It was a different world back in 2018 when the parties last fought for the council seats which are up for grabs next Thursday – no war in Ukraine, no Covid, Britain still in the EU, Mrs May in Number 10 and Jeremy Corbyn leading Labour.

Today’s changed world is one reason why the pundits will be facing a tough job in projecting next Thursday’s results on to the national stage and will make it that much more difficult for Conservative MPs, currently pondering the fate of Mr Johnson, to come to a settled view.

It will also be difficult because around only half the people who vote at general elections will have made it to the polls, and for those that do, local issues will probably be just as important, if not more so, than national ones.

Even predicting how the poll will affect the councils up for election is far from straightforward.

In some areas, such as London, the whole council is being re-elected, while in others, such as around here, just one half or one third of the seats are being contested.

And even after all the votes are counted, who has actually “won” might be far from clear – if no party wins an absolute majority deals need to be done, coalitions stitched together or simply “no overall control” accepted as the inevitable result.

The 2018 local elections were held in the aftermath of a disastrous election performance by Mrs May.

She was struggling to get a Brexit deal through the Commons but when she called an election, with the aim of increasing her majority, she instead lost seats and was forced into a power-sharing arrangement with the DUP.

So in theory, this time round the Conservatives should be gaining seats and Labour losing them – but given the difficulties facing this Government – the cost-of-living crisis, Partygate and now questions about their handling of the pandemic – that might not happen.

In this neck of the woods there are two councils which could find themselves under the national spotlight – Worthing and Crawley.

For the first time ever Labour has a good chance of taking control of Worthing, which would represent an amazing political shift.

As recently as 2016 Labour did not have a single councillor in Worthing and the Conservatives had 29.

Now the two parties are level-pegging and Labour needs to take just two seats to win an overall majority and with the Conservatives having to defend most the seats being contested, Labour has strong chance of taking control of the council

The party has a slightly steeper mountain to climb in Crawley for even though they are only one seat behind the Tories, unlike Worthing, they are defending most of the seats being contested, sothe Conservatives might just hold on.

There might also be a surprise result in Brighton, for while there are no across-the-board elections here, there is a by-election in Rottingdean following the surprise resignation of Tory Councillor Joe Miller.

In 2015 the Tories were more than 2,000 votes ahead of their Labour rivals but in 2019 – the last time the vote was held here –

that lead had been cut to just over 200.

If the local Labour candidate, Robert McIntosh, who fought the seat last time round, is victorious, it won’t be comparable to Labour taking Worthing but for the Tories to lose one of their Brighton strongholds would be a significant loss.

But if Thursday looks promising for Labour in Worthing, Crawley and Brighton, the outlook is less sunny in Hastings where, despite national trends, they could be in danger of losing control

of a council they have run since 2010.

Half the council’s seats are up for grabs and Labour is defending most of them.

And the party goes into this election having changed their

leader just three weeks before the poll.

After 12 years in office it is almost inevitable that local grievances will have built up, hence it is not inconceivable that the voters of Hastings voters might just decide that it’s now time for a change.

Predicting results is a fool’s errand, but here’s one prediction I can confidently make – next Thursday fewer than half the voters will even bother to go to the polls.

Local councils are a vital part of our democracy and the more people don’t bother to vote the more councils lose what’s left of their legitimacy.

Hence the real losers next Thursday will not be the politicians but the rest of us.

l Ivor Gaber is professor of political journalism at the University of Sussex and is a former Westminster-based political correspondent