Labour News

It is a stunning result and I think it has the potential, and let's not put it at more than that, to be groundbreaking.

Before the last election, the main parties said that if there was a coalition the roof would fall in.

Well two things have happened since then - we have had a coalition and the roof clearly hasn't fallen in.

So I think you can look at today and see perhaps a sense that politics might, just might, be beginning to break up and people think well voting for a minor party can make a difference.

Of course the other factor is, that in the past people have tended to turn to the Lib Dems when they feel like making a protest and clearly they don't want to do that, because the Lib Dems are in government and they partly blame them for the problems.

I don't want to overstate these things, clearly there is an element of protest but I think the question is, is it a protest across that broader adjustment of peoples approach to politics and I think that's what would really worry the two biggest parties.

Nigel Farage has quite cleverly combined the issues of Europe and immigration by talking a lot about the threat, as he perceives it, of a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians coming here.

You're going to see him doing a lot more of that.

I think you will see Labour shifting its stance a little bit more on immigration perhaps.

The big question though is for the Tories. Obviously David Cameron has assumed that the secret to winning the next election is to occupy the centre ground and to make it very much a choice between him and Mr Miliband.

That may still work, but his going to have an awful lot of people in his party saying look at what's happening with UKIP, look at why people are voting for them - we've got to shift more over to the ground that they occupy.

• UK
• UKIP
• Labour

• Politics
• Ed Miliband
• Labour

Conservatives kept control of Wiltshire County Council, winning 58 seats. The Liberal Democrats came second with 27 seats, while Labour won four and UKIP one.

• Politics
• Conservatives
• Labour

The British National Party has lost its only county council seat, as it plunged to last place in defence of a division in Lancashire.

BNP candidate Paul Robinson polled 358 votes in Padiham and Burnley West, a seat won by the party's Sharon Wilkinson in 2009.

The party still has two borough councillors in England, one each on Charnwood and Pendle councils. Labour claimed the Lancashire County Council seat today by a majority of almost 1,000, beating the Conservatives into second place and the Liberal Democrats into third.

The council was previously Conservative led.

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• Labour
• BNP

The Conservatives have lost control of East Sussex County Council, leaving the authority in no overall control.

Results:

Conservative: 20 seats

Liberal Democrats: 10 seats

UKIP: 7 seats

Labour: 7 seats

Independent: 3 seats

No description: 2 seats

Green: 0 seats

Labour and Co-operative: 0 seats

In the 2009 election the Conservatives held 29 seats; Liberal Democrats 13; Labour 4; Independent 3 and UKIP 0.

• Politics
• Conservatives
• Liberal Democrats

Labour have taken control of Derbyshire County Council from the Conservatives, winning 43 seats. The Conservatives trailed behind on 18, while the Liberal Democrats only managed to secure three.

• Politics
• Labour
• Conservatives

FINAL RESULTS - Con retain control with 38 seats. Lib Dems 9 seats, Lab 7 seats, UKIP 4 seats, Ind 3 and Green 1 seat #DevonElections

From @DevonCC on Twitter: (12:07 pm, Fri 03 May 2013)

• Politics
• Conservatives
• Labour

The Conservatives have lost overall control of Warwickshire County Council, leaving the authority in no overall control. They have lost 13 seats since 2009. Labour have gained 12, Liberal Democrats have lost three. Independent candidates gained two.

Results:

Conservatives: 26 seats

Labour: 22 seats

Liberal Democrats: 9 seats

Green: 2 seats

Independent: 3 seats

• Politics
• Conservatives
• Labour

Labour's election co-ordinator Tom Watson said his party enjoyed a good night in the local elections and South Shields by-election.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 programme, Mr Watson said "We had a good result on what we have seen so far, to get 50 per cent of the vote in South Shields, to win back the mayor in Tyneside, to make progress in the Westminster battleground seats within counties is good for us.

"In the Westminster battleground seats, places like Harlow, Hastings, Stevenage, Cannock, the Westminster seats we lost in 2010 and we need to win back in 2015, they are coming back to Labour in quite big numbers."

The MP for West Bromwich East said Labour leader Ed Miliband had been consistently told by voters that they felt a sense of "powerlessness" when it came to politics and its ability to change their lives.

"At the heart of this is economic failure, they feel the Government plan is not working and they feel the job of the Labour Party is to convince people there is a better way, that we can address this squeeze on living standards and give people more hope," he said.

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• South Shields