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Suffolk County Council Elections 2005-2017

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Looking at these maps would give one the (accurate) impression that Suffolk, the middle county of East Anglia's three, is a Conservative-dominated place, and the Conservatives have had a majority from 1973 to 1993 and again from 2005 onwards. However, there remains substantial opposition; between 1993 and 2005 there was No Overall Control with Labour actually becoming the largest party, and the county was run by a Labour-Lib Dem coalition. This fell in a landslide in 2005 due to both local factors (council tax rises) and national ones (the election was held on the same day as the general election). As with many areas (especially rural ones), Labour in Suffolk have suffered from their voters staying home in 2009 and losing a disproportionate number of seats as a result which they then struggled to get back in 2013, which also saw the rise of UKIP (which had already won one seat in 2009). Labour's main area of strength in Suffolk is now the city of Ipswich, while the port of Lowestoft was more contested with UKIP in 2013. The Lib Dems held on better in East Anglia in 2013 than in many places despite the coalition blues, and the Greens also won two seats in 2013 including one in Bury St Edmunds. Recent Conservative by-election losses to both UKIP and the Lib Dems have robbed the ruling Conservatives of their majority, and they enter the 2017 election as a minority government.

2017 UPDATE: As across the country, the Conservatives ate the UKIP vote to make substantial gains and win a majority. Labour and the Lib Dems were in retreat, though Labour managed a gain from the Tories against the trend in Sudbury and the Lib Dems benefited slightly from the Labour collapse in northern Ipswich. Unlike their compatriots in Norfolk, the Suffolk Greens fought a strong election, losing one seat but gaining two others.
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Thumboy21's avatar
Those Green voting towns in central Suffolk always got me.