We are now just eight weeks away from the May 4th when there’ll be the biggest group of elections taking place in the UK outside a general election. For as well as those contests that were scheduled to take place this year there are all those which had to be postponed last year because of the pandemic.

This is going to be a very big night with counting expected to last well into the Friday evening something that is not helped by many of the elections not being decided by simple first past the post. These include the mayoral elections in England as well as those for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

In London, as discussed in the last header, there will be voting for not just the Mayor but also for the London Assembly. Elsewhere in on top of all the other local elections there are contests for Police and Crime Commissioners. Yes I don’t know what the latter do either.

Perhaps the most interesting in betting terms of these will be for the Scottish Parliament where Nicola Sturgeon will be seeking to win back a majority for the SNP. If she achieves that then we could see another move to hold a second IndyRef.

The Holyrood battle looks very tight particularly because of the voting system. For some of the MSPs are elected in constituency elections on top of the others for which there will be on the regional lists.

Since GE2019 we’ve really been out of election mode in the UK though in many place the parties are campaigning by means other than knocking on doors.