Local Elections

The political establishment in Westminster has been shaken to its core after UKIP's astonishing night. The results are shown below. (note only the Labour and Conservative Parties have control of councils)

Conservatives: 18 Councils (-10), 1116 councillors (-335)

Labour: 3 Councils (+2), 538 councillors (+291)

Liberal Democrats: 352 councillors (-124)

UKIP: 147 councillors (+139)

Green: 22 councillors (+5)

Other: 22 (no change)

Independents: 165 (+24)

13 councils had no overall control (+8)

The night was terrible for the Tories, losing control of 10 councils and 335 councillors. The Liberal Democrats also had a bad night, losing control of 124 council seats. Together the coalition lost 459 councillors. This is a clear sign from the country that the public does not like their approach to our problems. One of the surprises though was Labour, which expected to do better under the circumstances, perhaps gaining control over more councils. Unfortunately for Labour only a few more seats on councils such as Lancashire would have given them a majority. If you're looking at the results and wondering why Labour didn't beat the Tories overall, you should remember that these are English county councils, Conservative heartlands. Labour strongholds such as Scotland and cities were not voting.

Naturally the big story was UKIP's success in taking many seats, although no councils. The leader, Niger Farage, was delighted with the result but already people are questioning his ability to take seats in a general election. UKIP is still a party of protest and come the next general election you will see a decline in its vote share. The major problem UKIP has is breaking from the idea that they are a one issue party - saying no to Europe. The party will have to hash out policies or people won't take it seriously. The only problem is that once they spell out their policies they will lose all the left wingers who voted for them recently. You should remember that UKIP is more conservative than the Conservatives.