Oldham Council election, 1998

The 1998 Oldham Council election took place on 7 May 1998 to elect members of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council in Greater Manchester, England. One third of the council was up for election and the Labour party stayed in overall control of the council.^[1]

After the election, the composition of the council was

• Labour 36
• Liberal Democrat 23
• Independent 1^[2]

Campaign

Before the election Labour ran the council with 35 councillors as compared to 24 for the Liberal Democrats.^[3] The election was mainly fought between these 2 parties with the Liberal Democrats campaigning on local issues under a slogan of "open, local, clean and green".^[3] They said that Labour were arrogant and complacent, while Labour attacked the Liberal Democrats for being irresponsible on public spending and opportunistic.^[3]

Election result

Overall turnout in the election was 31%.^[4]

Oldham Local Election Result 1998[1]
Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/-
	Labour	12			+1	60.0
	Liberal Democrat	8			-1	40.0

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Local Elections results". The Times. 1998-05-09. p. 46. 
2. ^ "Policy and politics: Local Elections: Analysis: Council poll results". The Guardian. 1998-05-09. p. 16. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Hetherington, Peter (1998-05-05). "Local elections: Labour faces its 'real enemy' The collapse of Conservatism in south Lancashire is distressing its old adversary". The Guardian. p. 8. 
4. ^ "Oldham MBC Local Election Results 6th May 1999". Oldham Metropolitan Borough. Archived from the original on 20000615034125. http://web.archive.org/web/20000615034125/www.oldham.gov.uk/local_govt/councillors/results.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-09. 

Preceded by Oldham Council election, 1996

Oldham local elections

Succeeded by Oldham Council election, 1999