Local Council By-Elections January 2014

Party	Number of candidates	Total vote	%	+/-  Dec	Average/ contest	+/-  Dec	+/- Seats
Conservative	9	3,812	25.2%	+8.4%	423	+178	-4
Labour	8	4,935	32.6%	+1.1%	617	+7	+1
LibDem	8	1,139	7.6%	-1.6%	142	-49	+1
UKIP	7	1,960	12.9%	-1.6%	280	+59	+1
SNP*	2	1,190	7.9%	+2.1%	595	-245	0
Plaid Cymru**	0			-5.8%		-393
Green	3	331	2.2%	-0.7%	36	-71	0
BNP	0			-0.3%		-41
TUSC	1	43	0.3%	-0.9%	43	-6	0
Independent***	3	1,679	11.1%	-0.7%	560	-249	+1
Other****	1	54	0.4%	-2.9%	54	-33	0

* There were two by-elections in Scotland.
** There were no by-elections in Wales.
*** There were independent clashes in one contest.
**** 'Other' this month consisted of the English Democrats (54 votes)

Overall, 15,143 votes were cast over nine individual local (tier one and tier two) authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison see December's results here.

Tories might breathe a sigh of relief to see their vote share recover this month, only to have the thunder stolen from no less than four lost seats. And when there's only nine contests to pick from on a fairly average geographical spread, that is bad news. UKIP may be the go to protest vote of choice, but Labour retains a steady lead. And that's the story. Throughout the round-ups the two main parties have had their vote share depressed by the large number of contenders but as a rule, the gap between them has been consistently around that reported by polling.

Speaking of protest votes, interestingly one of yesterday's contests took place in Heanor. As well as being where I learned to swim and went to college, the town's other claim to fame (or notoriety) is as a former BNP stronghold, and one that returned a couple of councillors to the borough council during the last decade. However, this time they didn't even contest the seat - another sign the BNP are finished as an electoral contender. How long will it be before they're moved into the 'other' bracket?