GUEST POST Local councillors changing party: Augustus Carp’s review of 2025

Augustus Carp finds the Conservatives are losing local councillors, but not as fast as Labour are losing them, and Reform UK are gaining.

Back in January we were solemnly assured by the nation’s leading political commentators that 2025 was going to be a tough year for the Conservatives, and a good one for Reform UK. 

That’s pretty much how it panned out, but why didn’t anyone predict that, when it comes to political defections, the biggest losers were going to be the Labour Party?

The figures are stark. The Conservatives lost a net 212 councillors in 2025, but the Labour Party lost a net 275. For the others, the figures are Reform +138, Greens +32, Lib Dems -14 and the Nationalists -5. The balancing figure is Independents on 336.

To be clear, my methodology treats every single change in status as a recordable event. So a councillor leaving Party A to sit as an Independent in January, and then joining Party B in August is regarded as two separate data points. Suspensions, expulsions and readmissions are all included in the tally.

By my reckoning there were defections in 271 local authorities during the year. Councils where eight or more councillors have changed their allegiance are 

Tameside                      20

Kent                       16

Dudley                      13

Durham                      10

Sevenoaks              10

Wakefield              10

Bolsover                        9

Buckinghamshire        9

Hounslow                9

Oldham                        9

South Kesteven              9

Tamworth                        9

Cornwall                       8

Dumfries & Galloway      8

Portsmouth                     8

Solihull                            8

The figure for Tameside is perhaps a bit misleading – seven Labour councillors had their status changed for them when they were suspended and subsequently reinstated after being caught up in the Shiver Me Timbers WhatsApp fiasco/scandal. Nevertheless there were other goings on there to ensure that Tameside would still rank highly in the table.

Kent and Durham have trouble retaining councillors within their Reform UK groups, and Dudley has seen movements from Labour to Independent and from the Conservatives to Reform UK. Wakefield saw councillors move from Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives to Independents, and a few suspensions and readmissions in the Labour Group added to the complexity there. Bulk defections have occurred in Sevenoaks (from the Conservatives) and in Buckinghamshire (from the Lib Dems).

Labour defections in the London boroughs increased towards the end of the year, once the reselection season started. Councillor defections in areas which still have two levels of local government (for example Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) might deserve more attention, as some councillors there wear two hats. 

Watch out in 2026 for problems with party discipline if local government reform is pushed through against local opposition, as has already happened in Suffolk.

It is very difficult to identify how many defections arise out of personality clashes rather than ideology.  There have been 92 defections straight from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, which would seem to be driven by ideology or the survival instinct.

There have also been 28 straight swaps from Labour to Greens in 2025, with another 14 councillors making the slow-burning transition from Labour to Independent to Greens. This, together with the number of ex-Labour councillors forming their own Independent groups, would seem to indicate that politics is more significant than personalities at the moment. That matters when it comes to fielding troops in a general election ground war.

As ever, these figures are provided on a best endeavours basis, so E&OE and DYOR. Perhaps if readers have any simple questions on the goings on in any particular authority, they could put them in the comments below and I will answer them if I can.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

The Joy of Six 1412

Chris Grey analyses the dangers of the new far right in Britain: "It seems to be quite different to earlier versions of far-right politics which, whilst aggressively anti-immigration, were not, apart from a very small fringe, intent on a wholesale overthrow of the established political order. Yet, now, it is becoming almost mainstream to speak as if that political order has entirely failed." 

"It saddens me to say that Israel today seems to be a world away from the inclusive, pluralistic, open and democratic principles on which it was founded in 1948." Labour MP Peter Prinsley, who is a doctor and Jewish, writes about his experience of being denied entry to Israel.

"The exact movements of the train are kept secret for fear of terrorism – in 1886, Queen Victoria’s train was reportedly targeted by Fenians. But we know the train is only used very infrequently, not least because it is so expensive to move out of its shed at Wolverton near Milton Keynes." Christian Wolmar agues that the demise of the Royal Train was inevitable.

Owen Hatherley says one of the clearest markers of Britain’s civic downslide in recent decades is the slow cancellation of its once plentiful provision of public toilets.

"[Herbert] Howells and [Ivor] Gurney walked the streets of Gloucester into the early hours that night, excitedly debating what the Tallis Fantasia might mean for the future." Terry Blain tells the story of the first-ever performance of the Tallis Fantasia in the city's cathedral as part of the 1910 Three Choirs Festival.

Roger French takes the bus from Nuneaton to Leicester.

GUEST POST Forget your two-horse race: Increasingly it's a cavalry charge

Augustus Carp wanders off from his usual subjective enquiries into councillor defections to consider some objective examples of real voters casting real votes for real candidates in the recent local elections.

If you are a regular reader of this site, you are probably well aware of the iniquities of our election system. You don’t need a lecture from me or, probably, anyone else on the subject, but you might like to consider some of the more unusual results thrown up in the recent county council elections.

To set the scene, in order for a candidate - or party -  to succeed using the current system, the procedure for nearly the last 100 years has been to engineer public opinion to regard the contest as being between just two parties. 

That way, Party A can tell the voters that it’s a straight contest between them and Party B, and that it’s the duty of the electorate to recognise that a vote for Party C is a wasted vote. Verily, “It’s a two horse race!”, say the leaflets, and no other considerations are required.

However, the political world is changing, and changing rapidly. The number of two-horse races has declined, to be replaced in some contests by veritable cavalry charges, with a handful of candidates all vying for the voters’ attention with almost equal success. There are some extraordinary examples from 1 May.

Some 1405 contests took place for the English County Councils. Remarkably, in 32 contests, five candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the vote. 

In some cases, the result was still clear. For example, in the Leamington Milverton Division of Warwickshire, the Liberal Democrat got 53.5 per cent, with four other candidates getting 14, 13, 12 and 10 per cent. In Bedwardine (Worcestershire) Reform won with 41.5 per cent, the other candidates getting 24, 14, 10 and 10 per cent. Clearly, the winning candidates had a solid core of support. 

But what about Heavitree and Whipton Barton in Devon? There the Green won with just 26.2 per cent of the vote, the others getting 25.6, 25.4, 12 and 11 per cent. Or over in Alphington and Cowick, in the same county, where Reform won with 26.8 per cent but two other candidates both got over 25 per cent? 

How do people still justify the use of First Past the Post elections, particularly for local government elections, which produce results like those?

However, the Joint Prize for the Most Indecisive Result has to be shared by Bierton, Kingsbrook and Wing Division in Buckinghamshire, and Truro, Moresk and Trehaverne Division in Cornwall. There, six candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the votes each. 

The Conservative in Buckinghamshire won with 26.5 per cent of the vote, and the Lib Dem in Cornwall won with 18.9 per cent - not so much a ringing endorsement as an indication of grudging tolerance.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

London's lost underground lines - with a note on the wine cellar of the National Liberal Club

Jago Hazzard is our guide to a collection of lost lines, repurposed lines and abandoned oddments, some of them 50 miles out of London and deep in the Buckinghamshire countryside.

You can support Jago's videos via his Patreon page and follow his YouTube account.

One scheme that never advanced far enough to carry trains was the Waterloo & Whitehall Railway, which:

was authorised in 1865 to construct a pneumatic railway (that is, one where trains are pushed though a tunnel by air pressure) from Great Scotland Yard to Waterloo station. The single cast iron tube, 3.89 m (12'9") in diameter, would have crossed the river by being laid in a ditch dredged in the bed of the Thames. 

Though work did start, a general financial crisis prevented additional capital being raised, and the work was abandoned in 1868, with the company being wound up in 1882. The trench excavated at the northern end is now the wine cellar of the National Liberal Club.

Nick Cohen's podcast: Don't back any horses tipped by Nick Tyrone

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Nick Cohen's latest podcast dropped two days ago. His guest, billed as an expert on the Conservative Party, was Paul-Marshall-era Liberal Democrat turned Reform supporter Nick Tyrone.

In the course of their discussion Tyrone argued that when Robert Jenrick replaces Kemi Badenoch, as he surely will, he'll prove no more popular than she has.

He then suggested that the Tories should go for someone untainted by their 14 years in government and choose a leader from their 2024 intake of MPs.

Pressed for a name, he suggested Patrick Spencer, who was arrested the following day.

Spencer denies the charges against him and may go on to have along political career, even leading his party. But this exchange did reinforce the impression that Tyrone isn't the great political forecaster out there.

Because he has previous. Here he is in the Spectator on the eve of a 2021 by-election:

"The Chesham and Amersham by-election is on Thursday. Thank God it’s almost here — hopefully then we can stop hearing any rubbish about how the Lib Dems are set to tear down the Conservatives’ ‘blue wall’ in the home counties. As the campaign has demonstrated, the Lib Dems are miles away from being able to cause such an upset.

"Instead, the Lib Dems will lose on Thursday, most likely fairly badly, and they will have no one to blame but themselves. If they want to get back to being the by-election masters of old, they will have to do a lot better than this."

As you may recall, Sarah Green won the election for the Lib Dems with a 25 per cent swing from the Conservatives.

He was more confident about the Lib Dem performance in 2015:

Ahead of the 2015 General Election, Tyrone predicted that the Liberal Democrats would receive "17 per cent" of the popular vote and that the vote share for the two largest parties appeared "on course for an all time low". 

The two largest parties subsequently both increased their vote share, while the Liberal Democrats received 7.9 per cent.

Nor did he much admire Nigel Farage in the run up to the European Union referendum:

In 2015, Tyrone argued that fellow pro-Europeans should give their "gratitude to Nigel Farage for hanging around the British political scene just a little bit longer" as he believed it would ensure "the pro-Europeans win".

We all like to sound confident when we make predictions, but I wouldn't back any horse that Nick Tyrone tipped. 

GUEST POST 256 local councillors have changed party allegiance since 1 January

Local councillors are leaving the party under whose name they stood - and often joining a different one - in remarkable numbers, finds Augustus Carp in his latest survey for this blog

With the local government elections taking place on Thursday, here’s a quick appetiser – a snapshot analysis of recent defections amongst local government councillors. 

It’s long been my contention that defections, suspensions, resignations and flouncings out might be telling us something significant about the morale in local party groups, which surely must have an impact on their campaigning abilities. 

However, it’s been a complicated few months in the Byzantine world of local government defections of late – so much so that it’s probably best to consider the numbers for the year to date, rather than just provide an update since my last review for Liberal England (posted 2 March).

In total there have been 256 identifiable incidents of councillors changing their political allegiances since the New Year, resulting in the following net changes:

• Conservatives  -60
• Labour -90
• Lib Dems -15
• Greens +2
• Nationalists 0
• Reform UK +61
• Independents +102

I expect that most people at Christmas would have forecast an increase in the number of defections to Reform, but who would have guessed that it would be the Labour Party that would have suffered the greatest number of losses? Not losses to Reform, to be sure, but fractures within party discipline, and the actions (and inactivity) of the Labour Government at Westminster have led to pressures that could not be contained inside several Labour council groups.

Additionally, in the special category of 'Being Suspended from the Group', ex-Labour councillors lead the field by some distance. The main problem areas for Labour appear to be Nottinghamshire (particularly Beeston), Stockport, Tameside, Dudley and Wakefield, all areas where they have lost at least three councillors. In Beeston, depending on how you count them, it’s somewhere in the region of 19 to 21.

The Conservative groups to have lost three or more councillors appear to be Durham, Kent, Mid Suffolk, North Northamptonshire, Oldham and Tamworth.

For the Liberal Democrats, the only group to see more than three defections was Buckinghamshire, with some sort of personality dispute leading to the loss of five councillors, all in the Aylesbury area.

There have been 37 instances of straight swaps between political parties. That’s rather high, because usually defections are to some manifestation of Independent, although that move in itself is often a precursor to a subsequent attachment to a new political party.

The 37 'straight swaps' consist of 26 councillors moving from Conservative to Reform, 3 from Labour to Conservative, 2 from Labour to Reform, 2 from Labour to Green, 1 from Labour to Lib Dem, 1 from Lib Dem to Conservative, 1 from Lib Dem to Labour, 1 from Lib Dem to Green and 1 from Green to Conservative.

Another factor to consider, which might be hiding in plain sight, is the number of resignations from the Council before the end of a standard four year term – are the by-elections we see always for reasons of ill health or work commitments, or is it really because the group leader has a bit of a Napoleon complex? Sadly, for this category, there’s no way of burrowing into the truth behind the press releases - but there might be a story there as well.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Defections of local councillors have doubled in 2025

Augustus Carp sees early signs that the shifting of tectonic plates in national and international politics may be reflected in local government too.

All the experts tell us that the political order is changing in ways previously thought to be inconceivable. Alliances are shifting, established relationships are faltering and old friends are becoming foes. But that’s not just the case in international relations – the world of local government seems to be undergoing a heightened wave of upheavals as well.  

The rate of political defections in British local government has accelerated significantly in 2025. By way of comparison, there were 52 defections in the first two months of 2024 – resulting in a net decrease of 19, 20 and 1 councillors for the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats respectively, counterbalanced by an increase of 1 for the Greens with the remainder going to the Independents.

In 2025 the numbers have doubled, with 101 councillors identified as having changed their political allegiances so far. The net impact is that the Conservatives are down 38, Labour down 54, the Liberal Democrats down 8 and the Greens down 1. Reform UK has gained 21, with the other gains going to various manifestations of Independent.  

One feature this year is a significant number of mass defections, most notably in Broxtowe, where 18 ex-Labour councillors set up the Broxtowe Independent Group, which now controls the council (although they should not, of course, be confused with the 5 other Independents on the council). Add in two more from the same patch on Nottinghamshire County Council and it’s clear that the People’s Party are in a bit of a pickle there.

Several purges have also reduced Labour’s numbers in Tameside (10) and Stockport (2) as a consequence of the ShiverMeTimbers WhatsApp Group fiasco, which also saw two MPs suspended. Remember, if you can’t say it in a leaflet you probably shouldn’t put it on social media….

Compare and contrast with the four former Conservatives on Mid Suffolk Council (and a few more elsewhere) who have resigned in protest at their erstwhile party nationally and locally supporting the Labour government's unheralded plans to impose wholesale changes in local government administration. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have lost five councillors in Buckinghamshire, all in Aylesbury.

One councillor has gone directly from Labour to the Conservatives, but Reform are clearly on the up. As well as welcoming 21 councillors from the Independents, four Conservatives have switched directly to Reform, together with two from Labour. Details are sketchy, but there are reports of a former councillor having joined Reform from the SNP, and of an independent councillor joining the Liberal Democrats "having flirted with Reform".

It will be interesting to see whether the international scene (Trump, Ukraine, Nato etc,) will have as much of an impact on council defections in 2025 as the Middle East did in 2024.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

Nowhere to Go: Maggie Smith's first credited film role

Yesterday we saw the first television appearance by Julie Walters. Tonight it's Maggie Smith's first credited film role, which was in 1958.

Being Maggie Smith, she received what we'd today call a BAFTA nomination for it.

Talking Pictures TV showed it a couple of days ago, but it's not found its way to their catch-up channel TPTV Encore.

Nowhere to Go was the penultimate film made by Ealing Studios. With its jazz soundtrack and refusal to spell everything out for the viewer, it looked forward, not back.

You could call it 'Ealing Noir', and that's not a ridiculous concept. One of the best Ealing films, It Always Rains on Sunday, has a claim on the Noir label too.

In this trailer look for a brief glimpse of Andrée Melly, then Harry H. Corbett in the back of the car in his days as the British Brando (again, this is not a joke) and then we see Maggie Smith. Playing a rich girl looking for kicks, she lights up the screen.

You can find Nowhere to Go on a dodgy Russian site if you ask Google Videos, but I didn't tell you that, right?

If you watch it, here are three notes on the locations.

The disused railway platforms at the start are long since demolished. They were on the still operating North to East curve at Kew Bridge station.

When the villain and Maggie Smith arrive in Wales we see, not the Brecon Beacons, but Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. The chimneys do not belong to a steelworks in the valleys but to the old Tunnel Cement works at Pitstone.

And the big house is Gadebridge House, which was in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was demolished long ago, and its grounds now form Gadebridge Park in the new town.

An epic adventure to Sniggs Alley and the oldest pub in England

From the blurb on YouTube:

Great walk to find a location from best-selling author Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books nestled in the Chilterns countryside close to where Pratchett grew up - and also my childhood home. Sniggs Alley is a place in Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld. It's also an ancient footpath that runs from Loudwater to the village of Penn in Buckinghamshire. 

Our quest to find Sniggs Alley starts in High Wycombe and we walk along the A40 London Road to Loudwater before walking into the Chiltern Hills. We then turn towards Forty Green, near Beaconsfield, where Terry Pratchett grew up. At Lude Farm we pass the field where a B17 bomber crashed on 12 August 1944.

At Forty Green we stop for a pint on the Royal Standard of England, which is the oldest free house in England and has existed for over 900 years. The final part of the walk takes to Beaconsfield Library where Terry Pratchett spent much time reading and studying.

Penn, incidentally, was the home of the philosopher Karl Popper.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Those Lib Dem targets for the next general election in full

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Michael Mullaney, who was our candidate in Hinckley and Bosworth on Thursday, has tweeted a list of the Liberal Democrat near misses at this election. They form a handy list of targets for the next election.

The second column gives the number votes we were adrift of the winner, and the third the percentage swing needed to win it next time. It is this latter figure that determines a seat's ranking in the list.

All these seats are held by the Conservatives except Burnley, which is held by Labour.

                                                                         %

Godalming and Ash                         891         0.81

Farnham and Bordon                     1349        1.27

Hampshire East                              1275        1.27

Shropshire South                            1624        1.57

Dorset North                                   1589        1.60

Romsey and Southampton North   2191        2.19

Cotswold North                               3357        3.34

Torridge and Tavistock                    3950        3.89

Burnley                                            3420        4.31

Hamble Valley                                 4802        4.35

Hertfordshire South West                4456        4.62

Salisbury                                          5285        5.27

Buckinghamshire Mid                      5872        5.44

Sevenoaks                                       5440       5.45

Hinckley and Bosworth                    5408       5.66

When I blogged about Gordon Birtwistle, who was our candidate in Burnley having been MP for the town between 2005 and 2010, I wondered about his claim that the contest was between him and Labour, But he turned out to be quite right.

The soft man of Brexit? Steve Baker goes on holiday during the election campaign

Steve Baker, who had a majority of 4214 over Labour in his Wycombe constituency in 2019, has flown off to Crete for a holiday, despite the general election.

The Mirror reports:

Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker defiantly told The Mirror that he had continued with his holiday plans despite Rishi Sunak calling a snap election. He said that before he booked his break, he and fellow MPs were assured by the PM that it would be ok to head off to the beach this week.

Baker has also complained that Sunak's National Service policy was sprung on ministers and MPs by special advisers without being properly discussed.

But let's stay with his holiday because it gives me an excuse to quote one of my favourite passages from one of my favourite political memoirs.

Here's Julian Critchley in his A Bag of Boiled Sweets:

David James, who retired from Parliament as Member for Dorset North in 1979, was dotty. His reputation for eccentricity dated from 1964 when as Tory MP for Brighton, Kemptown, he lost his seat to Labour by seven votes. 

When, a few days after Alec Douglas-Home's defeat (and my own at Rochester), I went to Conservative Central Office to interview the then chairman of the party John Hare, I murmured some words of sympathy. We had, after all, just lost a general election after thirteen years in office.

"It's all that silly bugger David James's fault," cried Hare. "The fool spent most of the three-week campaign in Scotland looking for the Loch Ness Monster." Indeed, he had, and the tabloid press had been full of it. 

The papers claimed that every so often a cable would arrive from some godforsaken Scottish village addressed to the Kemptown Tory agent "Have almost found the Monster. Hope all goes well with the campaign."

When the Underground went to Aylesbury

From 1948 to 1961 Aylesbury was the terminus of the Metropolitan's main line, and trains had to change from electric to steam locomotives at Rickmansworth to reach it.

Jago Hazzard tells us all about the station's history. You can support his videos via his Patreon page.

Is the Ridgeway really 5000 years old?

Paul Whitewick takes us from Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns to Wiltshire. There we see Liddington Castle, which was sacred to Richard Jefferies, and then some of our sexiest prehistoric monuments, if Avebury and Silbury Hill will forgive me for calling them that.

How old is the Ridgeway? Is it really one path at all? Long walks are good for pondering such questions.