2007 United Kingdom local elections

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All 36 metropolitan boroughs, 45 out of 46 unitary authorities, 231 out of 238 English districts, all 32 Scottish council areas, and 3 directly elected mayors
First party Second party   Leader David Cameron Tony Blair Party Conservative Labour Leader since 6 December 2005 21 July 1994 Percentage 40% 27% Swing 1% 1% Councils 165 36 Councils +/- 39 18 Councillors 5,458 2,225 Councillors +/- 932 665   Third party Fourth party   Leader Menzies Campbell Alex Salmond Party Liberal Democrats SNP Leader since 2 March 2006 3 September 2004 Percentage 26% — Swing 1% — Councils 23 0 Councils +/- 4 1 Councillors 2,337 363 Councillors +/- 255 182
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.

The2007 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday 3 May 2007. These elections took place in most ofEngland and all ofScotland. There were no local government elections inWales though theWelsh Assembly had ageneral election on the same day. There were no local government elections inNorthern Ireland. Just over half of English councils and almost all the Scottish councils began the counts on Friday, rather than Thursday night, because of more complex arrangements regarding postal votes.

These elections were a landmark in the United Kingdom as it was the first time that 18- to 20-year-olds could stand as candidates for council seats. The change was due to an alteration of theElectoral Administration Act. At least fourteen 18- to 20-year-olds are known to have stood as candidates for council seats^[1] and as a resultWilliam Lloyd became the youngest person to be elected to official office in Britain. There were also a number of councils which used new voting methods such as internet and telephone voting in addition to the traditional methods of polling stations and postal votes.

These were the final elections to be overseen by Labour leader and prime ministerTony Blair, who resigned the following month after a decade as prime minister to be succeeded by chancellorGordon Brown. His party only finished in second place with a narrow lead over the third-placed Liberal Democrats, whose leaderMenzies Campbell would also resign later in the year, while it was a strong showing for the Conservatives underDavid Cameron.

There was a suggestion in February 2006 that many of the 2007 local elections in England would be cancelled due to a reform of local government.^[2] However, since then possible reforms are still in the consultation stage and no decisions have yet been made.

312 English district councils, nearly all districts in England held some form of election – either thirds or full – on Thursday, 3 May 2007.

The final results are summarised below; firstly, with a table ranked by the party with the greatest number of councillors elected.

Party		Councils		Councillors
		Number	Change	Number	Change
	Conservative	165	39	5,458	932
	Liberal Democrats	23	4	2,337	255
	Labour	36	18	2,225	665
	SNP	0	1	363	182
	Residents	1		67	19
	Green	0		62	17
	BNP	0		10	1
	Liberal	0		9	1
	Green	0		8	8
	Mebyon Kernow	0		7	1
	UKIP	0		5	1
	Health Concern	0		4	1
	Respect	0		3
	Solidarity	0		1	1
	Scottish Socialist	0		0	1
	Socialist Alternative	0		0	1
	Other	4		949	162
	No overall control	85	27	n/a	n/a

Source BBCBBC NEWS | Politics | Vote 2007 | English councils map

All 36 EnglishMetropolitan borough councils had one third of their seats up for election.

In 25 Englishunitary authorities the whole council was up for election.

In 20 English unitary authorities one third of the council was up for election.

In 153 English district authorities the whole council was up for election.^[3]

^[3]

In 78 English district authorities one third of the council was up for election.

All 32 Scottishcouncils had all their seats up for election - all Scottish councils areunitary authorities. These local elections were held on the same day as theScottish Parliament general election. They were the first election for local government in mainlandGreat Britain to use theSingle transferable vote (the system is used inNorthern Ireland), as implemented by theLocal Governance (Scotland) Act 2004.^[4]

The notional results in the following table are based on a document thatJohn Curtice and Stephen Herbert (Professors at theUniversity of Strathclyde) produced on 3 June 2005, calculating the effect of the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote on the2003 Scottish Local Elections.^[5]

ANewsnight poll by the analysts Rallings and Thrasher some days before the election predicted the following results for the English council elections:

Con 38% (Conservatives gaining 330 seats and losing 2% of the vote on 2006)

Lab 24% (Labour losing 500 seats and losing 2% of the vote on 2006)

LD 29% (Liberal Democrats gaining 110 seats and gaining 2% of the vote on 2006)

However, these predictions, as in 2006, were largely inaccurate, underestimating Conservative support and grossly overestimating the Lib Dems' performance. However, it did accurately predict the number of seats Labour would lose.

• Results table (BBC News)
• Overview of councils up for electionArchived 12 January 2006 at theWayback Machine
• CityMayors article
• Young candidates article

• 2007 United Kingdom local elections
• 2007 elections in the United Kingdom
• May 2007 in the United Kingdom
• David Cameron
• Premiership of Tony Blair

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