Local Council By-Elections September 2026

This month saw 48,753 votes cast in 20 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 11 council seats changed hands. For comparison with August's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Aug	+/- Sep 25	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	20	8,908	18.3%	+4.0	+3.0	445	0
Labour	19	11,250	23.1%	-1.8	+8.7	592	0
Lib Dem	17	5,885	12.3%	-2.7	-3.9	346	+1
Reform	20	8,138	16.7%	-11.8	-9.2	407	+3
Green	18	9,553	19.6%	+9.4	+5.9	531	-1
SNP*	3	3,313	6.8%	+6.8	+5.2	1,104	-1
PC**	1	329	0.7%	-0.8	-1.8	329	0
Ind***	5	428	0.9%	-1.7	-8.6	86	-1
Other****	14	949	1.9%	-1.1	+1.1	68	-1

* There were three by-elections in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There were no Independent clashes
**** Others this month were Alliance for Democracy and Freedom (28, 12, 12), Communist Party of Britain (46, 22), Edinburgh & East Lothian People (78, 9, 7), Scottish Family Party (73, 38), TUSC (56), Workers Party of Britain (466, 58), Your Party (45)

What a messy month! Conservatives: gained two, lost two. Labour: gained two, lost two. Greens: gained two, lost three. And on top of that, there's the weird Reform result. They retake the month's by-election crown with most net gains, but their vote has slewed away and have turned in a performance much worse than their current polling figures. Meanwhile, the Greens played musical council chairs with the Tories and Labour, but recorded their best ever vote tally and came second. Pure chaos.

Reform's slide is consistent with the party's downward trajectory, but this doesn't signal curtains any more than their trailing in the polls by two or three points do. It's a matter of geography. Labour are recovering in the polls. The Tories have inched forward from their doldrums, but ultimately a disproportionate set of by-elections took place on terrain not as congenial for a strong return for Reform. It's as simple as that. Ditto for the Greens too. They suffered some poor results this month, but they polled strongly in areas where they are strong. A decent comparator will be next month, where Reform are defending four seats and are fielding candidates in wards friendlier to them. If October's result hovers around September's figures, then they're in worse trouble than the polls suggest.

2nd September
Stroud, Kingswood, LDem hold

3rd September
Edinburgh, Portobello/Craigmillar, Grn gain from SNP
Edinburgh, Southside/Newington, Lab gain from SNP
Oxfordshire, Chesterton & Launton, LDem hold
Rhondda Cynon Taf, Llantwit Fardre, Con hold
Somerset, Frome West, Grn hold

10th September
Manchester, Burnage, Lab hold
North East Derbyshire, Eckington South & Renishaw, Ref gain from Lab
North Somerset, Hutton & Locking, Ref gain from Con
West Suffolk, Haverhill West, Con hold

15th September
Bassetlaw, East Markham, Ref gain from Con

17th September
Charnwood, Wreake Valley, Con gain from Grn
Sheffield, Walkley, Lab gain from Grn
South Lanarkshire, Avondale & Stonehouse, SNP gain from Ind

23rd September
Tunbridge Wells, Cranbrook, Sissinghurst & Frittenden, LDem gain from Oth

24th September
Brighton & Hove, Queen's Park, Grn gain from Lab
Cotswold, Blockley, Con gain from Grn
Milton Keynes, New Bradwell, Lab hold
South Staffordshire, Wombourne North, Con hold
Windsor & Maidenhead, Bray, Con hold

Image Credit

Holborn and St Pancras: Two Observations

Two belated-but-brief points on the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

1. There's concern/exasperation among sensible politics understanderers that Zack Polanski is fighting the campaign as if Keir Starmer is still Prime Minister. Hasn't he noticed that there's been a change in Number 10? That Labour's polling recovery mean the Greens are finished? Let's consider the key issues the Green leader is running on. First, the cost of living crisis. Andy Burnham has emoted an understanding of the difficulties people are facing, but so far the action taken is around the edges. And as Sam Coates helpfully revealed last weekend, a lot of Burnham's new measures were in the grid ready for another Starmer relaunch. Second, in addition to bread and butter issues, the Greens are talking about the environment, climate change, and the government's shilly-shallying over North Sea oil. Has our new Prime Minister shifted on this? If anything, he's giving off the impression that more drilling is going to happen. That, and the fact it's in the Number 10 leak too - albeit linked to easing cost-of-living pressures. And finally, Polanski's message is vote Green to keep Labour honest. He says the Greens are responsible for pushing Labour to the left, and there's certainly a case for that following Labour's crushing in Gorton and Denton. Adding in Labour's pathetic failure to confront the far right politically, only a columnist whose windows on the world are other Westminster hacks and exclusive dinner party guests could think there's no market for what Polanski is selling.

2. Nor is Holborn and St Pancras a do-or-die election for Polanski. His leadership has taken the Greens to unprecedented heights, delivering its best ever local election results, its highest ever membership, and its first parliamentary by-election victory. There are moaners in the party who, as "senior sources", frequently leak their displeasure about his social media activity to a press only too happy to bury the Greens, but he's not going anywhere. If the party doesn't win, there will be future London by-elections. And by then, the sheen might have worn off Labour's new leader. But by the same token, a loss would hardly be fatal for Burnham. It would be a reminder that better polling does not mean the Greens have gone away, despite their obviously dropping support. And it could be spun as needing to go further on tackling living standards, rents, prices. In other words, confirming the direction of travel Burnham's initial speeches mapped out. It's not immediately obvious how, as per under Starmer, losing a turf war with the Greens on the grounds they're campaigning on can force Labour rightwards. Indeed, to keep up the recovery of its base, to undo the damage inflicted by the Starmer/McSweeney duumvirate, Labour has no choice but to avoid such idiocy. Assuming it's in the business of wanting to win the next general election.

Image Credit

Calvin Harris, Clementine Douglas - Blessings

More warm weather incoming, so let's have another blast of a summery tune.

25 Years

It seemed like yesterday when the towers fell. Everyone who was alive at that moment has/had a September 11th story - where they were, what they were doing. And for several years afterwards the attacks loomed large over everything. Films, documentaries, conspiracy theories. Almost every writer of note, and a few who weren't, were expected to write their own 9-11 novel. There were memorials, official markings, solemn gatherings, minute silences. But then, this seminal moment of our time, a disaster that was as spectacular as anything Hollywood had served up, whose consequences devastated millions of people well beyond the long tail of casualty figures from the day, and utterly inescapable as an event has, weirdly, largely faded away.

Old father time could be the culprit. The world has sped up, culture is more fragmented, popular memory isn't what it used to be. You'd have to more or less be in your 30s to have first-hand memory of watching it happen live. And yet, that doesn't really work as an explanation. Arguably, the Kennedy assassination persists as a livelier presence in the popular imagination despite most people alive when it happened having gone. Looking at the perfunctory postings across British news sites on the quarter-century anniversary, they convey little sense of the shock that was sent through the transatlantic body politic. The only other event in recent years to match the wall-to-wall coverage of 9-11 is Covid at the height of the pandemic, and that too has been blotted out. In a world that's forever switched on, of endless positivity, trauma is to be negated by incorporation, usually as entertainment, or where that's not possible it goes unsaid and unremarked.

As we watched unfold on the news, there was a real sense of what now? What are the consequences? The myth of American invulnerability, an advantage it enjoyed during the two world wars, lay shattered and wrecked on New York's streets. It was a pivot point, a moment of carnage that changed everything. But did it really? Perhaps the fading of September 11th in wider culture is because, as things turned out, the trajectory of history, the direction American power has taken did not change in substance. Consider the counterfactual. How different would the world have been had the attacks not taken place? In their absence, would the invasion of Iraq, the million deaths that caused, and the resulting destabilisation of the Middle East not happened? Unlikely, seeing as Saddam Hussein's regime had nothing to do with 9-11 anyway. Afghanistan? The pressure for a "humanitarian" intervention there existed long before that sunny September morning. George W Bush's administration was hawkish, was stuffed to the gills with hard power advocates committed to maintaining US domination of the 21st century. The attacks were an excuse, a pretext for accelerating a timetable to remind the post-Cold War world who was boss by the crude assertion of military strength. The politics of that government had baked in war and catastrophe from the outset.

This is probably why 9-11 is fading. It was a shocking moment, but not one on which history turned. No attacks would not have made for a vastly different world to the one we've lived through since, which is why what-might-have-beens are absent. There was no innocence lost, nothing robbed save the lives cruelly taken. The future was set - the attacks only ensured we met it sooner than we otherwise might have.

The Null Montie

Without a doubt this has been the worst week in Reform's short history. Their party conference was meant to draw a line under Nigel Farage's summer humiliation in which he bravely fought off Count Binface, three Monster Raving Loony candidates, and the continuity SDP to retain his Clacton seat. This was going to be the moment in which Reform showed the world that they meant business, and unveiled their plan to do away with British democracy within 100 days of taking office. Instead, the headlines Farage was hoping for were eclipsed by Channel Four News's funding sting, that forced out chief Farage baggage handler Dan Jukes and James Orr, amusingly a specialist in (religious) ethics at Cambridge. And if had that not happened, Zia Yusuf loomed large - delivering a message of support to the Dover blackshirts in defiance of Farage's condemnation of them. He has since gone on to announce a de facto leadership bid in the event of Farage's departure. And there were ugly scenes from within the conference itself, with an assault of a female protestor going viral. Everything was in the spotlight except for Reform's key messages. And now, on Wednesday, Tim Montgomerie has announced his resignation from the party.

Some might recall his joining Reform in December 2024. And because everyone in the media knows him, he got more coverage for doing so than all the second rank Tory defections - Nadhim Zahawi, Nadine Dorries, Jake Berry. Speaking on Politics Live, Montgomerie said he remained a supporter of the party and made his fanboyish affections for Farage obvious, but argued the party was too unruly. Chief culprit is Yusuf's chaos agent cosplay, for whom the concept of party discipline is an alien notion. He is "supremely talented" and a "gifted communicator" - two phrases that were often uttered by prominent-but-frustrated Tory defectors throughout the conference. But Farage needs to rein him if the professionalisation of Reform is to succeed. Montgomerie also said he told Lee Anderson last week that we wanted to continue to be the party's critical friend and make public his views without embarrassing them, or causing issues over their suspension of him, and so was stepping away. How thoughtful.

Unfortunately for Reform, Montgomerie's resignation is symptomatic of the party's failing bid to replace the Conservatives as the preferred political choice of the ruling class. And that long predates Yusuf and his manoeuvres. Notably, the difficulties Farage has faced - the exposure of their murky funding arrangements, which are now subject to a handful of police investigations, came from the right wing press. And particularly The Times. Obviously, none of this would have happened had Uncle Rupert or another of the Murdoch family said no. The timing then is interesting, and suggests that they think Farage in Number 10 would be detrimental to their interests. For one, the erosion of democratic institutions and press freedoms seen wherever Reform's overseas stable mates have taken office hasn't always been congenial to the interests of media moguls. Fine for those on board with far right governments, but here in Britain the press barons are accustomed to dictating terms to Number 10, not the other way round. Or to put it another way, there are doubts Farage and his government could be controlled.

Second, Reform's programme is hardly congenial to stability. Theirs is an explicit class politics for keeping labour at heel, and smashing up opposition through the demolition of state institutions crucial for sustaining mass stakes in and tacit support for British capitalism. The political moment simply does not require it. Andy Burnham's emollient words nor his programme are hardly a threat to contemporary class relations. In fact, as far as the bottom line goes capital with interests in domestic markets and the near abroad would like to see more stability, especially when the shocks keep coming - war, energy prices, climate disaster. Reform want unnecessary class war when most of British business is content with the class peace they have.

Third, what is the coalition of class interests Reform already has in the van? The most backward sections of capital: coupon clippers from the City who remain Brexit true believers, tax exiles, cryptomongers, myriad petty business people and farmers and, crucially, Silicon Valley "disruptors" bent on aggressive take overs of key sectors of the British economy. People who are smash and grab and have no time for the dependencies the British state and ruling class have built with the United States. Collectively their interests is a minority interest within the minority interest of our betters, and one that sits in tension. A Farage government in these circumstance would be a Liz Truss moment, as far as their politics are concerned.

Montgomerie then, as a respected figure on the right, was something of a canary down the coal mine. If he could thrive more than survive, given his propensity to speak his mind, he might have been the bridge for more of the British right and therefore the interests historically tied up with the Tories to cross over. But Reform can no more move away from their corner of ruling class support than the Tories can from their broader bourgeois base. Indeed, Yusuf's antics can be read as having the consequences of protecting this constellation of interests from getting diluted by more "mainstream" concerns, represented by Tory-supporting sections of capital. Indeed, he has gone out of his way to highlight the differences between his type of right wing politics and conservatism in its British varieties.

To put it more succinctly, Reform has served a purpose in steering politics toward the beggar-thy-neighbour politics of culture war scapegoating, but anything beyond that is not where the bulk of British capital wants to go. At present.

Image Credit

Labour's Far Right Failure

I read with interest that, on Monday afternoon, Andy Burnham appointed Marc Sears as his special advisor. For those not familiar with his work, Sears was at UCL's policy lab where he studied "progressive voters". Their most recent report, published in May, found that among Keir Starmer's many failings was his refusal to articulate the sorts of politics Labour voters expect from their party in office. This failure saw Labour's erstwhile voters splinter among the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, and, to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats. And, to rub it in, they found very few Reform supporters - approximately two per cent - were prepared to vote Labour under any circumstance. Therefore, to reiterate the obvious, left wing voters have intertwining sets of interests and values and expect their parties they support to act on them. Political science ain't rocket science.

Part of Andy Burnham's appeal is his affected comfort with soft left politics. The opening fortnight of his premiership, the Downing Street speech, the care speech, the first address in the Commons, this is supposed to be the difference his leadership is making. And yet there is the same attacks on trans people. The same demonisation of asylum seekers, and fruitless boasting about the fall in Channel crossings. And this weekend we saw another one: political paralysis before a far right blockade/"protest" in Dover. The weakness of the government's response is so pitiful, you could be forgiven for thinking that Starmer wasn't turfed out a couple of months ago. Speaking in the Commons this afternoon, policing minister Sarah Jones "condemned" - and we should use that term advisedly - "intimidating and thuggish behaviour", lines lifted from Sunday night's Downing Street statement. There's "no excuse" for racists on the streets but, but ... "None of this is to minimise the valid concerns that law-abiding people have when they see vile criminal gangs exploiting the nation's generosity." Under questioning from Suella Braverman, she acknowledged that local people were "scared and angry" but not of far right squaddists running riot, but about small boats. This was completely different to the attitudes of fascist trouble-makers, she said, strongly implying that residents are fine to feel this way. In short, less a capitulation and more a regurgitation of Morgan McSweeney's drivel, the strategy that drove Starmer's premiership onto the rocks.

History tells us that expecting Labour to challenge the politics that has led to this shameful episode is too much. Even if the parliamentary party was overflowing with principled anti-racists, challenging the common sense Burnham's predecessor bedded down in British politics is too much like hard work. Refusing to scapegoat refugees, and pointing out how Britain's social problems are more deep rooted, more complex, and are ultimately located in systemic inequality and, therefore, class relationships is to invite the hounds of hell to the door. But even insipid liberal arguments of the "refugees welcome here" and "who's going to look after our pensioners?"-type are no-noes where this government is concerned. We're still in the moment of blokey politics, and Burnham is just about at the limits of showing a caring sensibility - doing so for outgroups, such as refugees, trans people, Palestinians, puts you beyond the pale of establishment politics. But more than that, Labour needs its scapegoats too. Bigging up undesirables and demonstrating one's efficacy by publicly doing them over is arguably the oldest strategy in politics. The incentive structure isn't there, and Labour rarely has the wherewithal to change the game anyway.

And this is where it will cause them problems. Far right thugs aren't about to change their politics if Burnham starts whistling an anti-fascist tune. Nor will the underlying dynamic change much if the police take more of an interest. 16 years of intermittent and inconsistent harassment by the authorities of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and his fascist street rabble hasn't done much to put them back in their box. But the perception of Burnham's lack of seriousness, of marrying every "condemnation" of the far right with legitimate concerns-ings will disperse the very fragile recovery Labour's base is undergoing. Just as it did for Starmer. And, because Labour is refusing to confront the far right politically, others will do. There is a long tradition of physical force anti-fascism in this country and, as widely acknowledged, it can take the credit for ensuring the far right were effectively suppressed in the 1980s and 1990s. We're not talking about No Nazis Here lollipops or anti-racist picnics in the park, but full bore violent confrontation. In the absence of anything else, and because the mainstream are actively feeding far right support, don't be surprised if this calls into being its counter. Just as fascist mobilisations in the 1930s and 1970s did. Is this what it will take to stop right wing extremism in its tracks, that elements of the left will reply with thuggish and intimidating behaviour of its own? That looks ever more likely as the mainstream keeps giving the far right a free pass.

Five Most Popular Posts in August

And what a brief month it was! In posting terms, anyway. Here's what tickled the fancy of the internet travelling public. Not that they had much to choose from.

1. The New Road to Serfdom
2. What Was the Point?
3. On Rearranging Deckchairs
4. Tinashe - Melatonin
5. Local Council By-Elections August 2026

Taking the top this month was my review of Jodi Dean's latest book on class dynamics. It looks at how capitalist relations of production are not just producing a new oligarchy, but are beginning to undermine themselves and give birth to new forms of power that resemble feudal class relations. I'm still not sold on the term feudal or neo-feudal getting thrown around to describe this process, but the relationships she describes and their trajectories sound compelling. In at second was Nigel Farage's unnecessary by-election. He won, of course, but not the kind of utterly overwhelming mandate he expected. Especially from a field littered with joke candidates. The episode demonstrates how now having to play politics on a higher difficulty setting is something he's not very good at. In at third was last night's offering: my look at the events this weekend in the Conservative Party. No one cares apart from the politics anorak brigade, really, and its news has got swept away by Keir Starmer pettily resigning before Andy Burnham's first Commons address as PM. Of which more tomorrow, perhaps. But yeah, I'm not entirely done watching and writing about the Tories yet. In fourth is Tinashe's latest release, which is in the running for my tune of the year. Listen to it. And lastly are August's council election results - the first time Reform has only managed to break even for well over a year, and in which they were outdone in seat tally terms by the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Are we going to see more like this as we head into the Autumn?1

Next month there might be a bit more blogging. I think the burnout corner has been turned and, hopefully, we're now accelerating into the straight.

On Rearranging Deckchairs

Nothing gets the juices moving more than indulging in irrelevancies. A category that now, arguably, covers our old friend the Conservative Party. For there has been news this weekend as this nothing struggles to become something again. Kemi Badenoch has undertaken a major reshuffle of the shadow cabinet. And this was prefaced by news that James Cleverly was binning off the front bench to concentrate on a run for the London mayoralty in 2028.

The departures of Priti Patel and Mel Stride aren't great losses to the Conservative cause. It's been frequently noted by Tory watchers that Patel has led a charmed political life throughout her career, one of those characters who gets promoted and is kept hanging around simply because she's available. Bringing a deft touch of ignorance and arrogance to whatever role the party's power brokers have handed her, she peaked during the Boris Johnson years as his home secretary. The wretched Rwanda scheme was her baby, and she normalised the increasingly racist turn the Tory politics of immigration took. Yet, despite being - for a while - a darling of the diminishing Tory faithful because she manifested their atavistic desires, she played her part in destroying Conservative credibility among right wingers. The so-called Boris wave of migration happened while she channelled BNP election leaflets of the decade before and so, in her own pitiful terms, failed politically. She did have the sense to avoid spending any time in Liz Truss's ill-fated cabinet, and relied on her luck to be appointed to the shadow cabinet after the 2024 catastrophe. For form's sake she's departing to look after relations with other centre right parties around the world. In other words, more time on the ligging circuit for semi-retired failures.

Mel Stride also had the sense to avoid direct involvement in the Truss debacle, and his support for Rishi Sunak (remember him?) was rewarded with the DWP brief. Unfortunately for his legend, he proved something of a grey blur as a minister. Though suggesting, a year after his appointment, that the pension triple lock was unsustainable wasn't the most astute remark ever to be uttered to a Westminster hack. I suppose you could call his leadership run that summer a brief flirtation with prominence, beating Patel into fifth place. But there wasn't really anything he brought to the table except a willingness to do a top job. Perhaps his insubstantial status and wafer thin 61-vote majority is what commended him to Kemi Badenoch. As a former Sunak ally, he brought the remnant of Tory briefcase sensibility - something that would settle the nerves of those discombobulated by their new leader's lurch further to the right. Unfortunately, he didn't do much with his 18 months as Badenoch's right-hand man. Though to be fair to Stride, the media and political commentary have been more interested in Labour's issues and the rise and troubles of Reform.

Tom Tugendhat has now been slotted into Patel's foreign office boots, and isn't likely to deviate from Tory efforts at toadying up to Trump. Meanwhile, Andrew Griffith takes on Stride's old beat. Griffith, who isn't now nor ever likely to be a household name, was one of Johnson's loyal fans and has broken hot wind into Badenoch's sails from the beginning. Politically speaking, he's the usual boring Tory of the Reform-impersonating caste. Business has too much regulation, young people aren't work ready, employees have too many rights, and we need to look to the private sector for our model for government. He was previously Johnson's net zero "champion", and has spent his time in parliament voting against measures to progress it. Like his boss, he believes efforts at dealing with climate change are a barrier to cheaper energy. In other words, in the rare event of his getting noticed by the public at large his promulgation from the dispatch box aren't likely to move the dial in the Tories' favour.

You might expect me to say that, but James Cleverly's resignation to pursue a London mayoral run underlines the confidence he has in Badenoch's strategy taking the party anywhere fast. Nor, going by his pitch to London Tories, is he. Cleverly has decided to attack Sadiq Khan as "anti-car", yet quite justifiably London Labour can point to ULEZ as one of its greatest policy successes. If he wants to play the game of more cars vs kids' health at the next mayoral election, Khan will be more that happy to participate. The other problem Cleverly has is, despite appearing to be relatively normal as far as leading Tories go, that he's as batshit a rightwinger as the rest of them. During the Tory leadership contest and as the summer 2024 riots were underway, he thought that was a great time to boast about his cuts to the number of care workers coming to this country. He also thought Sunak's compulsory national service scheme for young people was good enough, at the time, to front in the television studios. And going from attacking net zero opponents in the Tory leadership contest as "neo-Luddites", less than a year on he was "agreeing" with Badenoch about ditching its commitments.

What do these shufflings, sackings, and place-seekings tell us about the state of the Tories? It's that no lessons have been learned from their defeat, and that Badenoch is not the only Tory convinced the path back to the big time is by proving themselves more solidly right wing than Reform. This is a recipe for more internecine warfare, not producing a programme capable of cohering the shrinking right bloc of voters and winning large chunks of more centrist-leaning support fed up with Labour, and/or those who've found an abode with the Liberal Democrats. Cleverly in London, Badenoch for the country, neither of them have any idea about how the composition of the electorate is changing in ways that leave their kind of politics at a disadvantage. If they ever do come to terms with this transformation, it'll be belatedly - after the Tories have been handed another deserved drubbing.

Image Credit

Local Council By-Elections August 2026

This month saw 33,925 votes cast in 16 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 11 council seats changed hands. For comparison with July's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Jul	+/- Aug 25	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	16	4,844	14.3%	-4.6	+0.3	303	-4
Labour	16	8,433	24.9%	+10.3	+3.8	527	-1
Lib Dem	14	5,098	15.0%	-0.8	-0.4	364	+3
Reform	16	9,663	28.5%	+4.6	+2.7	604	0
Green	12	3,467	10.2%	-1.4	+1.6	289	+2
SNP*	0						0
PC**	1	509	1.5%	-2.5	-1.7	509	0
Ind***	10	886	2.6%	-4.2	-3.9	87	0
Other****	3	1,025	3.0%	+0.9	+1.0	342	0

* There were no by-elections in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There were three Independent clashes
**** Others in August were Nottingham People's Alliance (523), Restore (284, 218)

It's been a good run, but it had to come to an end at some point. Reform's streak of winning the monthly by-elections tallies is over. They came out on top in popular vote terms, and yet they returned a net gain of zero seats. Beaten by the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, who brought in three and two victories respectively. And yes, the vote share is up on July but the Burnham bounce has certainly fed through with Labour's vote resurgent. And, for once, the government aren't the local council by-election whipping boy. It's the Tories who have the glum faces in August. If you pay attention to the media chatter, there is talk about a "Tory recovery" but there's little evidence of it here, or in voting intention polls. It's almmost as if, recoiling from the monsters to the right of the Conservatives, that sundry scribblers are trying to will a comeback for them into being.

Next month? There are 20 by-elections to watch, and Reform might breathe a sigh of relief - no defences for them, so chances are they'll come out on top. With all the other parties defending seats, September will be a good test of whether Nigel Farage's long march through local government has been halted.

6th August
Caerphilly, Hengoed, PC hold
King's Lynn & West Norfolk, Heacham, Ref gain from Con
King's Lynn & West Norfolk, Snettisham, Ref gain from Con
Reigate, Hooley, Merstham & Netherne, Grn gain from Con
South Tyneside, Harton, Ref hold

13th August
East Devon, Honiton St Michael's, LDem gain from Lab
Kirklees, Almondbury, LDem gain from Ref

20th August
Barnsley, Penistone East, Lab gain from Ref
Cumberland, Harraby South, Ref gain from Lab
Huntingdonshire, St Neots Eynesbury, LDem gain from Ref
Nottingham, Leen Valley, Lab hold

27th August
Dover, Guston, Kingsdown & St Margaret's-at-Cliffe, Grn gain from Con
Newcastle upon Tyne, Throckley, Walbottle & Newburn, Ref hold
Sheffield, Southey, Ref gain from Lab
St Helens, Billinge & Seneley Green, Lab gain from Ref
Wandsworth, Trinity, Lab hold

Image Credit