Saturday, 30 June 2018

Quarter Two Local By-Election Results

Overall, 170,236 votes were cast over 93 local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison you can view Quarter One's results here.

  Party
Number of Candidates
Total Vote
%
+/- 
Q1
+/- Q2 2017
Average
+/-
Seats
Conservative
         97
62,013
   36.4%
  -1.9%
    -3.0%
   639
    -8
Labour
         88
59,680
   35.1%
 +5.2%
   +6.4%
   678
   +4
LibDem
         75
30,077
   17.7%
 +2.2%
    -0.6%
   401
  +10
UKIP
         12
 1,263
    0.7%
  -1.3%
    -2.9%
   105
    -4
Green
         38
 8,549
    5.0%
 +1.4%
    -0.1%
   225
   +1
SNP*
          2
 2,040
    1.2%
  -2.8%
   +1.2%
 1,020
    -1
PC
          0
  
   
      
  
     0
Ind***
         19
 4,993
    2.9%
  -2.9%
    -0.4%
   263
   +2
Other****
          4
 1,621
    1.0%
  -0.6%
    -0.6%
   405
    -1

* There were two by-elections in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There were three Independent clashes
**** Others this quarter consisted of the BNP (42), Farnham Residents (354), Loughton Residents (655), and the Yorkshire Party (570)

Considering how awful Labour started off this quarter, it came back to not do too badly with a significant improvement on the previous round-up and this time last year. The Conservatives slip a little but still come out on top, again only thanks to standing more candidates than everyone else.  The Liberal Democrats will be happy with their performance too with a net gain of 10 councillors in the bag (mostly at the expense of the Conservatives, with one apiece taken from the SNP and UKIP(!)). Speaking of which, they continue to do dismally and I doubt their latest celebrity signings, who include a tool who taught his girlfriend's dog to salute Hitler when it hears "gas the Jews!" aren't about to turn their fortunes around.

What can we look forward to next quarter? Well, 24 by-elections are due for July so that alone is going to be a busy month.  I expect, notwithstanding some massive movement in national politics, that things will remain pretty much the same.

NB, if you're puzzled about some of the discrepancies between candidate/seats won and loss figures and the number of by-elections, see here for an explanation.

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