Presentation and discussion of comprehensive, in-depth research into the forthcoming London Borough Elections with four leading experts on the capital's complex and fascinating politics.

On 3 May, Londoners will go to the polls to elect councillors for all 32 London boroughs. Will Labour take control of even more councils than they run now? Do the Conservatives have any grounds for hope, anywhere in the capital? Can the Lib Dems bounce back from their recent reverses? Will UKIP and the Greens disappear? How will vote shares swing across the metropolis, from Uxbridge to Upminster and all points in between? Will Haringey become the nation’s first “Corbyn Council”? How on Earth do you make sense of what goes on in Havering?

The questions don’t stop there. What will the various borough outcomes reveal about how Londoners as a whole feel about the way their city if changing and about the national government, Brexit and public services in general, as well as their local council tax levels and rubbish collection arrangements? Will we underline still more heavily that we think and feel differently about big national issues (and just about everything else) from most of the rest of the United Kingdom? If so, what would that mean for the future of the capital?

The On London Borough Elections Guide 2018 has been compiled by Dave Hill and Lewis Baston. Dave is the award-winning former Guardian London commentator who now runs the website OnLondon.co.uk, publishing his own writing and that of an array of contributors who understand how London works. Lewis is one of the country’s top electoral number crunchers and political analysts. He is the author of several books and if anyone can explain why one ward in Merton has been represented by Residents’ Association candidates and no one else since 1990, it is him.

Dave and Lewis will be joined by Ben Rogers, director of Centre for London, the capital’s dedicated think tank, and Councillor Sarah Hayward, a former leader of Camden Council.

Centre for London is a prolific provider of research on and insights into the world’s greatest city, its strengths and its weakness and the challenges it faces. Sarah has a wealth of first-hand experience of dealing with the pressures caused by unprecedented government funding cuts, population increase and the rising cost of living in the capital - not to mention gender and other inequalities and HS2.

Together, Ben and Sarah will place the forthcoming elections in their wider context of the tasks facing London local government as a whole.