During the 2024 General Election campaign we didn't have very many visits from Sir Keir Starmer to Yorkshire.
The theory went that they had a lot of seats in the bag and campaigning was better spent elsewhere.
Two years on and the local elections felt very similar. No visits at all from the Labour leader, but for very different reasons.
Quite a few local councillors didn't want him to come to make things any worse for them.
In the end it was as bad as it gets for Labour anyway.
The story in Yorkshire of this election is about Labour leaders. Not just the one sitting in Downing Street, but the three in Yorkshire that are now sitting at home having lost their jobs.
Denise Jeffery's six years as Wakefield Council leader was ended in the very first result of the day from the city's count.
"I'm devastated. People were saying we can't vote for Labour nationally because of Keir Starmer.
"He was toxic on the doorstep," she said.
Up until yesterday, Susan Hinchcliffe was Labour leader in Bradford for 10 years.
"It's not about me. I'm just sorry for those Labour councillors who've put a huge amount of work in."
Tom Hunt in Sheffield lost his job by 73 votes to the Greens.
“National issues have dictated this election campaign across the entire country. Voters are rightly impatient for change.”
I started election count day in Sheffield.
But after Tom Hunt lost his job I had to leg it up to Barnsley. Labour were losing there, Reform UK the big winners.
Lots of people were saying Labour wouldn't, couldn't lose Barnsley. It had been Labour since the council was created over 50 years ago.
But I was at Doncaster Racecourse last year where Reform won seat after seat. They've got a majority on Doncaster Council, and only missed out on running the city by a single percentage of vote share.
It was the same here at Barnsley Metrodome. With all out elections, three councillors were elected for each ward. It seemed more often than not it was Reform taking all three.
After all the results were declared, Reform UK decided not to speak to us. That means as it stands we don't know who is likely to lead Barnsley Council or what priorities they'll have when it comes to running the town.
To be fair to them, they just had a load of new people elected and they need to choose their leader - but voters will want to know pretty quickly what they're getting for their vote.
The next challenge - as it is for every party - is convincing people you're up to the job.
There will be a lot of new councillors who've never done anything like this before. Some will say that's a good thing, but it's also a huge commitment.
In Doncaster, we've seen Reform councillor numbers drop already in their first year because of individuals leaving and some being suspended.
It's one thing winning an election - it's quite another to run a council.
That's the first thing for new councillors to get cracking with this week.
Sally Birch won for Reform in Bradford. She's a new councillor in Windhill and Rose and thinks that perhaps the protest is more about cost of living on the city's streets, rather than who is living at Downing Street.
She said: “People vote for a change when they actually want it. I think there is a certain amount on judgement on Keir Starmer.
“We’ve been very clear on the doorstep that this is a local election not a national one. I do think this is a bit of a voice of the people – you might want to call it a protest vote.”
Ian Eglin is a new Reform councillor in Baildon.
“Britain and Bradford need a change of direction. Britain is going down as a country in many ways. Economically, socially, we’re not improving,”
“Most of us are centre right; some of us actually come from a left background.”
“What our main achievement as Reform has been this time is to normalise Reform as a standard party.”
“People have seen we’re normal people. We’re not ogres; we haven’t got two heads.”
The numbers suggest Reform could work with the Conservatives to run Bradford now, which is a sub-plot in itself.
In Leeds and Sheffield, the Green Party will be pleased with how they performed, gaining six seats in each. In those big cities Labour was squeezed by both sides.
Both the Greens and Reform making life uncomfortable for them - Labour lost overall control in Leeds.
Politically now there seems to be a bigger divide between major cities and those towns that surround them.
Reform UK did well in those areas that voted the strongest for Brexit a decade ago.
Whereas the Greens picked up seats in bigger cities with younger people.
The Lib Dems perhaps didn't do as well as they expected, but they still picked up over 20 seats here in Yorkshire.
In those places that had elections this year, Yorkshire is overwhelmingly a Reform county. They have twice as many councillors as Labour from these elections.
Increasing that number from zero councillors in some places is an absolutely incredible result for a new party.
No matter who picked up the seats, in Yorkshire it was red rosettes that were the losers. Over 200 Labour councillors lost their jobs.
One prominent Labour insider thinks it was down to a failure of maths from the Labour leadership.
Labour's overwhelming win at the 2024 general election gave them false confidence about how popular they were - the theory goes.
Margins were thinner than that on the ground and despite having a Labour MP, some traditional Labour areas weren't as solid as the national party thought.
That overconfidence brought the decision to cut Winter Fuel Payments.
It did not go down well. And that for this Labour campaigner is where it all broke down.
It all comes back to Labour leaders though and as the conversations about Starmer's job continue. Another knight of the realm Sir Steve Houghton lost his running of Barnsley Council.
He's been doing that job since 1996.
"The government has got to get a grip of the discontent that there is left in the country."
"There are a lot of people that have seen decline for the last 30 years and people are fed up with it."
"It brought us Brexit; it got Boris Johnson into the red wall; it's getting Nigel Farage here again."
"National politicians need to wake up to this problem; more of the same is not going to do it."
"You've got to deal with it now because if you don't it will be worse come the general election."
Houghton will be clearing his office this week. Like many of his Labour colleagues, he faces life in opposition in towns that for the first time in their history have rejected the party.