Local Council By-Elections January 2015

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Dec	Average/ contest	+/- Dec	+/- Seats
Conservative	6	2,898	30.6%	+1.4%	483	+40	0
Labour	5	2,152	22.7%	-4.1%	430	+48	0
LibDem	4	1,127	11.9%	+1.8%	282	+38	0
UKIP	6	1,055	11.1%	-7.3%	176	-122	0
SNP*	1	1,460	15.4%	+8.5%	1,460	+625	0
Plaid Cymru**	0						0
Green	3	742	7.8%	+6.3%	247	+172	0
TUSC	0						0
Independent***	2	31	0.3%	-3.3%	16	-205	0
Other****	0						0

* There was one by-election in Scotland.
** There were no by-elections in Wales.
*** There was one independent clash.
**** No others this month

Overall, 9,465 votes were cast over six local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. No council seats changed hands. For comparison see December's results here.

Coming second by a sizeable margin is nowhere a challenger party wants to be in the first set of contests in a general election year, but that is what January's results have yielded. That said, January is always a bit of a funny month with not much happening. Last year only saw five contests, for instance. With so few voters going to the polls you can read what you like into them. The Tory long-term plan cutting through? LibDem support recovering as voters reward them for services rendered to the coalition? SNP dumping on Labour? Green surge filtering through to votes? And on it goes. Spin it as you wish.