candidates) may not help them much either …

Notably, all the Tory mayoral candidates have distanced themselves from Rishi in their campaigns. The media has lost track of what is happening in Blackpool South, where Reform could well beat the Tories into second place. The results will drip out over the next few days. Watch out for some neck breaking spin …

On Friday morning, Guido told us:

… things are (as expected) bleak for the Tories …

The remainder of the picture is basically a total clean up for Labour – gaining Hartlepool, Thurrock, Redditch and even deeply formerly Tory Rushmoor. The Tories are pointing to Oldham, where Labour lost overall control of the council – but that is due to local factors over Gaza. A loss of control over the London narrative – with Tory briefings widely quoted overnight as saying Susan Hall would win – now seems unlikely. Plenty of big results still to come in though…

… Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…

Then there is Richard Tice’s Reform Party. So far, its potential star candidate, Nigel Farage, has shied away from saying whether he will stand as a candidate in the next general election which must be held by January 2025 at the latest.

As of Thursday morning, Reform’s popularity is rising, according to a YouGov poll. Guido reported:

Though it’s no surprise the Tories are sinking in the polls, perhaps the bigger news is that Reform are on 15%, just 3 percentage points away from the Tories. Though they’re only fielding 300 candidates in the locals, they could pip the Tories to second place in the Greater Manchester mayoral race and in Blackpool South …

Imagine the polls if Nigel stood…

The Blackpool South by-election results are final. Scott Benton, the Conservative MP who won overwhelmingly in 2019, had to stand down a few weeks ago. Everyone predicted a return of the constituency to Labour, and so it proved.

Note Labour’s historic majority albeit with a turnout of only 33% and how close the Reform candidate came to the second place Conservative one:

Guido told us:

… Blackpool South has been convincingly retaken by Labour after Scott Benton’s implosion, with a massive swing of 26.3 points. That’s the third biggest swing from Conservatives to Labour in post war election history. Reform were within a whisker (117 votes) of putting the Tories into third place. Reform has performed strongly elsewhere so far where they are standing…

Is it that everyone suddenly loves Labour or the Liberal Democrats? No. It seems that people who have voted Conservative in the past stayed at home. One commenter on a Guido post has probably nailed it with this analysis:

The swing was from Conservative to Stay at home.

The Labour vote dropped by 12 % over their 2019 vote.

The Conservative vote dropped by 80%.

The Reform vote increased by 56.5% over the Brexit party vote.

Did Not Vote increased by 57.5% over 2019.

A swing from Conservative to Stay at Home lets Labour in.

The challenge for Reform is to persuade the 25% of the electorate who stayed at home this year, but didn’t in 2019 that there is an option they can vote for. Then there’s the 45% that didn’t bother in either, and had no faith in the system at all.

The challenge for the psephologists is to start acknowledging the underswell of disgust in the whole system that is swirling around the country.

A lot of those who voted Conservative in 2019 did so because a) Boris Johnson was such an effective campaigner as the face of Brexit and b) they trusted that their voices would be heard once more as happened in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Since then — admittedly, the pandemic (not a Boris speciality) did not help — the status quo returned, beginning in 2021, and those voters have once again lost faith in the Conservatives.

Does Rishi Sunak care?

Probably not. He can leave the UK for California — or his father-in-law’s country, India. Either way, everything will come up roses for him. The rest of us will have to bear up under Labour’s rose.