Local Council By-Elections December 2013

Party	Number of candidates	Total vote	%	+/- Nov	Average/ contest	+/-  Nov	+/- Seats
Conservative	20	4,893	16.8%	-3.7%	245	-124	-1
Labour	15	9,148	31.5%	-2.7%	610	-66	0
LibDem	14	2,670	9.2%	+0.0%	191	+0	0
UKIP	19	4,202	14.5%	-0.3%	221	-101	0
SNP*	2	1,680	5.8%	+4.5%	840	+294	0
Plaid Cymru**	2	786	2.7%	+2.7%	393	+393	0
Green	8	855	2.9%	+0.9%	107	+37	0
BNP	2	81	0.3%	-0.1%	41	-35	0
TUSC	7	338	1.2%	+0.7%	49	+7	0
Independent***	12	3,425	11.8%	+1.7%	311	-12	+1
Other****	12	1,025	3.3%	-3.6%	87	-322	0

* There were two by-elections in Scotland.
** There were two by-elections in Wales.
*** There were independent clashes in two contests.
**** 'Other' this month consisted of SWFI (281), SGRA (273), No Bedroom Tax (50), SSP (35), Christian (34), Brittanica (31), Dem All (6), Eng Dem (9), Liberal Party (219) Pirate (72), Comm League (9), Eng Dem (6)

Overall, 29,094 votes were cast over 20 individual local (tier one and tier two) authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison see November's results here.

Once again, the main parties find their votes depressed as a result of many parties standing across the 20 seats - the culprits being the SNP and PC who snagged just shy of 2,500 votes between them. Of course, the nationalists' averages are distorted by the low number of by-elections they contested. The LibDems and UKIP on the other hand are quite stable compared with last month, the former especially! If I were the Conservatives I would be very worried looking at how close they're running the party. The Independents continue to do well, despite UKIP marketing itself as the anti-politics vehicle of choice. But as we know, come European and Parliamentary elections this support tends to melt away when the political horizons are lifted beyond a local authority area.

Apart from that, it's been a "boring" month with one net loss and one net gain.