[Livia]

In my consituency, Conservatives held all 11 of their previously held seats and even gained one from the LibDems. We only failed to gain 1 seat which has been LibDem ever since there were LibDems and we didn't expect to win it anyway, even so our candidate did the work, knocked on doors, canvassed and delivered literature. As a result we did come in second on that seat, raising our majority by quite a bit. UKIP didn't win one seat in my area. Neither did they put out any literature, do any campaigning or (in all but two cases) bother to turn up for the count.

Before people start making predictions about the General Election (which in many cases will be run alongside District Elections in 2015), we have European Elections. Let's see what happens between now and May 2014. I think the Conservatives will be forced into making law a referendum on Europe. Apart from a protest vote, UKIP have got votes because of their stance on immigration and an intention to withdraw from Europe (although they have no strategy for how they plan to do it and how they plan to pay for it). They have very flimsy bullet points when it comes to other issues, which is another reason that I think they're going to fall on their faces in local government.