Anthony Butcher

There are still plenty of results to come in, but the majority have been counted.

Positives:
UKIP gained two councillors
There were some close results elsewhere

Negatives:
Everyone other than the Labour party and the Liberals also gained councillors.
The BNP far outstripped UKIP's gains (8 gains)

There appear to be three tiers of parties judging by the number of overall councillors -

Tier 1: (quadruple figures)
Con
Lab
Lib Dem

Tier 2: (double figures)
Plaid Cymru
Green
Liberal
British National Party

Tier 3: (single digits)
UKIP
Respect
Socialist Alternative

That doesn't create a great impression of the party, when it lingers at the bottom of the table with the Socialists.

I am going to vote 'indifferent'. While gaining two councillors is obviously better than last year (-1), it is far from a break through into local politics. The BNP stole the night in terms of up and coming parties.

Not a peep about the results on the UKIP website and no congratulations for those four elected councillors. It is almost like the election never happened...

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harryaldridge

I think on balance it was a good night for UKIP. We didn;t go backwards which was always a possibility. We have held seats and gained a couple. Our vote shares were also pretty healthy with a few i have seen running between 10% - 25% and even a 38% somewhere.

We know it is hard to win seats in a FPTP election since our support is more evenly spread, where as the BNP whos support is more concentrated find it easier in their stronghold pockets. So what is really important is to know whether we have increased our absolute number of votes in places we stood previously, whether our total vote share has increased (on a mean average and median share basis), and whether we will cause any pain by holding part of a key to the balance of power in a council. (in Hartelpool the UKIP gain stripped Labour of overall control!)

FPTP election remind me of those penny arcade machines. We keep putting in the pennys with no observable result (i.e. increase our vote share), but at some point they will cascade over the edge and give us a windfall (hopefully!)

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kernow

I don't know what the turn out was, but I wasn't expecting anything better. People wanted rid of Labour and rather than choosing a smaller party went for the obvious Labour opposite. They're not opposite to me or most on this forum, but they are to Joe and Jane Public!

John Connor

UKIP need to stay out of local elections. Seriously.

A UKIP councillor can't get us out of the EU, and the low figures Ant presents above do more damage to the party than good.

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SponPlague

BBC News says: "Meanwhile, UKIP are averaging 7% in 141 key wards fought this year, up one point on last year. "

Anthony Butcher

I suppose that the main problem for UKIP is that they can't come out of this election saying "we're a fast growing party". There is no news momentum there. It's not bad either; it is just a treading water result.

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Dissident Congress

I think the Conservative's success isn't Cameron but Council tax.

Local elections are not UKIP's strong points and neither do they make an effective angry protest vote, so I wasn't expecting to see masses of UKIP councillors elected. The key to success is focusing on cracked pavement local issues but sadly few UKIPpers have much desire for this type of politics.

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Aardvark

JC, I disagree.

If we avoid local elections then come the Euro elections it will be as if people had never heard of us. Last time we had 'Kilroy' who was well known nationally from his daytime TV show, that the housewives loved, and from his newspaper column. Next time we might not be able to entice a well known figure and might have to win seats on our own merits.

We have to improve our profile, which we can do on a local basis, by fighting seats. It gets the activists focussed on leafletting and door knocking for a specific purpose, rather than just randomly putting leaflets through doors. Nobody, at present, is expecting us to do well so any successes are highlighted locally.

It is an uphill struggle, but persistence and focus will pay off in the long run.

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John Connor

So, no change there then.

Since MEPs can't get us out of Europe either, this doesn't matter.

What does matter is making a good show in the generals. Saving the resources for those will help UKIP fight better and avoid the "death by a thousand cuts" which the party is doing to itself via engaging with the idiot opposition on local level - every little argument with a jumped up little Hitler at local level is a touch more tarnish on the image... ...and politics is a negative image game - you start minty fresh and acquire the tarnish as you progress into battle, then the proles go and vote for the least tarnished party. It's why the NuLabour spin machine has been so effective at keeping them in - it's like a tin of Brasso.

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There are three types of people in this world: Libertarians, fascists and those who haven't been paying attention.
If you're taking notice of the environmental rants of a man who claims to have invented the Internet, exactly how low is your IQ?
By definition, 49.9999% of the population are of below average intelligence. Hence, a NuLabour government. Three times.

Users on ignore list: Akria, Besoeker, Clippo, david H, Ian C.

mkpdavies

Some progress made, thus it is good.

The fact that only 35% of people bothered to vote suggests democracy is broken anyway.

Of that 35%, not one party could even muster half of the votes.

Hardly a mandate to run the country. People have switched off.

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