Nick Clegg’s party lost control of nine councils – including Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield – and two out of every five seats it held to deliver its worst ever performance at the polls: the loss of 749 councillors from the 279 councils contested. The loss of Nottingham was also significant.
Labour won 857 seats to gain control of 26 councils, including Bolton, Leeds and Newcastle and was particularly pleased to take Gravesham and Ipswich.
Although this fell short of the party’s most optimistic projections it was nevertheless a ten per cent jump on last year’s local elections poll share of 27 per cent. If the party is to seriously look as if it is on its way to form the next government its share needs to be above 40 per cent.
The Tory vote held strong as the party built on gains made last year to win a further 86 council seats and take control of four more councils.
Wales offered some consolation for the rout in Scotland as the party took 30 out of 60 seats in the Assembly pushing Plaid Cymru into third place behind the Tories, who gained two seats despite losing their party leader’s seat.
This meant that Labour took just over 42 per cent in the Welsh constituencies (a gain of just over 10 per cent) and just shy of 40 per cent in the regional vote, a gain of just over 7 per cent, to take the First Minister’s office.
The BNP’s limitations as a viable choice for voters were exposed once again where, following on last year’s mass rejection of twelve councillors in Dagenham and Barking in east London, the voters of Stoke on Trent threw out the city’s five BNP councillors as the party lost a total of 11 seats overall.
