How Local Elections Could Make Or Break Johnson

Polls expert John Curtice on the challenges facing the PM

Today's local elections have been widely billed as potentially make or break for the prime minister. If the Conservatives lose heavily, Tory MPs might decide that Partygate has significantly damaged their electoral prospects, and mount a challenge to unseat him. Conversely, if Tory losses are apparently no more than might be expected in midterm, Johnson might succeed in persuading his colleagues to stick with him.

At first glance, the omens are not good for Boris Johnson. His party shows no sign of recovering the poll lead it enjoyed in this parliament until his probity and ethics became the subject of controversy. On average the Conservatives currently trail Labour by six points. That represents as much as a nine-point swing since the 2019 general election.

However, this week's elections are very different from the general election. Most of the seats up for grabs in England were last fought over in May 2018, when Theresa May was trying to keep her fractious party together on Brexit, while Jeremy Corbyn was fending off claims of antisemitism.

The Conservatives were only narrowly ahead in the polls, while the BBC's projection of the local election results into the equivalent of a general election outcome put the two parties on 35 per cent apiece. That very different baseline means the current national polls are only pointing to a three-point swing from Conservative to Labour - a figure that polls of voting intention have largely echoed.

This could well produce Tory losses of a few hundred seats - but it would not necessarily look like a tsunami that threatened to sweep Johnson out of Downing Street.