The results so far have been good but not spectacular for Labour. The BBC’s national vote share projection has them on 39 percent, the Tories on 31, and the Lib Dems on 16. These numbers would deliver a comfortable Labour majority on both the old and new boundaries.
Strikingly, UKIP is averaging 14 percent in the wards it is standing in. This is an impressive result given that UKIP traditionally doesn’t do that well in local elections where Europe is less of an issue. I suspect that the result is a combination of the fact that the party’s agenda has widened beyond Europe in recent years, that the coalition has disillusioned many right-wing voters and public dissatisfaction with the main parties is simply huge at the moment with turnout falling below one in three voters.
Another blow for David Cameron has come in the mayoral referendums where it appears that all the cities having a referendum have said no. But there are only definite results in from four of the ten cities voting.
There are, probably, two instant political consequences of these results. First, Ed Miliband’s position is strengthened. He has done well enough to put an end to any leadership grumbling. The second thing is that the pressure on Cameron to set out a more distinctively Conservative agenda will increase.
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