Labour, Tories and Reform UK fight every seat in West Northants local elections
Our analysis shows the Green Party is performing best regarding gender parity among its candidates
By Sarah Ward
Labour, Conservatives and Reform UK have managed to field a candidate for each seat in the West Northamptonshire Council elections, our analysis has found.
We have crunched the numbers and in total 358 candidates are standing in the May 1 elections in the West of the county.
After a boundary review, the number of councillors being returned to the council is less than the 2021 elections, and 76 councillors will be elected across 35 wards.
The Liberal Democrats have 57 candidates, the Greens have 43 candidates and there are 19 Independent candidates, plus a handful of candidates from the Social Democrats, Trade Unionist Socialists and one hopeful from the Heritage Party.
Gender Parity
The West has performed even worse than its North counterpart in terms of candidate equality between the sexes. 117 (just 32.6 per cent) of the 358 candidates standing are female.
Labour and the Green Party have done best in terms of female representation. The Greens are standing 43 candidates and 19 of those are women, equalling 44.2 per cent. 32 Labour candidates are women totalling 42.1 per cent.
Reform UK is the worst for female representation with just over a fifth of its candidates being female. 60 of its 76 candidates are male. The Conservatives have not done much better with 71 per cent of its candidates male. The Liberals also have a similar percentage with 70.2 per cent of its candidates male.
Read our post from yesterday to read why women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society says about why equality on the ballot paper is needed.
Most contested wards
The most contested wards are Kingsthorpe North and Nene Valley which both have 16 candidates on the ballot.
Castle Ward in Northampton has the most choice of parties, as alongside the main five parties (Conservative, labour, Greens, Reform UK and Liberal Democrats) voters also have a choice of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and the Social Democratic Party. Brixworth, Daventry North and Naseby, have just five candidates on the ballot.
What do you want to know?
We will be asking the local parties a series of questions next week about the big issues such as services, regeneration, climate change and finances. If you have any questions, please leave them here or email sarahward@nnjournal.co.uk
Keep an eye on the candidates
There are many new faces standing for election, who do have a public profile. Also some candidates were put on the list fairly late and so may not have been vetted properly. If you have any concerns about who may be standing, or any tip offs, please also get in touch on sarahward@nnjournal.co.uk
Election results
NN Journal will be reporting from the election counts, which will be taking place in Northampton and Kettering on Friday, May 2. The count starts at 10am and we will be updating throughout the day and hoping to bring you the final results about 7pm. Both councils are currently run by Conservative administration, but the national demise of the party may have a bearing on local results.
Read again - here’s yesterday’s post in case you missed it
I hate Reform with a passion because any attempt at conversation with any of their supporters as to why i should vote for their candidate decends into derisory comments, never a question answered without vulgarity or a numb biege reference to "illegals" or "boat people costing us millions".
For reference, if it was that easy, tge previous government would have stopped it many years ago.
I am sad that Reform supporters actually believe that Farage will make a difference.
Where has intellect and commonsense gone to?
I believe, it is a sad affair, whereby women are being turn into second class citizens in local politics. At present, there is a number of women Councillors who are very competent. However, they are lacking in analytical, presentation and debating skills. This is something the major political party could fix themselves by inviting women into local politics, and then offering them courses in those particular skills. Also, consideration could be made in "Six form Academy" to ask young women to take part in "analytical, presention and debating skills" to enable them to enter into local politics armed with the knowledge that is required. That would give us a gender balance in local politics. This is what we need to redress the current problems. What do you think?