But the most significant set of local elections are ones the Conservative Party won’t meaningfully contest, and were last fought not in 2015, but 2014: local council elections in Northern Ireland. All 11 local councils are up for re-election, and in an ideal world for the Tory party, these elections would confirm that the Democratic Unionist Party very strong performance in 2017 was not a passing phase but that the party is actually getting stronger.