London

IF Britain is a country on the brink of a revolutionary vote to defy its leaders and leave the European Union, there was little evidence of it in elections held on Thursday.

Votes for local and regional government across the country, the largest single test of public opinion outside a general election, left little changed. Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives even appeared to be on the brink of gaining a handful of council seats, an astonishing achievement in elections that voters usually use to kick the government.