Miserable night for the Tories as they lose council seats in rock-solid areas to Ukip and the LDs

Could May’s county elections could be a bloodbath?

After yesterday’s dreadful national polls for the Conservatives there’s news overnight of two serious setbacks for the party in southern England in the only two by elections that they were defending.
We’ll have to wait for the councils to publish the detailed results but from the Tweets above the outcomes look pretty bleak for Cameron’s party.

In both wards in district councils in Surrey and West Sussex the party appears to have taken a hammering.
The last time the Foxhills ward in Runnymede was contested the result was Con 581 (47%) UKIP 284 (23%) Lab 274 (22%) Lib Dem 107 (9%). That has now gone Ukip.
In 2011 the Aldwick ward on Arundel DC went Con 64%: Lib Dem 16%: UKIP 7%: Ind 7%: Lab 7. This is now Lib Dem.
These by-elections come just six weeks before this year’s local elections when the Tories are defending twice as many seats as Labour and the Lib Dems combined().