Local Council By-Elections July 2017

This month 22,935 votes were cast over 19 local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Five council seats changed hands in total. For comparison with June's results, see here.

0.6%Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/-  June	+/- July 16	Average/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	18	7,494	32.7%	+12.5%	+7.4%	416	+1
Labour	17	8,607	37.5%	-1.5%	+7.5%	506	+2
LibDem	16	3,607	15.7%	+4.9%	-6.6%	225	-2
UKIP	3	178	0.8%	+0.7%	-5.3%	59	0
Green	7	284	1.2%	-16.1%	-5.2%	41	0
SNP	1	895	3.9%	+3.9%	+3.9%	895	0
PC**	0						0
Ind***	8	1,790	7.8%	+3.0%	+2.0%	224	-1
Other****	1	80	0.3%	-7.0%	+0.8%	80	0

* There was one by-election in Scotland
** There were no by-elections in Wales
*** There were one Independent clash
**** Others this month consisted of the North East Party (80 votes)

The turn around in Labour's electoral fortunes have impacted down at the local level for the second month running. This is the first time Labour have come away with a net gain in number of councillors since February, and only the fourth month since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader to have come out with more councillors than what Labour went into it with. The times they are a-changin'. I could get used to writing up the results without a rain cloud darkening proceedings.

As expected the Tory vote is holding up reasonably well. Expect an occasional spike in fortunes but otherwise the drip, drip, drip of slow decline. The LibDems have managed to pull things back to the figures they were consistently polling before the election, but I doubt they'll be able to transform them into many stunning victories in the short to medium term - provided Brexit doesn't spell disaster for the fortunes of the two main parties. But UKIP and the Greens, good grief. They've almost evaporated. It's hard right now to see where salvation for either is going to come from.