THE Conservatives have sought to reassert themselves as the only party that can govern Swindon following Labour’s failure to rob them of a single seat in Thursday’s election.

“Across the borough, it’s quite clear that the voters of Swindon don’t want a Labour-run council,” said Tory leader David Renard.

The Conservatives now control the council with a majority of one, down from three before the election.

They lost Wroughton and Wichelstowe to the Liberal Democrats, who in turn lost Eastcott to Labour.

But the real story of the night was Labour’s failure to turn blue seats red, a vital undertaking if they are to take control of the council.

A despondent Jim Grant, leader of the Labour Group, said: “It is clearly very disappointing, and there’s no hiding the fact that we had expectations that we would take control of the council. We haven’t done that and we will have to live with it.”

One Labour source said: “It’s pretty bad. I thought we would do better than this. We really need to think about where we can go from here.”

Labour had targeted four seats: Eastcott, St Margaret and South Marston, Covingham and Dorcan, and Haydon Wick. They took Eastcott, but, against all expectations, the Tories managed to secure what North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson described as “thumping majorities” in the remaining three.

Tim Swinyard (Con) beat Neil Hopkins (Lab) in Lydiard and Freshbrook by 1,719 votes to 1,443, while Garry Perkins (Con) beat Maura Clarke (Lab) in Haydon Wick by 1,806 votes to 1,398, thus increasing his majority by around 200.

In St Margaret and South Marston, the clash between two parish councillors was predicted to be too close to call, though Labour was confident it could be won. But Labour's Barrie Jennings was roundly beaten by one of the Tories' stars Roger Smith.

Despite substantially increasing their vote share, Labour, said Coun Renard, had been “drummed out of town”.

Jeremy Corbyn has paid numerous visits to Swindon in recent months, along with senior Labour figures such as Tom Watson and John McDonnell.

But Conservative sources have suggested that Mr Corbyn’s appearances have contributed to their own success and have worked in the Tories’ favour.

North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson said: “Every year brings new challenges, but we have been running the council now since 2004 and we are very grateful that the people of Swindon are allowing us to carry on.”

Labour’s deputy leader Steve Allsopp admitted that the party had been hoping for a much better result.

Elsewhere, it was a tough night for the smaller parties. While the Greens saw their vote share slightly increase to 5 per cent, UKIP’s fell to just 4 per cent leaving the party in last place overall in terms of vote share.