YouGov local election poll
Polling of local elections is very rare - presumably because they only cover part of the country, and it is hard to actually get any meaning out of the figures. What exactly does a four point Labour lead in local elections in the areas where there happens to be local elections that year mean? Still, we've had a go!
The YouGov local election poll in the Sun today is based on just repondents in those areas that actually have local elections in May - that is, excluding London, Scotland, Wales and the 13 or so councils who do not have elections this year (primarily Cornwall, Durham, the Isle of Wight, Northumberland, Shropshire and Wiltshire, with a handful of district councils with unusual electoral cycles).
Topline figures, with comparisons to how people voted in 2007 when these council seats were last contested, are:
CON 34%(-4), LAB 38%(+16), LDEM 13%(-11), Others 15%
Note that these figures are NOT compable to the Equivalent National Vote shares that are calculated by the BBC, and later by Rallings & Thrasher, on local election night. The NEV is a notional projection of what the local election shares of the vote would be if every single part of the country had had local elections, these figures are just people in areas that actually do have local elections. They are, of course, still not perfect - there will be some wards in councils with elections by thirds that don't have an election this time round, and many people in three member wards will end up splitting their votes between parties... but it's the best I think can be reasonably done.
More importantly, how would these figures actually translate into seats? Now, there is no easy formula or calculation for this, but the Sun have got Colin Rallings to do a projection based on these shares of the vote. Prof Ralling's calculations are that this would lead to the Conservatives losing 1000 council seats (about a fifth of those they are defending), and the Liberal Democrats will lose 700 (well over a third of the 1850 seats they are defending). The Liberal Democrats would lose control of 11 councils out of the 25 they currently control.
