Super Thursday: England Local Elections Roundup

This is one of the more difficult analysis I had to make. Sure, the headlines are obvious. Labour lost a lot of councillors, Lib Dems lost some too, whilst the Conservatives made major gains. But the headlines do not tell the entire story.

When the first change of council came in last night, with the Liberal Democrats gaining Kingston-upon-Hull, it did look like Labour was on course for a bit of a drubbing, but at whose hands?

When Plymouth City Council, at around 1.30am, switched completely from being a Labour run council to being a Conservative council, it was perhaps the first real indication, just what was about to happen.

There were results that made reading the signs just a little confusing at times. The West Somerset result which saw a block of independent councillors take control away from the Tories(Ind 16 - Con 13 - Lab 1 - LD 1), meant that it was not a big swathe of blue wiping everything else out, but it was a more patchy performance.

This was then later proved by the next big results. Conservatives gained Gravesham from Labour and Torbay from the Liberal Democrats, only to then lose Eastbourne to the Liberal Democrats.

For all the successes, and there were plenty of them, gaining North West Leicestershire and Lincoln from Labour and gaining Bournemouth and Windsor & Maidenhead Royal from the Lib Dems, there were just too many slip ups. Labour taking North Lincolnshire, and Lib Dems capturing Hinckley & Bosworth as well as losing control of Salisbury and Thurrock, just showed how fragile the Conservative advance actually was.

Most of the gained councils were in areas where the Conservatives were already the major party, and didn't actually need much of a gain in order to take control. If I were David Cameron, I would be worried that more gains were not made in some of the key northern areas.

Mind you, you think that Labour lost almost 500 councillors and Liberal Democrats lost almost 250 councillors, but when you realise that this is across 312 district and unitary councils, you realise that it really isn't that big of a loss.

Amongst the smaller parties, the BNP gained 1 councilor, the Greens gained 15, Liberals and UKIP both lost 1, whilst Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist party gained a councillor.

So,to summarise, a good performance from Conservatives, but not stellar, Lib Dems and Labour both had some losses, but neither really lost a lot of ground. To those who would think this is an indication that the Conservatives are heading for government, I would say this...

In 2004, Labour did do worse than this in the Local Elections, yet just a year later, they gained an historic third term in Westminster. They say a week is a long time in politics, and with possibly 3 years to go until the next General Election, well, we haven't even reached the 2 mile mark on the marathon yet!