Bad night for the Ipswich Tories as they lose seats on the board

Published: 04:58, 6 May 2022

The Ipswich Conservatives were devastated by this year’s local elections – they lost half of the seats they defended from the ruling Labor group and saw the departure of one of their most experienced advisers.

Former group leader Nadia Cenci was defeated in her Stoke Park area by Tony Blacker by Labor, and the Tories also lost in Holywells.

They had hoped to build on last year’s success and win extra places at Sprites, Gainsborough and Whitton, but failed to reach all of those places.

Their only successes came in the safe compartments of Bixley and Castle Hill.

Labor, meanwhile, has been celebrating its best performance in years – but the most successful individual candidate was Liberal Democrat Inga Lockington, who won a majority of 1,200 in St. Margaret’s.

Ipswich MPs Dr Dan Poulter and Tom Hunt discuss the election during the corn exchange census. – Credit: Paul Geater

Conservative leader Ian Fisher said results in Ipswich and other councils across the country would determine the future of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

He said: “I think things will become much clearer in the next 24 to 48 hours when more results come out. I don’t think their party has performed so badly in the north and in the middle, but it sounds pretty bleak elsewhere and we’re getting results from London and they don’t look very good. “

Partygate was not a serious issue on the doorstep: “But we are reluctant to raise it as a topic.”

However, voters were concerned about the cost of living crisis and rising inflation.

The jubilant Labor leader, David Elsmere, said his party workers struggled to believe how well the campaign was going:

“At the beginning of the campaign, we knocked on the doors of people who said they had always voted for the Tories, but would not vote as long as Mr Johnson was the leader. But they could not get themselves to vote for Labor.

“By the end of the campaign, people were coming across. It’s the parties, the cost of living crisis, really.”

Mr Fisher said his party’s initial analysis suggested that Labor had not increased significantly – but that activity had fallen from last year and many Tories simply did not appear to have voted.

Labor has already stepped up its grip on the council and has 32 councilors. There are now 12 conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and one independent.