The local elections of 2012 were a considerable success for Labour, and – without lapsing into complacency or triumphalism – Ed Miliband can take a little time to savour that success. The number of seats and councils gained was above the upper end of respectable published forecasts, despite some desperate Conservative attempts to claim otherwise.

There was clear Labour progress across most of England since last year’s elections. Adding up local election results in parliamentary constituencies, although the votes are of course not directly comparable, gives an indication of how well the parties are doing. Labour took the lead in several constituencies where the party had been lagging in 2011, including some difficult territory like Colne Valley, Stourbridge and Reading East, and extended its advantage in others, such as Bury North and Ipswich, which came over more narrowly last year.

Ipswich: percentage vote shares since 2010

In Ipswich an energised local party, with considerable support from the centre, managed to gain the council in 2011 and do even better in 2012. Having lost the parliamentary constituency in 2010 to a particularly effective and professional Conservative campaign, Ipswich Labour has raised its game and made an impressive recovery.

Stourbridge: percentage vote shares since 2010

It may be Stourbridge that is most indicative of Labour’s further progress in 2012. The local elections here were disappointing in 2011 as the Conservative vote remained strong. However, this year there was a large swing that helped deliver the borough of Dudley – thought to be a bit of a long-shot target – to Labour with a comfortable majority. Both turnout and the numerical Labour vote was down, though, and the Conservatives’ bad showing was helped by a rise in the vote for the UK Independence party.

Labour’s leadership has rightly adopted a humble tone that rather understates the scale of the victory. The turnout in the election was poor, even by local election standards. In most areas, even where Labour scored famous victories like Southampton, the raw total of Labour votes was less than last year. It was just that the Tories’ vote collapsed much more. For every 10 people who voted Tory in a given area last year, about 6 did so this year while for every 10 Labour voters in 2011 there were eight or nine in 2012. Either the AV referendum did more than we imagined to increase political participation last year, or there has been a slump in engagement.

Rather than turning to Labour, people abandoned the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Another manifestation of this was the minor surge of votes for UKIP. This helped to deliver some target councils to Labour, in particular Great Yarmouth and Plymouth. It should be obvious that one cannot rely on Tories who wander off and abstain or vote UKIP in mid-term not to go back to the Conservatives at the general election. Two linked trends seemed to work in Labour’s favour this year: the growing public dislike of the Cameron government and a reduced willingness to vote among Conservative supporters after the perhaps exceptional local elections last year.

The most puzzling set of elections was probably in Scotland, where Labour has had a troubled year since the landslide Scottish National party victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections. The Scottish Labour vote in 2012 showed remarkable resilience, and rather than losing its two remaining bastions (Glasgow and North Lanarkshire) Labour doubled the number of councils it controlled compared with 2007, adding Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire to the roster. Labour also put in an impressive showing in Edinburgh, where it had been expected to run behind the SNP, becoming the largest party once again, having lost this to the Liberal Democrats in 2007.

The SNP did well, gaining in the north east in particular, but once again fell short of the central belt breakthrough that has proved a mirage for the party in every election except 2011. The SNP failure was more one of expectation management than voting. Except for the context of the 2011 Scottish parliament landslide, and the excited pre-briefing that they were about to sweep Labour out of Glasgow and dominate Scottish local government, the results would have looked like respectable progress. Scotland is increasingly a two-party political environment fought between the SNP and Labour. The Scottish local elections are a reprieve for Labour, rather than a revival, and the party still has basic questions to answer about what it is for and where it is going.

Labour’s overall gains were strongly boosted by a series of good results in Wales, where Liberal Democrats who had made inroads into Swansea, Cardiff and Newport in 2004 and 2008 were brutally routed and Labour gained 71 seats in these councils, taking overall control in all three despite Cardiff being seen as a difficult target. Alex Salmond rightly said that the SNP had bucked the trend by making gains despite being the government, but the same is true, more spectacularly, of Welsh Labour under Carwyn Jones.

The Liberal Democrats had a second set of disastrous local elections. The pattern of the remaining Liberal Democrat vote appears to be helpful to Labour. Where Labour has a reasonable chance of winning the constituency, as in Norwich South, Burnley, Manchester Withington and Cambridge, Labour are ahead, usually on a large swing. However, the Liberal Democrats are holding on in suburban, spa and seaside areas where they compete with the Conservatives, such as Cheadle, Cheltenham, Southport and, quite spectacularly, in Portsmouth South and Chris Huhne’s Eastleigh seat. The spoils from their Scottish collapse were shared between the SNP and Labour, rather than going overwhelmingly to the SNP as many – including myself – expected.

While the broad picture was very positive for Labour, one has to raise a few warning signs. One is that the party remains very vulnerable in mayoral elections. Another is that it has lost the ability either to respond effectively to negative campaigning or make its own attacks stick properly, even to a flawed incumbent with superficial popularity like Boris Johnson. Looking outside London, Labour cannot take the anti-government vote for granted. It was quite a good year for the Greens, as well as the SNP, and in some areas Liberal Democrats managed to hold on to wards where they had lost in 2011. The turnout is by far the biggest problem; the public are still dejected, cynical and lacking in hope rather than inspired by Labour’s alternative.

The 2012 elections give Labour a strong foundation, and, importantly, put it in control of many local authorities. Labour councillors in Birmingham, Plymouth, Swansea, Carlisle and 28 other places in between will have an opportunity to show that the party can deliver efficient, caring and inclusive government even in these difficult times. If that is the legacy of the 2012 local elections, that is the most important Labour gain of all.

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Lewis Baston is senior research fellow at Democratic Audit

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Photo: STV