A Tory 'breakthrough'?

It is a mixed result, for all the parties in the local elections across England as the Conservatives have emerged in front.

With just a handful of councils still to declare, the Conservatives now control 157 councils, having picked up an extra 847 councillors.

The Labour party suffered losses - they now run 32 councils - and lost 465 seats. The Liberal Democrats have 22 councils, having lost 22 councillors.

And if we look at how those votes in England broke down break done - we can see that the Conservatives took 41% of the votes, the Labour Party's share dropped to 27%, and the Liberal Democrats were just behind them with 26%.

Just a local snapshot? or a picture of a future general election victory under David Cameron? The Tory leader celebrated in Chester today and his party now has the largest number of councillors since before Margaret Thatcher came to power.

He thinks he has tapped into a groundswell of local support in northern England, and that he can turn this into seats in Westminster at the general election.

But the Tory leader was frustrated in his hopes of taking control of Bury and Bolton councils, allowing Labour to question the extent of his appeal.

Opposition leaders do better at town hall elections held half way through a parliamentary term than they do at the next general elections.

So a 41 per cent share of the vote last night might not be enough to hand the Tories a working majority in Parliament.

It's not the thumping 47% share of vote Labour won in the local elections in 1995.

That dropped to 43% at the 1997 general election. While the Tories won a 34% share at the 1999 local elections, that dropped to 32% at the general election two years later. And the Tories' 35% share in 2003 slipped to 32% at the 2005 general election.

But South of Chester there's no doubting David Cameron's appeal. Here in Dartford, where he launched his local election campaign, the Tories easily gained controlled of the council.

But Gordon Brown's time may be running out in seats like Dartford. The voters I spoke to - if they voted at all - preferred their politicians Conservative - and southern.

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