United Kingdom local elections, 2003

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1 May 2003

2004 →

All 36 metropolitan boroughs, 40 out of 46 unitary authorities,
232 out of 238 English districts and all 32 Scottish council areas

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Iain Duncan Smith	Tony Blair	Charles Kennedy
Party	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat
Leader since	13 September 2001	21 July 1994	9 August 1999
Percentage	35	30	27
Councils	110	66	28
Councils +/-	31	28	5
Councillors	4,430	3,012	2,586
Councillors +/-	568	831	189

Local elections took place in various parts of the United Kingdom on 1 May 2003, the same day as the Scottish Parliamentary and the Welsh Assembly elections. There were local elections for all councils in Scotland and in most of England. There were no elections in Wales, Northern Ireland or London.

The ruling Labour Party lost a considerable 833 seats, while both the main opposition parties, Conservative and Liberal Democrat, polled strongly, with the Conservatives enjoying the largest share of the vote. Labour had now been in government for six years and still had a triple-digit majority, and over the summer of 2003 some opinion polls showed the Tories level with Labour. However, these were to be the last of the two local council elections contested by the Tories under the leadership of Iain Duncan-Smith, who was ousted as leader later in the year and succeeded by Michael Howard due to his unpopularity as leader and doubts about his ability to win a general election.

Fifty-nine councils held electoral pilot schemes to try to boost turnout figures. Schemes included all postal voting, mobile polling stations, alterations to voting hours and various kinds of Electronic voting. The most successful in raising turnout was all-postal voting which saw turnout rise to an average of 50%. In comparison, turnout across the whole of England was only 33%.

The Labour party lost a considerable 833 seats, losing control of councils such as Birmingham and Coventry, both of which the party had controlled for 20 years.

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