English local elections: Early results show Conservative slippage LONDON, May 3 (UPI) -- Early results in Thursday's local elections in England and Wales show advances by Labor and the United Kingdom Independence Party. Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates were doing poorly. Most of the votes will not be counted until Friday afternoon. Elections for members of county councils and other local officials are often seen as a bellwether for general elections. Labor candidates suffered in the last local elections in 2009, a year before the party lost control of Parliament to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The Conservatives lost control of the Lincolnshire council in eastern England, the BBC reported. As an additional humiliation, the deputy council leader, a Conservative, lost his seat to a UKIP candidate. In East Sussex, Labor seized seven of the eight council seats in Hastings, a first for the party, The (Brighton) Argus reported. "On the doorstep, you were lucky to find a good word for the Government, they are seen as out of touch, don't listen and don't really care about ordinary people," said Jeremy Birch, a Labor Party member who won re-election to the council. In Hampshire, the euro-skeptic UKIP picked up 10 seats, This is Hampshire reported. The Conservatives kept control of the county council while losing six seats and the Liberal Democrats lost eight. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has suggested the party's performance in parliamentary by-elections means it is now the third party, ahead of the Liberal Democrats.