Will this be the ‘anyone but the big parties’ local election?

“A sliver here and a sliver there” – in a few days millions of voters will be taking part in what are, frankly, a pretty weird set of elections.
Forget the huge thwack of decisive national victory. Brace for what one former minister described as slivers of votes between five political parties, determining who wins and loses power over town halls in England, and one perch in the Commons.
The results will set the political pace for the next few months. And from Friday, Reform could give the two big traditional tribes a problem, and also acquire a potential problem they haven’t encountered thus far – a track record to defend.
The largest parties are both likely to have a horrible time of it. Labour’s wide coalition of voters went pop almost as soon as they moved into No 10.
Calm heads in government say it was always going to be thus because of the state of the country when they took over. Sir Keir Starmer even told us on the record he was going to “have to be unpopular” – a curious ambition for a politician!

Source: BBC | Language: English