Article for The Sunday Times by Jack Grimston and Isabel Oakeshott – 21st April 2013

The coalition parties are set to lose almost a quarter of their council seats in next week’s local elections, which will confirm the arrival of “four-party politics”.

Analysis carried out by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, both professors at Plymouth University, suggests that Labour will gain 350 council seats, while the Tories will lose 310 and the Liberal Democrats 130.

The election experts predict the “most unpredictable local contests for years” due to the impact of UKIP, which is fielding almost as many candidates as the Lib Dems.

The party is forecast to pick up support from non-Labour voters who are unhappy with the performance of the coalition government. Their results will provide a signal of how deeply they have eaten into Tory support nationally after beating the Conservatives into third place in the Eastleigh by-election…continue reading original article

The Sunday Times