Local Council By-Elections March 2014

Party	Number of candidates	Total vote	%	+/-  Jan	Average/ contest	+/-  Jan	+/- Seats
Conservative	25	10,511	29.8%	+0.5%	420	-27	-1
Labour	23	10,231	29%	-6.3%	445	-361	0
LibDem	18	4,119	11.7%	+3.0%	229	+29	+1
UKIP	20	5,514	15.6%	+7.5%	276	-1	0
SNP*	1	1,334	3.8%	+3.8%	1,334	+1,334	0
Plaid Cymru**	0			-8.5%			0
Green	9	873	2.5%	+0.4%	97	-48	0
BNP	0						0
TUSC	0			-2.2%			0
Independent***	9	1,761	5%	+0.1%	196	-27	0
Other****	3	886	2.5%	+1.7%	295	+241	0

* There was one by-election in Scotland.
** There were no by-elections in Wales.
*** There were three independent clashes (in one ward) this month.
**** 'Other' this month consisted of the Elvis Bus Pass (67 votes), Monster Raving Loony (15) and the Ratepayers (804 votes).

Overall, 35,229 votes were cast over 25 individual local (tier one and tier two) authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison see February's results here. Please note Labour's victory in the City of London by-election has not been included in this data set.

The month might appear boring, but five seats did change hands in March. However gains were cancelled put by losses, making it look as though there was but little movement.

Superficially Labour had a pretty bad time of it, but we can lay it at the door of our old friend - geographical variation. Despite this and a number of contests in solid Tory areas its poll average still keeps its lead. The LibDems have had a modest recovery and UKIP did very well. Interestingly for two months now there has been little change in its vote average. Might this indicate UKIP's vote is stabilising and finding a "natural" level from election to election, regardless of variation between contests?