Britain's Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg hold their first joint news conference in London
Prime Minister David Cameron (R) and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg hold their first joint news conference in the garden of 10 Downing Street in London May 12, 2010. REUTERS

Local election results from across England have pointed to a strengthening of both the Conservative and Labour parties, while the Liberal Democrats have taken a battering.

The Lib Dems, who are currently the junior partner in a coalition government with the Conservatives, were expected to see a poor set of results. Before the general election in May 2010 the party pledged not to vote for increases in university tuition fees and painted itself as being left of centre.

However their decision to join the Conservatives, to increase tuition fees and approve government spending reductions appears to have left many former supporters fuming. The Lib Dems in response claim that they have made tough decisions in the national interest and have managed to get concessions that a Conservative government alone would not have considered, such as raising the tax threshold to £10,000.

Voters appeared to be unconvinced however. By 17:00 on Friday, with 233 out of 279 councils declared, the Lib Dems had lost half of their councils more than a third of its councillors.

Most of the ground lost went to Labour, which nearly doubled the number of councils under its control and increased its number of councillors by more than 50 per cent.

Although Labour have made the most gains, the Conservatives also gained new councils and councillors, despite expectations that it would make losses due to its implementation of spending cuts.

Smaller parties had mixed fortunes, with the Greens seeing a sharp rise its number of elected councillors. UKIP and the BNP however made net losses.

Below are the figures as of 17:00, with 233 out of 279 councils having declared.

CouncilsCouncillors
PartyTotal+/-Total+/-
Conservative125+43826+55
Labour54+242081+692
Liberal Democrat8-8841-579
Green0061+20
UK Independence Party003-3
British National Party002-9
Residents Association0022-4
Liberal008-2
Boston0-14-14
English Democrats002+1
Independent Community and Health Concern001-3
Independent0000
Respect000-2
Socialist Alternative0000
The Toad Party000-1
Others00469-167
No Overall Control47-19