Steve Bundred warns that having approved budget cuts, many councils now have the even more difficult task of implementing them and could well face a financial crisis by the autumn.

Much of the analysis to date of the recent local elections has focused on their implications for the Coalition and what the distribution of votes might portend for a general election that is still several years away. Depressing though this is, it shouldn't cause us to lose sight of the fact that these were after all local elections and the results will have local consequences.