England&Wales Local Elections

So is anyone from the UK casting their eyes over the current projected local election results and wondering "Can Blair hang on?"

Anyone also noticed that the Conservatives have taken serious gains despite being far to the right of Labour and having no clear policy agenda?

How about the increase in popularity of the UKIP and Green parties. Are the UKIP the new BNP?

I thought it was about time that someone stuck up a local election topic, what does everyone think about the results?

The news isn't good for the conservatives, they are in the same position with the same share of the vote as William Hague achieved in the 2000 local elections. A year later, Labour got a landslide victory.

Judging by the results, I'd guess that Bliar can certainly hold on and win the next general election.

It will be interesting to see how UKIP do in the euro-results - very well I should think.

If so, Blair will have no chance of winning a referendum on the Euro-consitution and may decide to resign if he loses.

If only one of the mainstream political parties would have the guts to suggest withdrawing from the EU completely - they'd romp home.

Many people in the UK want out of Europe - or want it to return no more than a free trade area as was originally promised - and that view is not reflected by the mainstream parties at all.

Lets wait and see the final results.

So far:
Councillors Councils
PARTY +/- TOT +/- TOT
CON 101 650 6 30
LAB -211 773 -7 14
LD 67 533 -2 5
PC 9 27 0 0
OTH 1 157 3 34

BBC Election Coverage

Many people only vote in General Elections, plus many would have been demonstarting against Labours part in going to Iraq.

I don't think the people are mad enough to let the Tories win a General Election. Most people have absolutely no idea about who to vote for. They tend to vote for who will benefit themselves as opposed to who can do better for the greater cause. The General Public are amazingly fickle and easily manipulated.


[edit on 11-6-2004 by Koka]

It is interesting that turnout is actually up across the whole of the country, nearly 40% last time I looked. So this is a more significant vote than the last local elections with only about 31% turnout. That said, still not near to general election turnout.

I do think the whole anti-Europe thing is slightly stilly. 50% of our trade is with Europe, 25% with the US, we have to align ourselves with one of the major trading blocks so which should it be? The problem with the US is that we will perpetually be the junior partner, or as an American put it yesterday "America's bi*ch". So, it's that, or being a major partner in Europe where we could have significant influence.

If we move out of Europe our economy will collapse. But there is still a strong anti-European movement in this country. I guess it's mostly fueled by the tabloids and the Daily Mail (is there a difference?)... In reality most Europeans are close to us in terms of politics and culture, but the language barrier is a major pro for the US side of the argument. Couple that with a large amount of US ownership inside UK media and you have an interesting recipe for conflict.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. But I do hope this vote is enough to convince Blair to go, it's telling that 4 years ago there were 54 photos of Blair on 24 local election pamphlets, this year there were 0 photos of him, and 0 mentions of his name. Tony Blair is an electoral dead-weight for the labour party...