Election results. posted by Richard Seymour

A really interesting mix of results so far. Respect has gained some councillors, and for some reason Michael Lavalette is so popular in Preston that he won more votes than all the other candidates combined, and we polled some extremely strong seconds and thirds. New Labour obviously got stuffed, mostly by seats transferring to the Tories it seems (both Labour and the Lib Dems have lost seats). That isn't encouraging, and suggests that Cameron's snake-oil has made him a more comfortable vote for centrists than any of his creepy predecessors. I bet that Cameron has won over a large swathe of old-fashioned Tory 'wets' who had previously deserted to New Labour and the Lib Dems. Aside from that, Labour voters almost certainly stayed away in droves. The Lib Dems have done poorly in no small part because of their hopeless leader, and their new 'Orange Book' set of policies.

The BNP scum didn't do as well nationally as it might have expected when polls said it could get 2% of the overall vote and when it decided to field 750 candidates. It would once have been difficult for them to get that many people to a meeting. They didn't get anything for their money in the West Midlands, lost Broxourne, and picked up a couple in Leicester. The preponderance of their candidates appears to have been in Yorkshire, the West Midlands, and the North-West - and so far it doesn't look like they have made a breakthrough. That said, the facists seem to have made an inroad into parts of Wales that are traditionally strongly Labour. Still, congratulations to the antifascist activists who have tirelessly exposed Griffin's Nazis for what they are.

Sadly, Tommy Sheridan has lost his seat with 4.1% of the vote, suffering in part from the rush to the SNP, who are taking seats from everyone, particularly Labour and the smaller parties. With the charismatic Alex Salmond at the helm, and a 'left' face put on for voters, especially with regard to the war in Iraq and nuclear weapons, the SNP have capitalised on disaffection with the government even while support for their key policy - independence - remains in the mid-twenties.

Labels: bnp scum, elections, labour, lib dems, respect, sheridan, snp, solidarity, tories