Particularly pleasing for the Conservatives was a strong showing in Rotherham, which suggested they could be in contention for their first ever South Yorkshire seat in a general election.

They also made a breakthrough in Wakefield but could not repeat that in any of the other all-important councils in West Yorkshire, an area Tories need to start winning big if they are to form the next Government.

Conservatives picked up seven seats in Wakefield from Labour – one more and the council would have been wrestled away into No Overall Control.

Another disappointment came in Craven, which the Tories expected to take outright and only needed two seats to do so. In the end though they only picked up one.

But while the Tories were unable to turn any of the region's councils blue, they did win wards in target seats at the next general election including Keighley, Harrogate and Colne Valley.

There was no Labour collapse in the region yesterday, unlike in many other parts of the country, but losing between one and three seats in most of the councils polling on May 1 suggests that many people in the region are now growing tired of Gordon Brown's party.

Part of Labour's support transferred to the BNP, which gained two seats in Rotherham and one in Calderdale, coming second or third in a host of other seats across West Yorkshire. But they also lost one of their three seats on Kirklees Council to the Conservatives.

The only two councils to switch hands both went to the Liberal Democrats – Hull and Sheffield.

The party was particularly delighted to gain five seats in Sheffield from Labour, giving them a nine-seat lead over their opponents and a majority of six.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour had pinned their hopes on doing well in the Steel City, but Labour were defending difficult seats and the council once synonymous with David Blunkett's Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire is now firmly in the hands of the yellows.

Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg, who has suffered a torrid time since becoming leader of the Lib Dems just before Christmas, will be keen to associate himself with victory and use it as a springboard to relaunch his flagging leadership.

He will also point to victory in Hull – a city which has swung between Labour and the Lib Dems since 2002 with neither retaining power for long – as a reason his party should not be written off.

Indeed the Hull result may prove to be the turning point for the city, with its chief executive yesterday saying he believes a period of stable leadership will bring new-found confidence to Hull and enable it to attract new investment.

Kim Ryley said: "It's important to have a single political vision for the city which doesn't change from year-to-year to give confidence to investors.

"With no more elections for two years there is now a period in which we can develop a long-term vision for the city over 10 to 15 years, rather than parties looking for short-term gains to win them the next election."

William Hague, the man charged with reviving the Conservatives in the North, said the Yorkshire results had been "significant" for his party – no more so than in the Rotherham constituency of Rother Valley where the Tories took 39 percent of the vote to Labour's 30 percent.

"The results show that, even in Labour strongholds, we are making big steps forward," he said. "This year's results put us in a good position to improve further in the years to come in both council elections and the general election."

But Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said he doubted any Tory revival in his city would last through to a general election, not expected until spring 2010.

The Labour MP said: "I think the idea the Tories could win here is garbage. There was a low turnout here which won't be repeated at the next general election.

"There's a real dislike of the Conservative Party here in Rotherham. People were saying they didn't like the 10p tax abolition, they didn't like Gordon Brown, but even after that they would not vote Conservative."