LONDON: Millions of voters in England and Wales will cast their ballots on Thursday in an array of local elections that will be the last big test before a U.K. general election that all indicators show will see the Conservative Party ousted from power after 14 years.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will hope he can point to successes, notably in a couple of key mayoral races, to douse talk that the Conservative Party will change leader again before the United Kingdom's main election, which could take place as soon as next month.
On the other hand, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer will hope Thursday's local elections confirm what opinion polls have shown for two years — that Labour is on course for power for the first time since 2010.
“The national context going into these local elections is very good for Labour and very bad for the Conservatives,” said Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester.
As is often the case in British local elections, the run-up is about expectation management, so any outperformance can be painted as a success.
That's certainly the case with the Conservatives, who are widely predicted to lose around half of the 1,000 seats they are contesting. They have pointed out, for example, that the equivalent elections were held in 2021 when the government of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was riding high following the rollout of the coronavirus vaccines.
Thursday's elections are important in themselves — voters decide who will run many aspects of their daily lives, such as bin collections, the state of the roads and local crime prevention measures, for the coming years.
But with a general election looming, they will be viewed through a national prism.
Here are five things to know:
What's happening?
Voters in England and Wales will go to the polls for local, mayoral, and police and crime commissioner elections.
The voting is the final test of public opinion before the general election, which has to take place by January 2025 but which Sunak, who has the power to decide on the date, has indicated will be in the second half of 2024.
As well as a number of mayoral votes, including in London where Sadiq Khan is expected to win a third term, there are more than 100 elections to local councils and nearly 40 for local police and crime commissioners.
There's also a special parliamentary election in Blackpool South, a long-time Labour seat that went Conservative in the last election in 2019, when Johnson won a big victory. The results will be announced in coming days. London's mayoral result isn't due until Saturday.
No elections are taking place in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the other constituent nations of the U.K.
What's at stake for Sunak?
Potentially his job. Sunak replaced Liz Truss, who quit after 45 days following a budget of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs for homeowners surging.
Sunak, who warned about the economic implications of Truss' plan, was supposed to be a steady hand after taking the top job in October 2022. If opinion polls are right, he's not improved the Conservatives' ratings, which had even prior to Truss, been battered by the circus surrounding Johnson, who was ousted over a series of ethics scandals.
With the Conservatives seemingly headed for one of their biggest-ever electoral defeats, there's mounting speculation Sunak may face a leadership battle if Thursday's elections are really bad.
Key to his survival could be the mayoral elections in the West Midlands and Tees Valley in the northeast of England. Should Conservative mayors Andy Street and Ben Houchen hold on, he may win some respite from restive lawmakers in his party. Should both lose, he may face trouble.
Is Labour headed for power?
In historical terms, Labour has a mountain to climb if it's going to form the next government.
It's performance in 2019 was its worst since 1935. Starmer has tried to bring the party back to the center of British politics after the five-year leadership of veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer's cautious approach has clearly worked if opinion polls are anything to go by. But it's fair to say that enthusiasm levels are far lower than those that heralded the arrival of Tony Blair ahead of the 1997 general election.
That may be partly due to the more challenging economic backdrop, but Starmer, formerly a human rights lawyer, lacks the razzmatazz of his predecessor. Even so, Starmer will hope Labour notches up big wins in areas it lost under Corbyn, in the north of England and in the Midlands.
One point of concern is how many traditionally Labour supporters in Muslim communities fail to vote in protest at the party's stance over the conflict in Gaza.
Are voters being tactical?
One of the contributing factors to Blair's landslide victory in 1997 came from so-called tactical voting, whereby some voters put aside their preferred political party and back whoever they think is most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate.
Tactical voting has reemerged in recent years and could become key in the general election. It usually involves voters sympathetic to Labour in parts of the country, such as southwest England, backing the much-smaller Liberal Democrats and Liberal Democrat supporters loaning votes to Labour in the Midlands and the north of England.
Conservative lawmakers across the U.K., even in supposedly safe seats, will be hugely concerned if voters think more tactically.
Pincer from the right?
The Conservatives don't just face a challenge from the left. Reform UK is trying to outflank it from the right.
Though it is standing in a few seats, Conservatives will worry that support for the party will see Labour and others come through the middle.
Reform UK, which claims to be tougher on issues such as immigration and on Brexit, has said it won't stand aside to give incumbent Conservative lawmakers an easier chance at the general election, as its former incarnation, The Brexit Party, did in 2019. The Blackpool South special election will be particularly interesting on that front.

TORONTO: The new documentary “The Sharp Edge of Peace” begins with a harrowing scene: Fawzia Koofi, a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament and a women’s rights activist, recovering in a hospital bed after surviving an assassination attempt in August 2020.
While traveling to Kabul with her daughter, Koofi was ambushed by unidentified gunmen who opened fire on her vehicle.
“They thought I was shot in the head and died,” Koofi says in the documentary, which has its world premiere on Saturday at the Canadian documentary festival Hot Docs that runs through May 5.
Directed by Roya Sadat, the 95-minute film is a testament to the courage of Afghan women leaders who continue advocating for change since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and have drastically curtailed women’s freedoms and rights.
“This is a tragedy, but at the same time, you can see the power of women and see the beauty of this country when women participate,” Sadat told Reuters.
Koofi’s resolve remained unshaken even after the attack, which was not the first she’s faced.
She was a key figure among women negotiators, including Fatima Gailani, Habiba Sarabi, and Sharifa Zurmati, involved in the intra-Afghan talks in Doha, Qatar aimed at striking a peace deal with the Taliban.
The documentary covers the failed negotiations from the perspective of the women on Afghanistan’s negotiating team.
Once at the negotiating table, Koofi realized the Taliban already saw themselves as victorious.
“When President Biden came to power, he announced that he would withdraw his troops from Afghanistan regardless, with no conditions, and that was a boost to the Taliban’s morale,” she said in an interview.
The Biden administration has previously blamed the chaotic US withdrawal on the Trump administration, which struck the agreement with the Taliban.
‘WE ARE BEING ERASED’
Koofi, now in exile, continues to work from the UK by engaging with international bodies like the United Nations and the European Union, pushing policymakers to recognize the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule.
“It’s painful that most of these countries think that we should influence and change the perspectives of the Taliban,” Koofi said, adding that since regaining power, they have not changed at all.
“We are being erased,” Koofi said of the steady decline in women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Undeterred, Koofi founded the Afghan Women Coalition for Change with a goal of establishing gender apartheid as an internationally recognized crime against humanity.
Gailani, chair of Afghanistan Future Thought Forum, told Reuters the negotiating team never wanted US soldiers or NATO to stay in the country forever, but expected a smoother withdrawal and a political settlement.
“Some Westerners believe that they alone gave freedom to the Afghan woman, that she couldn’t do anything herself, which is not the case,” says fellow negotiator Sarabi at the close of the film. “Afghan women didn’t get here easily, they endured a lot of struggles.”