The post election comedown.
No alarms and no surprises from my modern day rotten borough. The Labour candidate did slightly better than last time, if my memory serves me correctly - grabbing second place with a whopping 262 votes. The Tory got 1,218, while all his opponents combined managed only 488 between them.For some reason known only to myself, I spent the best part of the night/morning watching the BBC coverage of the results as they came in. There's little more painful than witnessing in succession, John Reid, Hillary Armstrong, John Hutton and finally, Hazel Blears try and fail to put a gloss on the massive Labour losses. It wasn't the wipeout that had been predicted by some, but 485 lost seats is still impossible to put a positive spin on. This was Labour being cut down to its core vote that will always turnout, previous supporters staying at home or returning to the Tories, especially in the south. The party simply has no one to blame except itself; this isn't the fault of the individual councillors, it's down to the party being prepared to indulge Blair's vanity for far too long.
This couldn't have been more exemplified by Blears and her eternal loyalty to her master. As some of the poor results came in from Wales, she had the audacity to suggest that this was down to there not being enough public service reform, that Welsh Labour with its policy of "clear red water" between it and Westminster was part of the problem. In fact, as anyone apart from Blears could have pointed out, the only overall losses Labour have suffered were to Plaid Cymru, who had campaigned on a nakedly socialist platform, the exception being Cardiff North which fell to the Tories who had targeted it relentlessly. The reason that the losses weren't heavier was that Labour in Wales still maintains some of its principles which it has long since abandoned in England.
A similar story has emerged in Scotland. While England has moved to the right, Scotland and Wales have shifted back towards the left. The SNP victory is "historic", but they must be secretly disappointed that their major opinion poll leads were cut back to in the end a win of just a single seat more than Labour. The SNP profited in particular from the implosion of the Scottish Socialists, and despite the opposition of the Scottish Sun to independence, running scare stories, they have Murdoch to thank for destroying Tommy Sheridan, who failed to win a seat with his new party, Solidarity. Just how much the SNP mean what they say is open to question: their opposition to the renewal of Trident and to the Iraq war is not going to mean much when they can't do anything about either, while support for independence itself is probably more popular in England than it is north of the border.
Probably worthy of more comment than the actual SNP win is the monumental cock-up of trying to run different elections on the same day with little apparent input on how people were supposed to vote correctly. While it's unlikely that any results might have been different if the spoiled ballots had been counted, the actual disenfranchising of up to 100,000 voters is something we thought was more associated with stripping the rolls of black voters in Florida than in the Western Isles. It doesn't augur well for the SNP's attempt to ram through a referendum on independence only with "additional questions"; it seems plenty of people found it difficult enough to fill in ballots where you had to either mark an x or put your choice in order of 1, 2, 3.
Best news of all was the comprehensive failure of the fascists. This was meant to be their big year, with immigration high up the agenda, and with their largest field of candidates in years, yet they made a net gain of a single seat. Such a result is bound to lead to an implosion within the party, when discontent is at such a high but they can't make a breakthrough. The local activists and councillors across the country deserve major credit for their efforts in stopping them.
As for the biggest and most unexpected losers on the night, they were undoubtedly the Liberal Democrats. They made no progress whatsoever in Scotland or Wales, and lost over 240 council seats. Whether this is down to a poor campaign, the switching of voters back to the Tories after playing coyly with the Libs, the end of the bounce their opposition to Iraq gave them, or the blandness of Ming Campbell is hard to tell, with all probably playing a factor. The most punishing thing for Campbell may not be the losses, but the appearance of Charles Kennedy on Question Time, coming across as well as ever. It's still not beyond the imagination that Campbell could yet be deposed, although Kennedy is an unlikely candidate.
David Cameron's claim that the Tories showing was "stunning" is by the same measures a little hollow. They're still nowhere in Scotland and Wales and in the big cities in the North West, even if they've made slight progress in places like Sunderland. If Gordon Brown were to call a snap election, which he certainly isn't, there's nothing to suggest they'd grab a majority, with a minority government being the most likely outcome. In fact, this is possibly the best possible outcome. Such a result would mean either Labour or the Tories having to call on the Lib Dems to help them form a government, which might finally mean getting PR at Westminster, even if yesterday's ballot wasn't exactly the greatest advertisement for it. Wales and Scotland shows that the left or left policies can still get a result: it's just that Labour has abandoned it.
Labels: Hazel Blears, local elections 2007, Ming Campbell, Scottish National Party
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