The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak since 2022, serves as the elected head of government.
Aberdeen City Council is the local government authority for the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was created in 1996, under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, though a sense of Aberdeen as a city, with its own city council, can be traced back to 1900, when the county of the city of Aberdeen was created.
The politics of Scotland operate within the constitution of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a country. Scotland is a democracy, being represented in both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom since the Scotland Act 1998. Most executive power is exercised by the Scottish Government, led by the First Minister of Scotland, the head of government in a multi-party system. The judiciary of Scotland, dealing with Scots law, is independent of the legislature and the Scottish Government. Scots law is primarily determined by the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government shares some executive powers with the Scotland Office, a British government department led by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Local government in Scotland comprises thirty-two local authorities, commonly referred to as councils. Each council provides public services, including education, social care, waste management, libraries and planning. Councils receive the majority of their funding from the Scottish Government, but operate independently and are accountable to their local electorates. Councils raise additional income via the Council Tax, a locally variable domestic property tax, and Business rates, a non-domestic property tax.
The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 320,600 (2021), and encompasses 62.1 square miles (160.9 km2) of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. Wirral is England's westernmost metropolitan borough, faced by the city of Liverpool to the northeast over the River Mersey.
Belfast City Council is the local authority with responsibility for part of Belfast, the largest city of Northern Ireland. The council serves an estimated population of 345,006 (2019), the largest of any district council in Northern Ireland, while being the smallest by area. Belfast City Council is the primary council of the Belfast Metropolitan Area, a grouping of six former district councils with commuter towns and overspill from Belfast, containing a total population of 579,276.
In the context of local authorities in the United Kingdom, no overall control is a situation in which no single political group achieves a majority of seats, analogous to a hung parliament. Of the 248 councils who had members up for election in the 2019 local elections, 73 resulted in a NOC administration. In the 2021 election, 14 resulted in no overall control. The term can still be used for several other countries, such as for two local councils of Malta and the General Assembly of Budapest in Hungary.
The 2007 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday 3 May 2007. These elections took place in most of England and all of Scotland. There were no local government elections in Wales though the Welsh Assembly had a general election on the same day. There were no local government elections in Northern Ireland. Just over half of English councils and almost all the Scottish councils began the counts on Friday, rather than Thursday night, because of more complex arrangements regarding postal votes.
The first elections to the new local authorities established by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales and the new Northern Ireland district councils created by the Local Government Act 1972 took place in 1973. Elections to the existing Greater London Council also took place.
The 2007 Scottish local elections were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in parts of England. All 32 Scottish councils had all their seats up for election – all Scottish councils are unitary authorities.
The Northern Ireland Conservatives is a section of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party that operates in Northern Ireland. The Conservative are the only major British party to field candidates within Northern Ireland and typically contests only a fraction of seats in elections. The party won 0.03% of the vote in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election and 0.7% of the vote in the 2019 United Kingdom General election in Northern Ireland.
The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. In common with all other Northern Irish unionist parties, the TUV's political programme has as its sine qua non the preservation of Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom. A founding precept of the party is that "nothing which is morally wrong can be politically right".
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is a socialist electoral alliance in Britain. It was originally launched for the 2010 general election.
The 2014 United Kingdom local elections were held on 22 May 2014. Usually these elections are held on the first Thursday in May but were postponed to coincide with the 2014 European Parliament Elections. Direct elections were held for all 32 London boroughs, all 36 metropolitan boroughs, 74 district/borough councils, 19 unitary authorities and various mayoral posts in England and elections to the new councils in Northern Ireland.
The 2017 Scottish local elections were held on Thursday 4 May, in all 32 local authorities. The SNP retained its position as the largest party in terms of votes and councillors, despite suffering minor losses. The Conservatives made gains and displaced Labour as the second largest party, while the Liberal Democrats suffered a net loss of councillors despite increasing their share of the vote. Minor parties and independents polled well; and independent councillors retained majority control over the three island councils. For the first time since the local government reforms in 1995, all mainland councils fell under no overall control.
The 2016 Plymouth City Council election took place on 5 May 2016 to elect members of Plymouth City Council in England. The Conservatives gained one seat from Labour, resulting in both parties having twenty-seven members of the council. A coalition of Conservative and UKIP members took overall control of the Council, having thirty members in total and a working majority.
The 2022 United Kingdom local elections took place on Thursday 5 May 2022. These included elections for all London borough councils, for all local authorities in Wales and Scotland. Most seats in England were last up for election in 2018 and in Scotland and Wales in 2017. The elections coincided with the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election. In 91 cases, most of them in Wales, council seats were uncontested, each having only one candidate. Three seats in Scotland remained unfilled as no one nominated to fill them.
The 2023 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday, 4 May 2023 in England and on Thursday 18 May 2023 in Northern Ireland. These included district councils, unitary authorities, and directly elected mayors in England, and included all local councils in Northern Ireland. Notably, these elections were the first to be held under the Elections Act 2022, a new voter identification law that is controversial, meaning voters were required to show photo ID when attending a polling station.
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