Local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

were held in the thirty-two

London boroughs The London boroughs are the current 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London, England; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs wer ...

on Thursday 9 May 1968. Polling stations were open between 8am and 9pm. All seats were up for election. The result was a landslide for the Conservative Party, who won twenty-eight of the boroughs, while Labour lost control of seventeen of the twenty boroughs it had held going into the elections (including

Bexley Bexley is an area of south-eastern Greater London, England and part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is sometimes known as Bexley Village or Old Bexley to differentiate the area from the wider borough. It is located east-southeast of Ch ...

, where it did not win a single seat). Only ten Liberal councillors were elected in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The result followed the Conservative gain of the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

in the elections the previous year.

Aldermanic elections

Until

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...

, each council had

aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking membe ...

, in the ratio of one aldermen to six councillors. Following the elections, each council elected half of its aldermen, who served until

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

. The remaining aldermen had been elected in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patria ...

and would serve until

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...

. This only affected political control in

Newham The London Borough of Newham () is a London boroughs, London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of County Borough of West Ham, West Ham and County ...

, which remained Labour-held after the election of aldermen.

Results summary

*Turnout: 1,876,698 voters cast ballots, a turnout of 35.8%.

Council results

Summary of council election results:

Overall councillor numbers

References

Greater London Assembly – London Borough Council Elections 2006
* {{United Kingdom elections London local elections

1968 Events January–February * January 1968, January – The I'm Backing Britain, I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously. * January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Cze ...