The self-indulgence of the Conservative Party should rightly cost them votes

While there are many uncertainties surrounding the first fully normalised local elections in three years, there is one thing for sure: hundreds (if not thousands) of hard-working, honest, dutiful local councillors will lose their seats through no fault of their own.

This round, it will be mostly Conservatives who bite the dust. That they have a well-founded fear of rejection by the voters is apparent from their campaign literature. Few – if any – pictures of Boris Johnson with his thumbs up or even a mention of the fact that the UK has been governed by the Conservative Party in one or another form for the past dozen years. They are so desperate they attack independent candidates for “playing politics”, and their posters look more green than true blue. Vote for “local Conservatives”, they plead.

Soon they will discover that all politics isn’t always local. It doesn’t matter how many ugly planning schemes they blocked, how much recycling they do, how low the council tax, how they’ve regenerated the high street – many Tory councillors will be shown the door by voters angry about the cost of living crisis, Partygate and tractor porn.

It is a pity, but it is inevitable, because local elections have long served as an informal referendum on the record of the national government of the day (albeit with a more diffuse effect in Wales and Scotland in recent decades). Disgust at their recent sleazy ways should see the Tories sink to historic lows, though the electoral cycle – and the way some county councils only put a proportion of seats up for election each year – will flatter the Tories’ showing. Even so, councillors and councils will be lost, possibly including such flagships as Westminster and Wandsworth.

There will be disappointment, then, and frustration, because so much of the defeat will be seen as self-inflicted, because of the stupidity and self-indulgence of the Conservative Party in Westminster: from the prime minister and chancellor Rishi Sunak, to Neil Parish and Imran Ahmad Khan. The results may be spun to the public, but every Conservative activist will have an intimate knowledge of the scale of disillusionment since the “get Brexit done” general election of 2019.

There can be little doubt that the prime minister’s leadership – style and substance – will be the subject of fresh scrutiny, if not despair. The pending fixed penalty notices, the Commons inquiry into the prime minister knowingly lying to parliament and the remainder of the Sue Gray report will keep Partygate in focus for many weeks to come. If Mr Johnson hoped it would fade away and the public become bored with it, he was wrong. It still has the power to end his political career.

Can the same be said of “Beergate”? The motivation of those parts of the media and political world that have been banging on about Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner’s attendance at campaign-related events are hardly dispassionate. Much of it is – as the Labour leader says – mud-slinging innuendo, half-facts and false equivalence. Still, Sir Keir and his colleagues have sounded far too shifty about the important differences, if any, between the prime minister’s behaviour and his own. Obviously, the scale of wrongdoing in and around Downing Street was in a different league, and the public probably still view Sir Keir as more trustworthy than Mr Johnson, but that is a low bar.

Yet even before Beergate, Sir Keir had only done at best half the job he needs to deliver a Labour government. As he himself admits, the first stage of his leadership was about getting the voters to at least listen to Labour. With a revamped frontbench team growing in confidence and some eye-catching policies, the party has made great strides. Many voters won’t vote Conservative this time, and will stay home. Some will switch to the Liberal Democrats, Greens, nationalists and independents, who will have a good year.

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Some will also swing to Labour – but not yet enough and not yet with the degree of commitment that will sustain as the economic position improves before the next election. Sir Keir and his colleagues should also be acutely aware that Mr Johnson has the complete discretion to call an election at a time that suits him best. They might also reflect that the campaign to unseat him might gift the Conservatives with a more competent, attractive leader for the second half of the parliament.

In Britain, then, the trends are clear – and they are also clear in Northern Ireland, where the elections ought to help solve the constitutional impasse but will probably only exacerbate it. As they will in Scotland. Here the Conservatives face annihilation again, with Labour stepping into second place. The SNP will take the votes as another mandate for an independence referendum.

At the centre of all the ramifications of the results will be Mr Johnson, the man who, more than anyone else, has done so much to create the stresses and divisions Britain is now experiencing. He often boasts that he is a man with a plan. It’ll be time to show what it looks like.