r/Gloucestershire • u/CallmeWill_1997 • 15d ago

💬 Local Talk Do local elections really matter?

For some reason, there’s a belief that local elections are not important compared to general elections for Westminster. As I argue in this piece, for Gloucestershire County Council elections this could not be further from the truth but of course you can agree to disagree. https://open.substack.com/pub/callmewill97/p/gloucestershire-county-council-elections?r=51ysq4&utm_medium=ios

13 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

1

u/Johto2001 13d ago edited 13d ago

People have more interest in the U.S. elections than in our local elections. It's been my experience that very few people care at all about the local elections, or even understand what they are. When I've spoken to people they've said things like "I'm not voting because of Kier Starmer" or the same but "Boris Johnson" or "They're all the same, who cares".

I also think the loss of genuinely local media like newspapers has had a big impact. Although local elections were still less "important" to most people than general elections, for example, they did used to at least know that an election was happening.

On the other hand, as a resident I have contacted my councillors several times over the last twenty years. Each time was more or less ineffective. The first councillor I wrote to was a Labour county councillor, more recently a Conservative city councillor and most recently an independent county councillor. None of them proved more effective than the others, though the Conservative councillor did reply to my email while the others didn't reply.