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At the moment, London’s political map is a sea of red, the way it has largely been for three decades. But things are likely to be very different in a few weeks' time. On 7 May, every borough in the city will be going to the polls to elect new councillors and, in some cases, local mayors as well.
Part of the reason the city is so hard to predict, electorally speaking, is because of how diverse those boroughs are — only half a mile can separate some of the world’s richest neighbourhoods to areas of desperate poverty. Within its boundaries, the capital encompasses densely-packed inner city neighbourhoods to locations on the city’s fringe which feel more Home Counties than metropolis.
But one thing’s for sure: it’s currently looking very bad for Labour. For decades, the country’s electoral system was based on one of the big two parties being in power, both in Westminster and at a local level across the country. But this world has been turned upside down, and British politics is splintering. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party has surged in the national polls, as have Zack Polanski’s Greens, who are particularly strong in London. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, have a solid presence in London’s south-west.
Having so many different parties in contention, often alongside independents and smaller parties like Aspire (who have had a majority in Tower Hamlets since 2022), can make it hard to gauge the political temperature of the city. So, we’ve drilled into the data — as well as the past, present and future electoral map of the capital — to look at what is happening next month, and how London’s councils could soon swing in a very different direction.
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