Local Council By-Elections May 2015

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Apr	Average/ contest	+/- Apr	+/- Seats
Conservative	72	124,822	36.1%	+17.9%	1,773	+1,614	+9
Labour	76	112,813	32.6%	-4.1%	1,484	+1,004	-4
LibDem	50	29,493	8.5%	-6.5%	590	+197	-2
UKIP	42	31,659	9.2%	-4.5%	754	+595	-3
Green	36	17,394	5.0%	+5.0%	483	+483	-1
SNP*	3	12,197	3.5%	+3.5%	4,066	+4,066	+1
PC**	5	3,154	0.9%	-6.2%	631	+446	0
TUSC	7	506	0.1%	+0.1%	72	+72	0
Ind***	20	11,115	3.2%	-0.4%	556	+462	0
Other****	6	2,456	0.7%	-5.0%	409	+261	0

* There were three by-elections in Scotland
** There were seven by-elections in Wales
*** There were three contests with Independent clashes
**** Other this month included Mebyon Kernow (340 & 180 votes), SPGB (42), Christian Peoples (99), All Peoples Party (25), and Community Action (1,870)

Overall, 345,609 votes were cast over 82 local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. There are three by-election results yet to be published that remain outstanding. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. A total of 16 council seats changed hands. For comparison see April's results here.

As you can see, the by-election results - thanks to the increased turn out general elections bring - have "normalised" themselves and roughly approach the national vote tallies achieved by the main parties, percentage-wise. The Tories very slightly under-performed, while Labour did better here. An example of Ed Miliband's under-promising and over-delivering mantra, perhaps? Or due to out-organising the Tories for the first time in a long time. UKIP also got significantly less here than their national proportion, whereas the LibDems did ever so slightly better and the Greens more so.

Having followed local by-elections for the last two and a bit years, did they show any indication of the coming Tory win? While the by-elections for 2014 as a whole gave the Tories a fractional lead, if you looked at what was happening in the quarters there was a gradual swing away from Labour to giving the Tories a decent vote share lead. However, in the first quarter for this year it had swung away from them and gave Labour a decent victory - one, as it turned out, was a freak. Again, as with the much maligned polls, one needs to keep an eye on the overall trend and be aware of what might be the result of by-election vagaries and others of a broader movement among voters.