Just one council by-election this week. Labour held a seat on Derbyshire county council with ease:

This was the first time Ukip contested the seat. The Tories slumped from second to last.

While this result was good for Labour, the party has had a turbulent few days in another of its local government strongholds.

A total of 10 Labour councillors in Redcar & Cleveland have resigned, including both the council leader and deputy. It means Labour no longer has control of the council.

The resignations followed the deselection of seven members of the council, including its leader George Dunning.

These kinds of spats and upheavals are nothing new in local government, and rarely a week goes by without one councillor or another defecting or standing down.

What makes this more significant is the scale of the resignations, and the fact they have happened on a council within whose boundaries lie a top Labour target: the Liberal Democrat constituency of Redcar. At the very least it can be said that these kinds of antics don’t exactly help Labour’s chances of taking the seat.