1981 local elections handbook

*Note on vote share: this is each party's share of the votes cast in the wards we hold for 1981. It is not an estimate for the whole country: many councils did not vote this year, some of our results may be missing, and in wards with several seats each voter had several votes.

National Equivalent Vote — our estimate

What each party's share might have been if the whole of Great Britain had voted in 1981. Built from 3,576 wards that did vote, compared like-for-like with the last time each ward voted, then carried across the places that didn't vote using the change in their region. Shown beside the Elections Centre's published figure where we hold it.

How far to trust this: it is an estimate, not a count. It uses each party's best-placed candidate in each ward, so multi-seat wards don't inflate anyone. Parties that stand in only a few places stay in those places. Where our ward records are incomplete for a year, the estimate is less reliable — compare it with the Elections Centre column.

Councils changing hands (20)