By Dan Cave
The Dudley Lib Dems were up to something. This was known long before their clean sweep of Cradley North and Wollescote was announced. “It’s all over bar the shouting,” muttered one outgoing Conservative councillor to himself, just before the results were called deep into the evening. By this time, littered coffee cups and fizzy drinks bottles well outnumbered remaining council staffers, party officials and hacks in this emptied-out Stourbridge sports hall, the site for the Dudley Council election count.
As a result of a recount — a handful of votes separated the losing Labour incumbent from the incoming Lib Dem councillor — the ward’s results were the last to be confirmed. When they came, jubilant Lib Dems, now with three council seats, loudly celebrated becoming an official grouping for the first time in a decade. Hugs. Photos. Whooping. Ryan Priest, now-group leader of the Lib Dems in Dudley Council boasted to The Dispatch that he always knew this result was on the cards. Indeed, across the day of the count, there were multiple mentions of their hard-nosed ground operation. “We’re personal, we work harder and people know us by name,” explained a beaming Priest.
The late-called Lib Dem incursion means that control of Dudley Council has ended up in the balance. Labour gained eight seats. The Conservatives lost four. They both now have 34 councillors. As such, it’s Dudley’s sole independent, a similarly jubilant Shaun Keasey — an ex-Tory who beat his old party in Sedgley after leaving the party last year, saying it had become too extreme — and Priest’s Lib Dems who could now have a deciding say in the council’s direction. “Speculating isn’t healthy right now but I know my phone’s going to be ringing this week,” said Priest.
Count day at the Crystal Leisure Centre wasn’t meant to go like this. Just weeks ago national Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer launched his party’s local election campaign a few miles up the road. “We’re looking to win in Dudley,” he said. And as families swam above us in the town’s pool, he had hoped to make a splash in the sports courts below. Dudley is often coveted by national parties, seen as a bellwether for voter mood. But council control flip flops and the electorate tread their own path here. Last year’s council election returned a stonking Tory control, at a time when Labour were almost 20 points ahead in national polls. It enabled Tory group leader and council chief Patrick Harley to quip: “If Labour can't make gains tonight then you have to ask yourselves when will they be able to make gains on us?”
Friday morning heard no such fighting talk. The day's first results saw incremental Labour gains. The local party, it seemed, were reading national polls like sheet music to play off. Harley started to look like a man who had been told his exact time of execution. Prior to the election, he had been accused of inappropriate conduct and had lost councillors who preferred to stand as independents. The stress, and sweat, was visible on his brow. When he retained his Kingswindford South seat, it was a sense of temporary succour rather than celebration I could see on his face. He looked carved out — despite his ward being a Tory stronghold. “It’s relief more than anything,” he told The Dispatch.
Despite landing a couple of punches — including taking the seat of John Martin, a thorn in their side at council meetings — any early count stress belonged solely to the Tories. Councillor Simon Phipps, who retained his seat in all-Conservative Belle Vale, spent the afternoon arrowing around the sports hall like an unleashed XL Bully, occasionally exploding at his peers to ensure they were watching the counting taking place. He turns down the chance to engage with the press table with a simple barked: “Not the time.”
But at the midway stage of the count, a new reality had set in. Early seats called were in historic Labour territory. Election veterans started doing the numbers. A hung council could be on the cards. With Cradley North called back for a recount, with a potentially-council-controlling Labour seat on the line, Tory holds started to be called in succession. Cheering from their support got louder at each result. Even Phipps had calmed down enough to hug his mum after he retained his seat. “It’s not as bad as we might’ve expected — we might’ve even taken more,” Harley tells me, visibly relieved. Labour was suddenly the party deep in conversation with council officials. Perhaps the national polls would not be dictating Dudley’s mood music after all.
Might’ves or next times are a background story to the day. Three independents stood in St. Thomas, with the Middle East a central part of their ticket. They didn’t win. “We’re happy with how we’ve done as a few weeks ago we weren’t in politics,” explains independent candidate Choudhary Noorhussain. He’s part of the wider activist team who have put up Ahmed Yakoob in the West Midlands mayoral election. “We want to give people a voice who don’t have it.” They also want to grow. An election veteran tells The Dispatch they might get somewhere if they don’t stand multiple candidates in the same seat, taking votes off each other. Elsewhere, recriminations can be overheard between Labour activists as overall council control becomes a fantasy. It’s talk of the Gaza issue in traditional Labour wards, about better resourcing and targeting.
By the end of the count, Labour leader Pete Lowe can be seen holding spot-called conflabs with various senior party activists, asking for their reflections. If not complete deflation, there’s a visible sense of disappointment. For every happily posed photo of a successful Labour candidate — like Luke Hamblett pretending to be the Chancellor at budget time with his Dudley Council satchel — there are stony faces and one or two teary eyes. This was not the Crystal Leisure Centre Labour splash it should’ve been.
With Cradley North eventually called as a new Lib Dem stronghold, Lowe, who retained his Lye and Stourbridge seat and might’ve ended the day as council leader, is keen to explain both the positives and negatives of Labour’s day: “If this had been a general election, we would’ve seen Labour MPs elected here but we have had mixed results so we have to continue to instil confidence in the public by having honest conversations.”
He admits the result likely means power-sharing with Harley’s Conservatives. Just moments before, I’d spoken to Harley, looking like a man who had had his stay of execution confirmed. He’s open to this power-sharing, something that has happened at the council as close back as 2021: “We’re going to have to work in consensus…which can be a good way to do business,” he said.
For now, Harley’s Tories stumble on — likely hand-in-hand with Labour. Both have to front up to tackling the council’s budget deficit, with effective bankruptcy still on the table. It’s a result that Labour hardly wanted. Indeed, it’s the Lib Dems, a few insurgent independents and an ex-Tory who seem to have ended the day with the least complicated emotions. “I think today shows there’s an appetite for a different type of politics,” Priest tells me, as the count’s trestle tables and temporary stages are packed up around us.
We also popped into the count in Walsall…
Walsall Council leader Mike Bird, and other senior Conservatives, were rumoured to have left for the local Wetherspoon’s before the final result had even been announced on Friday. After all, what reason was there to stay? Their majority had been defended. They’d started the day with 37 seats — and ended it with 37. While Rishi Sunak might be reeling from the worst set of local election results in years, things look a little different in the Black Country.
Like Oldham and other parts of the country with large Muslim populations, backlash to the war in Gaza war looms large over Walsall. Three out of four independents who defected from Labour last year, due to Starmer’s delay in backing a ceasefire in Palestine, held strong — Sabina Ditta kept Palfrey with a majority of more than 1,000. The indie member for Blakenall, Pete Smith, defended his seat too, declaring the campaign a “David and Goliath” battle against Labour, who he said had taken his ward’s “votes for granted” for too long. In Willenhall North, Labour lost by a hair’s breadth — eight votes — to Conservative Stacey Elson who said it had been “an emotional few days” but she was “glad to be back”. Unlike many other parts of the region (and country), it’s business as usual in Walsall.
Walsall Council. How did Simon Rollason do in Willenhall N? Fought it for Labour several times, but recently left the party.