Seems like great news from the Motherland. The results are coming in as I type, and a quick glance at an electoral map shows the local councils are turning a beautiful shade of blue.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm
A flood of votes away from Labour is no real surprise. What is of interest to me is the response by the Labour party. Also curious is the LibDem vote, or the lack thereof.
In recent days both Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith (famous on this side of the pond for her refusal to grant Michael Savage entry to the UK, not the he wanted to come over or anything, but -you know – if he did, he wouldn’t be allowed. Oh, thank-you Jacqui for protecting us British from the rants of someone we have never heard of and don’t care about, but will now seek out online to see what the fuss is about) have resigned their cabinet posts. Jacqui Smith left due to criticism over her general ineptness, but also her somewhat fruity expenses; Hazel Blears’s expenses also forced her out, but her quite public differences of opinion with Gordon Brown (he thinks he’s pretty good, she does not) would have done for her anyway.
The two women have been followed in the last 24 hours by James Purnell and John Hutton. Purnell’s dramatic exit as the polls closed was somewhat predicted: we knew someone was going, but their identity was guess work. His was supposedly, doubtless in his mind anyway, to precipitate a rush of colleagues who would similarly declare that they were resigning for the good of the party and that Gordon should too. Well, like the previous attempted ‘coups’ it has fizzled out. Hutton did indeed follow – but he declared his support for Brown as he did so. Purnell’s friends, ie David Miliband, have reaffirmed their loyalty to the PM. Whoops!
So, Gordon is safe to limp on for the time being.
And the reaction to the local elections? Dawn Primarolo has given us her interpretation of the results:
“[It] is clearly disappointing, lots of good Labour councillors have lost their seats. It’s undeniable that the voters are angry and it focused around the issues at Westminster and MPs expenses. “
Hmmm. Unless by “issues at Westminster” she means the dogged refusal to call an election, then she is slightly wide of the mark. What about these issues: ID cards, standards in education, bizarre political correctness campaigns, the economy, the Lisbon Treaty, the encroachment of the nanny state … and so forth?
And so to the LibDems. From the results so far it (and they are by no means all in) it appears that although they have taken seats from Labour, they have also lost out to the Tory resurgence. As the LibDems are the tradtional ‘protest vote’ this is very interesting should it continue. It would appear that the protest voters have either protested by abstaining or by voting independent. The latter is evident as the independent share of the vote has risen, the former is more difficult to judge.
Is this a sign that the country is in favour of the Conservatives as opposed to merely disliking Labour? We shall wait and see!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/elections/article6435563.ece
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