Local Council By-Elections June 2014

Party	Number of candidates	Total vote	%	+/-  May	Average/ contest	+/-  May	+/- Seats
Conservative	10	4,349	22.3%	-7.8%	435	-276	+1
Labour	9	8,883	45.6%	+14.5%	987	+221	+1
LibDem	5	362	1.9%	-10.0%	72	-314	0
UKIP	8	2,253	11.5%	-2.1%	282	-308	0
SNP*	1	1,170	6.0%	+4.6%	1,170	+347	-1
Plaid Cymru**	0
Green	4	456	2.3%	-4.6%	114	-287	0
BNP	0			-0.1%
TUSC	0			-0.4%
Independent***	7	2,057	10.5%	+6.4%	294	-122	-1
Other****	0			-0.3%

* There was one by-election in Scotland.
** There were no by-elections in Wales.
*** There were two independent clashes in June.
**** No 'Other' this month!

Overall, 19,530 votes were cast over 10 local (tier one and tier two) authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. For comparison see May's results here.

What a difference a month and the absence of a national election taking place at the same time makes. The biggest story, at first glance, is Labour out-polling the Tories by two-to-one, I think the first time this has happened since I've been keeping an eye on local by-elections. Sadly, it's all down to the distorting effect of a three-way by-election in Barnet where Labour piled up safe seat votes. Strip out that result and it was nearly even-Stevens, with the Tories a few hundred votes in front.

Labour's "triumph" is down to geographic variation, so any watching Tories can console themselves with that explanation. But look at the LibDems. By some distance this is their worst monthly total ever. Less than two per cent is far left territory, and in so doing suffer a double humiliation. For the second month running their votes-per-candidate average is below the Greens. If that wasn't awful enough, they polled fewer absolute votes too - despite standing an additional candidate! To be fair, geography might have played against the LibDems, that all this month's by-elections landed in places where their vote and, maybe, party organisation has collapsed.