Slough Conservatives 'intend to form an administration' with or without Lib Dem support

The turning of the tide towards the Tories was clear at the second declaration.

As soon as the ward of Upton was announced, all could see the sands were shifting in the party’s favour.

In the end, the Tories took several wards outright and managed to get split votes for others, with voters torn between sticking to Labour stalwarts and switching to the challengers.

Early in the game, Tories could be seen ringing friends and family with the good news.

There were strong reactions from all winners – but none more so than Tories, who jumped for joy as they snatched seats from previously staunch Labour wards.

At the start of the Slough count last Friday, leader of the Conservatives Councillor Dexter Smith said he was ‘feeling pretty confident’ and gave a big thumbs up.

He expected that resident frustrations with council tax would cause the Slough Tories to buck the national trend of voters swinging away from the Conservative party.

Though not wrong, Cllr Smith was later much more equivocal, when it turned out that – while having performed extremely well – the Conservatives were still in a slightly sticky position.

After all, having won 21 seats to Labour’s 18 – and three for the Lib Dems – the future of Slough Borough Council is, as such, now unclear, as no party scored an overall majority.

They will now have to negotiate furiously with each other to determine who will actually lead the council and what sort of administration they will oversee.

The Conservatives will either have to consider a coalition or a minority administration – which will make it harder for it to get its future proposals voted through.

In contrast to Labour, the Tories at least don’t have to establish new leadership, since unlike former leader James Swindlehurst, Cllr Smith kept his seat.

So far, every party has been talking about ‘co-operation’ but has not been specific about what this would mean for them at this juncture, in terms of forming a council.

The Tories, at least, ‘are intending to form an administration’, Cllr Smith has confirmed.

Speaking to the Express on Tuesday, he said: “It’s 21 to us, 21 to the others, so at the moment it’s no overall control. So there’s not an awful lot I can say – we’ll know better when we get to the annual meeting as to how it’s all going to pan out.

“We are the biggest party; we are intending to form an administration. We want to see whether the Lib Dems will back that, either by not challenging it, or working with us.

“But until we get through the first test, the annual meeting, we won’t know.”