Lib Dems made net gains in council by-elections during 2014

Now that the last council by-elections of 2014 have been fought (including in December a rather promising result for Ed Davey in Kingston), we know for sure: the Liberal Democrats made net gains during the year's council by-elections.

A tally of 13 holds, 14 gains and 8 losses made for a net gain of 6 on the year, compared with Labour's net gain of just 2 (yet another sign of the trouble Ed Miliband's party is in) and the Conservative net loss of 8. Greens were up 2 and UKIP up 7.

The strong Lib Dem performance in by-elections illustrates the challenge for the 2015 general election as it shows that the party does best when the public's focus is on a specific local contest rather than the national political picture. Hence the much better results in council by-elections than in the annual round of local elections which took place on Euro election day and were overshadowed by national politics.

For May 2015 this means that Liberal Democrat success will be greater the more the party succeeds in getting voters to think about the specifics of local contests - and in particular the much better ratings which Liberal Democrat MPs have compared to those of other parties.