Quarter Three Local By-Election Results

Overall, 85,190 votes were cast over 57 local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison you can view Quarter Two's results here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/-  Q2	+/- Q3 2017	Average	+/- Seats
Conservative	57	29,291	34.4%	-2.0%	+1.0%	514	-1
Labour	51	26,188	30.7%	-4.4%	-6.9%	513	-4
LibDem	44	14,638	17.2%	-0.5%	+5.3%	333	+2
UKIP	14	1,009	1.2%	+0.5%	-0.8%	72	-1
Green	29	3,706	4.4%	-0.6%	-0.4%	128	0
SNP*	1	1,741	2.0%	+0.8%	-3.2%	1,741	0
PC	2	820	1.0%	+1.0%	+1.0%	410	0
Ind***	27	5,878	6.7%	+3.8%	+0.6%	218	+5
Other****	12	1,919	2.3%	+1.3%	+0.4%	160	-1

* There was one by-election on Scotland
** There were four by-elections in Wales
*** There were five independent clashes this month
**** Others this quarter consisted of Active for Plymouth (123), BNP (25), Democrats and Veterans (338), English Democrats (72), For Britain (63), Our West Lancashire (567), Yorkshire Party (47), Scottish Libertarian (13), Women's Equality Party (47 and 39), Nonsuch Residents (539), and Elvis Bus Pass (46).

A boring but disappointing quarter for Labour,and also annoying to see the Independents surging again. If anything, you could argue this set of results almost returns to politics as usual. It makes no difference to the national polls, but at local election level at least perhaps polarisation is coming unstuck or never applied too much in the first place. Again, despite falling to bits the Tories out-organise everyone else, while the kippers continue to do poorly.

No predictions for next quarter, though it past behaviour is any indicator of future behaviour the vote distributions will continue to be much the same.