Local Elections 2023: 'Stoke-on-Trent is a crucial race for Labour'

These are local elections, but nowhere is their national significance more obvious than in Stoke-on-Trent.

All 44 of the city's council seats are up for grabs, and the result here could set the political tone ahead of the next general election.

Even before the campaign started a Labour staffer told me Stoke-on-Trent will be one of, if not the, "most crucial" race for the party on 4 May.

There have been no shortage of high profile visits there in recent weeks.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves are among those who have visited the Staffordshire city.

On the day I was in town both the policing minister Chris Philp and shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh were on the campaign trail.

Labour group leader Jane Ashworth said the city needed her party to take back control the city council.

"We've been talking to perhaps 20,000 people in the last six months, and what they want comes through really, really clearly.

"They want the city to improve, they want to be listened to.

"That's a big order but I'm ready for the challenge," she added.

Talking to people in the city, the same issues come to the fore again and again, prices, energy and asylum seeker hotels, of which the city has two.

"There's a lot of anti-social behaviour and I think it makes people quite worried at times, and I think that's something that needs tackling," said Emily Hughes.

"Nobody trust the politicians and the councillors, they're all out for themselves," said Brian Clarke.

But the cost of living and national polling does not mean Labour have a guaranteed path to victory here.

Flipping the council and taking control could be "tougher than maybe people were thinking," one Labour MP told me.

In 2019, the Tories won all three of the city's parliamentary seats and one might argue, that here in the Potteries, the tide had turned years before.

Since 2009, the rise of well-known local independents and the growth of the Conservative vote gradually diminished Labour's dominance.

The party has not lead the authority since 2015, and has lost three by-elections since 2019.

City Independent councillor Lilian Dodd said her party was a "force" for the city "because we care more about the people on the ground, the residents and the needs of the residents."

"I think we can make a difference because we're all community-based, we all look after our own community and we look after the city as well.

"We want people to succeed in Stoke-on-Trent, with good schools and good jobs," she added.

For the Conservatives this is also a big test.

They currently lead the council in a minority administration, with 22 of the 44 seats, and Stoke-on-Trent was a fairly sizable brick in the now infamous 'red-wall'.

They were helped by the city's strong vote for Brexit (72%), but also high levels of deprivation and a narrative that suggested the city had been "taken for granted" by Labour.

In 2021 the Conservative leader of the council Abi Brown said the city was the "litmus test" for the government's levelling-up agenda.

The city has secured various funding allocations since that time, but public perception of success in this area could prove critical.

She said she was "really pleased" with investment in the area, but there was "still more to do"

"I definitely have an appetite to crack on and to deliver for residents as we have over the last few years.

"We've brought in unprecedented levels of funding across the city and we're started to see things happen - cranes on the skyline down in Stoke and new things and developments coming forward right across the city,"

Much rides on this north Staffordshire race, the result of which will be felt much further afield.

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