There are good reasons not to take local results as general election predictions

Current political map cannot be compared with the past, but there are warnings for Conservatives to heed nonetheless

• Local and mayoral election results – live updates

Twelve months before Gordon Brown lost power, Labour suffered deep losses at the 2009 local elections, slumping to just 23% of the vote and triggering an abortive putsch, spearheaded by the work and pensions secretary James Purnell.

In the event, Labour scraped a slightly less humiliating 29% at the general election the following May, but Brown’s anxious colleagues were correct to read the council polls as a harbinger of defeat.