Local elections: further post-results analysis

Michael Thrasher has an interesting piece on the Sky News website, particularly explaining the difference in the seat change figures between those published by Sky and the BBC. As has become a consistent pattern over several years now, his national vote share projections put the Liberal Democrats two per cent lower than the BBC’s figures.

Several people (including myself) have commented on how well the Liberal Democrats did against the Conservatives in those Parliamentary seats that are key to the next general election. Martin Tod reports from Winchester than in fact the Liberal Democrat vote there hit a 10-year high last week. Meanwhile, in Chris Huhne’s Eastleigh constituency not only are there now no Conservative councillors (remember all the Conservative talk during the leadership election about how they could take his seat?), but the share of the vote for the party was 51%, up from 42% four years ago. There was a net swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats of 1% so, although the Conservatives perhaps should have benefited from the collapse of the UKIP vote in local elections there, they have actually fallen further behind the Liberal Democrats.

One fact I’ve not seen remarked upon: this year’s gains means the Liberal Democrats have gained seats in six out of the last seven years of local elections.