On the election latest. Result for county may reflect the UK’s mood

Politics is an unpredictable business but the proximity of next week’s county council election to the June general election means candidates and pundits alike will be studying the results as closely as a clairvoyant looking at tea leaves.

Whether anything meaningful about the prospects for the parties will be gleaned is another matter.

But the KCC results ought to provide some insight of what to expect in June.

Four years ago, the big story was the surge of Ukip who from nowhere came and grabbed 17 seats on the council to become the official opposition. But having secured its major objective, it is inevitably fending off questions about what it now stands for. Expect some significant reduction in its numbers.

For the Liberal Democrats, retaining the seats they hold in Maidstone will be the limit of their expectations. For the party to be able to claim it is a resurgent force, it will need to do more than hold on to what it has got.

While there seems to be no