The party of protest is in pole position

David Cameron would like to present the local elections tomorrow as a straightforward choice between blue and red: his team, or Ed Miliband’s. This vote, he says, is about who will run the English counties (where most of the contests are taking place) with the minimum of waste and cost – the same argument, in microcosm, that the Tories hope to make at the general election.

In this, the Prime Minister is likely to be disappointed. The increasing plurality of British politics means that this is not a two-way fight at all. The Tories do face a Labour challenge in the Midlands and North of England – and given that party’s abysmal performance the last time these seats were contested, Mr Miliband is bound to make gains. But even if Labour’s share of the vote eclipses the Tories’, its status as a truly national party remains in doubt. In the South and South-West, for example, the bulk of battles will be between the Coalition partners.

Ironically, the one national constant – bar the Tories falling from the extraordinary highs of 2009 – will be the rise of Ukip, as the latest ComRes poll confirms. Ukip is evolving from an explicitly anti-European operation into a catch-all party of protest, the leading choice of the plague-on-all-your-houses vote. Thus far, it seems, its new supporters have been spectacularly unconcerned by the peculiarity of some of its candidates, or the hypocrisy of – say – backing high-speed rail in your manifesto, but campaigning against it at a local level (a trick copied from the Liberal Democrat playbook). Partly, this is because any attacks on Ukip appear to originate with the political establishment such voters despise. And partly, it is because many – judging by the letters to this newspaper – are concerned not so much with specific issues (although wind farms and other developments certainly draw ire) as with showing those in power, especially within the Conservative Party, quite how deeply unhappy they are.

The local elections will indeed serve as a microcosm of the wider political struggle, if not in the way that David Cameron would like. Despite Tory efforts to downplay expectations, the result will not be anything like as apocalyptic as in 1995, when the party lost its grip on almost every county council in the land. At the same time, however, the Conservatives will need to show between now and 2015 that they can staunch the flow of their voters to Ukip, otherwise an overall majority will be beyond them. In an ideal world, the public would vote tomorrow for the candidates they believe can best deliver local services. But no one will be surprised, when the ballots are counted, if the protest party has done rather well for itself.