Predictions for the 2023 Cambridge local elections

Once again the Cambridge local election timetable approaches its annual crescendo, and once again I jiggle my trusty election-forecasting seaweed to try to determine what verdict the voters of Cambridge will deliver on Thursday. After the disruption of the pandemic and the drama of the 2021 elections, it now feels that we are back in a more regular electoral rhythm. Last year Labour further consolidated their already extremely solid grip on the City Council, taking three seats from the Lib Dems, though they also lost one in Abbey to the Greens. The Lib Dems will be hoping for a better outcome than last year’s battering; they have just three seats to defend, while they will be looking for gains from at least some of the 12 Labour seats up for election.

Politically the big issue this year has been the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s congestion charge and bus subsidy proposals. While the decisions on this will be taken first by the GCP Board and then by the County Council, the current elections do have a direct bearing on the plans, because the City Council appoints one of the three voting members of the GCP, and in practice the plans will not go ahead without the City Council’s support. Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Greens have all put out statements opposing various aspects of the current proposals, while leaving the door open to some extent to supporting a modified form of congestion charging. The Conservatives have fought a more than usually active local election campaign – though that’s a pretty low bar – focusing on their outright opposition to congestion charging. Another issue on the doorsteps has been the state of the roads, though except in Arbury where there is a County Council by-election, canvassers will have had to explain to voters that the City Council has no responsibility for roads and can’t do anything to fix the potholes.

A change this year for me personally is that I’ve been writing a monthly column for the Cambridge Independent looking at local politics, so my usual look forward at the election campaign was published in the newspaper rather than here on my blog. You can read it on the CI website here.

On to the election predictions. As usual one-third of the City Council is up for election, specifically the seats held by those councillors who finished second in their ward in the 2021 all-up elections. There are also a couple of by-elections, in Castle and Coleridge, following the resignations of Sarah Baigent and Lewis Herbert respectively. Here’s a look at each of the wards, with the traditional graph of recent election results to give some political context.

After winning two of the Abbey City Council seats in 2021, the Greens added a third last year, and are defending the ward this year. Their incumbent councillor Hannah Copley is standing down, with Young Green campaigner Elliot Tong standing as their candidate this time. Labour’s Zarina Anwar is the main challenger. However I think the Greens are well enough established in Abbey to hold the seat, and may continue the increase in their vote of recent years.

As the graph shows, Arbury is nowadays a safe seat for Labour. Their candidate this year is the long-serving and well-known councillor Mike Todd-Jones, who I think will have no trouble in being re-elected. There may be an uptick in the Conservative vote, as their candidate Robert Boorman has been more active than some of the student candidates his party fielded in previous years.

Castle is one of the most closely-fought wards this year, with two seats up for election, and for Labour the appealing prospect of removing the next Lib Dem candidate for Cambridge MP, Cheney Payne, from her council seat. However Labour also have a seat to defend, following the resignation of Sarah Baigent, and the Lib Dems will be equally keen for a gain. Castle has featured heavily this year in social media photos of smiling canvassers celebrating the great reception they are getting on the doorstep, indicating that both the main parties are fighting it hard. There has also been an active campaign from anti-congestion-charge Independent David Summerfield. Overall I’m going to wimp out a little bit and predict a split result – one Labour and one Lib Dem hold. This is virtually certain to be at least half right, though it’s quite likely that one of the two parties may make a gain and take both seats.

Labour’s three Cherry Hinton City Councillors have between them clocked up an impressive 59 years on the council – 12 years for Mark Ashton, 19 for Russ McPherson and 28 for Rob Dryden. This year it’s Rob Dryden up for election, and there’s no reason to think that he won’t extend his record run on the council for another four years. Cherry Hinton is the only ward in Cambridge where the Conservatives finished second last time, and their candidate Zachary Marsh has been at the forefront of their campaigning this year, so we may see some vote increase for the blue team.

While there are also two seats up in Coleridge, following Lewis Herbert’s resignation from the council, there is a good deal less doubt about them than in Castle – Labour should hold both easily. Like Castle, the Coleridge ballot paper also features a future Parliamentary candidate, this time Sarah Nicmanis of the Greens. She will be hoping to boost her profile by holding on to second place.

In recent years East Chesterton has been about as safe for Labour as Queen Edith’s or Trumpington have been for the Lib Dems – not a completely safe seat, but one where they are generally regarded as favourites. Labour candidate Alice Gilderdale’s switch from Market ward does nothing to dispel this impression, and I’m expecting that she will hold on for Labour, with Lib Dem Bob Illingworth once again runner-up. Veteran UKIP candidate Peter Burkinshaw may not find himself bottom of the poll for a change, thanks to the presence on the ballot paper of Heritage Party candidate Colin Miller.

King’s Hedges is another seat where it is not very difficult to predict that Labour will win comfortably. With campaigning effort focusing on other seats where the outcome is more in doubt, the change in vote share in seats like King’s Hedges often reflects national trends as much as anything else – and these have run in favour of Labour since the seat was last contested. A large majority for Alex Collis seems certain.

So far my predictions have been for holds all the way, but I think Market will buck the trend, with the Lib Dems regaining the seat from Labour. Although the graph above suggests the Lib Dems have won in every year recently, there were three vacancies in 2021, and the graph only shows the results for the highest-placed candidate for each party. Second place in 2021 went to Labour’s Alice Gilderdale, and it is her seat that is up for re-election this year. I think Lib Dem Anthony Martinelli is well placed to recapture it and return to the City Council.

Newnham provides one of the most interesting contests this year, with a genuine three-way battle between Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Greens – indeed it is the Greens’ second target seat in the city after Abbey. As you can see from the graph, the trend in the last couple of years has been for Labour and the Greens to increase their vote shares at the expense of the Lib Dems. The most reliable prediction we can make about the result this year is that the Conservatives will finish fourth, but I’m going to plump for a Labour hold, with Anne Miller succeeding her colleague Niamh Sweeney.

Many of Labour candidate Katie Thornburrow’s appearances in “happy canvassers” photos on social media have been in wards outside Petersfield, which gives you an idea of how confident Labour are of keeping this seat. While it’s been slightly less safe for them in recent years than their core strongholds, it’s still looking like an easy win for them.

With Independent councillor Sam Davies not up for re-election until next year, it’s likely that Queen Edith’s will go back to its usual pattern of being the nearest thing the Lib Dems still have to a safe seat in Cambridge. Like Katie Thornburrow in Petersfield, Labour’s candidate Thomas Ron has been campaigning a good deal in other wards, but in this case I think it’s because Labour are less optimistic about their chances in Queen Edith’s, and expect the seat to go to Lib Dem Karen Young. The ward also features one of the two Independent candidates in Cambridge this year, Antony Carpen. While I don’t expect him to win, I do think he’ll exceed the 89-vote total of his alter ego Puffles the Dragon Fairy in 2014.

Labour could have done no campaigning at all in Romsey and still been virtually certain of winning it, but in fact they have done a good deal. This will be a very safe hold for Mairéad Healy.

Trumpington was once a Conservative stronghold in Cambridge, but a good deal of housebuilding and the general leftward drift of the city’s politics mean it is now reasonably reliable for the Lib Dems – though, as Katie Thornburrow’s win in 2018 demonstrates, not entirely so. However I think Lib Dem councillor Ingrid Flaubert should hold on reasonably comfortably.

Both the Chesterton wards seem to be particularly resistant to my attempts to predict their election results, and I’ve only done slightly better than flipping a Lib Dem/Labour coin in recent years, so bear that in mind when I say that I think Rachel Wade will hold the seat for Labour this year. Lib Dem Jamie Dalzell will be hoping that West Chesterton voters thwart my prediction once again and return him to the City Council instead.

So overall my forecast this year amounts to holds everywhere, except for a Lib Dem gain from Labour in Market. Frankly I’m hoping for a little more excitement than that when the votes are counted on Friday. Will a surge of anti-congestion-charge voting sweep away long-established councillors? Will any of the safer wards deliver an unexpected knife-edge result? Will we see Puffles the Dragon Fairy sitting alongside his Independent friend Antony Carpen in the council chamber? In each case I think the answer is, well, probably not. But we will certainly have a good number of new faces on the City Council, and if Cambridge politics guarantees one thing, it’s that there will be plenty of challenging issues for them to engage with. First among these, of course, is the congestion charge, looming like a political sandstorm ready to sweep back into town once the election is out of the way. The long-awaited results of last year’s GCP consultation will finally be published, and it seems likely that they’ll be accompanied by some significantly modified proposals, which even now are being prepared behind closed doors by council officers. What these proposals will be, and whether they’ll be politically deliverable, is the big question in Cambridge politics this year. Another significant issue, though it’s had a good deal less attention, is road classification, which could develop into plans for widespread road closure points across the city. And it won’t be all that long until the campaign for the next General Election starts to get underway.

I’m planning to be at the election count this year, for the time since the 2019 General Election, thanks to a badly-timed bout of Covid last May. The count will take place at the University Sports Centre on the West Cambridge site; it starts on the Friday morning, and we should get the first results around lunchtime. I’ll also be keeping an eye on how things are developing in East Cambridgeshire, where the Lib Dems are hoping to improve on their close second place behind the Conservatives in 2019. You can follow me on Twitter for all the latest developments, and very probably a graph or two. Thanks for reading!