The text reads:

I pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative

xD.

In terms of logistics, I would make three suggestions. Given the layout, it’s important that each table isn’t talking amongst itself thereby making so much noise that you can’t hear the speaker. Secondly, there are two breakout rooms. I would like to see the two used for an hour each for anyone to stand up a present an idea for five minutes. Thirdly, I’d like to see it recorded and ideally live streamed. Certainly, the plenary sessions could be on uStream or BlogTV.

—fold—

I start with some of the themes Sunny suggests, and add in some more. This is by no means exhaustive; just some things that interest me.

London

Firstly, I don’t think anyone who can’t beat Ken for the Labour nomination will be able to beat Boris. However, I’m not convinced that Boris will run again; it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion and it seems the main reason he would stay on is that there is no obvious heir apparent from the Conservative ranks, certainly not with with any significant profile. If the competition is between Ken and Oona, I would favour the former on the basis that he stands a better chance of building a broad coalition that goes beyond the Labour party. We will need to develop a narrative on the Conservative administration of City Hall, and I would suggest that it should focus on a lack of big ideas and not making the case for London in Whitehall and Westminster. Boris has also had a few bizarre flights of fancy – Boris Island Airport and the Boris Bus (especially its cost) – while scrapping ideas like Cross-River Tram that would have been beneficial to London.

When it comes to the Mayoralty, I have no idea who the LibDem candidate will be (although Susan Kramer is available). The choice of LibDem candidate may well indicate how London LibDems feel about the ménage à deux and whether they feel the Orange Book tendency has moved their party in a way with which they feel uncomfortable. We will have to determine whether attacking the LibDems for their coalition with the Tories is sensible, responsible and effective, and that may well depend on who the candidate is.

I am plotting an idea to set up a London political podcast. I will do a separate post on that as and when I have settled my ideas, but some of the ideas that have come out on that are important. We will need to look to the growth in Labour councillors and councils to be the starting point of a fightback against the Tories in the capital.

Wales and Scotland

We must avoid making this project too London-centric. Yes, it is being hosted in the capital and London has many millions, but we should look at the other devolved areas in Britain: Wales and Scotland. All three could learn from each other, but they may be particularly useful in working out a tack to take with regard to the LibDems. We also have to work out how we strengthen the progressive position at Holyrood and the Senedd, given that the former has extensive powers and it seems likely that the latter will be gaining similar powers. Alternate centres of power in Wales, Scotland and London may well be able to slow at least some of the damage I fear the current administration will bring.

The West Lothian Question

I think that progressives need to seriously consider the idea of English regions.

There is a lot of talk about devolution, giving power to the people and so on. We need to work out what that actually means. If we regionalised, we would see alternate centres of power. To give them meaning, they need powers substantial powers and we should consider the inclusion of policing, transport, housing, spatial planning and, potentially, health. I feel that counties are too small and too easily controlled by the centre to be able to effectively devise and implement policy.

Regions would mean the main parties would have to have some sort of meaningful regional structure. Much as I hope the regions would be able to stand up to Whitehall, I hope that meaningful regional structures within political parties would weaken the wearisome control from the centre to which so many people object.

I would hope that this would lead to the economic weight of the country shifting away from London and away from financial services and giving parts of England outside of London the opportunity to be something more than vassals.

We have spoken much about the sad state of local media. I merely raise the question as to whether regions would cause a re-alignment of newspapers, radio and television so that there could be meaningful coverage and scrutiny of politics and competition between outlets.

I reject the idea of and English Parliament as an answer to the West Lothian question out of hand (a Parliament for forty-eight million people isn’t much less unitary than one for sixty-one million).

We should emphasise that this would not create an extra layer of bureaucracy. There are already Government Offices for all the English regions along with Regional Development Agencies and Local Authorities Leaders’ Boards. This is about democratising those structures.

Ultimately, I think we have seen a flourishing of the London, Welsh and Scottish blogospheres that is indicative of better relations between citizen and state in those three areas and I want the same for the rest of England. This will mean addressing some of the mistakes and lack of ambition from the failed north-east referendum.

The LibDems

We should pursue a strategy of splitting the Social Democrats from the Liberals/Orange Book in the Lib Dems with a view to one side joining the Tories and the other Labour. We should make it clear that you cannot go into coalition with the Tories and call yourself progressive.

I think we should advocate that the cuts are being implemented too soon; that if they are going to do a zero-budget process, it has to be zero-budget across everything¹; that these cuts are also the political desire of the Orange Book and Tories; ensure efficiency where they are made; oppose the most egregiously unfair cuts; maintain support for industry.

That having been said, we need to work out how we can use social democratically-minded LibDems to control the excesses of the coalition.

Others

• Low pay. We must continue to support the living wage, consider the benefits of a citizen’s wage and ensure that the minimum wage is increased appropriately.
• Europe. As people will know, I am pretty pro-European. However, we should explicitly say that there should be no further integration for a couple of Parliaments to give the Lisbon changes and expansion time to bed down. We could expand to the relatively small countries of the Balkans when the time is right, but we will need to be in an economically strong position to welcome Turkey to the EU when the time is right. It should be made clear that member state of the EU have the right to nationalise, municipalise and deprivatise and that the principles of the free market should not prevent this (although I would retain the state aid prohibitions as they are).
• Co-ops. It strikes me that this is a movement to which we should reach out; surprisingly large, but often very local and potentially powerful for community organising.
• The BNP. We need to consider what’s going to happen next with the BNP and their fellow-travellers. I welcome their thorough trouncing at the recent election and I look forward to Richard Barnbrook being invited to pursue interests of his own choosing by the good people of Barking and Dagenham. However, I have three concerns. One is that we will become complacent about the BNP et al. and that they will be able to regroup. We must keep the pressure on them. A second is that the BNP’s problems may lead to more support for the EDL; while they are clearly not going to get anywhere electorally, they are violent. Thirdly, we need to explicitly oppose and combat the rising populist nationalism that we see in UKIP, sections of the Conservative party, sections of the media and, frankly, amongst people who should know better.
• Women’s rights. We must defend the right to abortion. I feel the likelihood of an attempt at restricting it in this Parliament is high and I feel there is a good chance it could be successful. I feel that we should also be looking at Norwegian-style rules for gender-balance in the boardroom. We should discuss the sex industry and the objectification of women.
• Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t want to belabour these subjects. For the moment, I want to set aside whether they were a good idea or not, and just look at the conduct of the campaigns. It is clear that there were mistakes and shortcomings. We should look at what they were, how they happened and how we stop them happening again. In order to do it properly, we must be able to do it without always going back to the morality of the conflicts. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider the morality of the conflicts; I’m saying it’s not the only issue.

I’ll probably do something on electoral reform in the coming days.

xD.

1 – Including the NHS and Trident. I am prepared to at least consider that (for instance) industrial promotion is currently more important than (for instance) fertility treatment. I am not saying that is the case, but that we should be prepared to consider it.

I’ve been thinking about the next election. There seems to be a decent chance that there will be a hung parliament. It is, of course, possible that one party will be so close to an overall majority that they will form an alliance with one of the small parties to take them over fifty per cent.

It seems rather more likely that either the Conservatives or Labour will require the support of the Liberal Democrats to form a government. This puts the LibDems in a bit of a quandary. I’m quite sure that if the LibDems form a coalition with the Conservatives, I will, at the following election, be telling people that voting LibDem is the same as voting Conservative, and I bet my opposite number will be doing the same..

There are advantages to forming a coalition – ministries, influence and profile. You would be able to exercise the nuclear option of withdrawing from government and forcing an election at any time and stop some of the more egregious policies from coming to fruition. I would say that those advantages could well, like fairy gold, disappear in the morning light.

As you know, there are some people in your party who find the idea of backing the Tories anathema (we used to call them the SDP, and with the Trots well and truly purged from Labour, it’s not that far to move back) and some who find the idea of backing Labour anathema (we used to call them the Liberals). Splits and defections are not impossible; remember that you’ll be backing the ruling party for perhaps four years and will be part-responsible for all their actions for that time. Of course, there might be a snap election to get rid of the coalition partner, and then you’d be in a very unfortunate position.

You’d also have to toe the party line. Not an easy thing; the Tories are increasingly anti-European and there are a number of rising stars who do not, frankly, seem very liberal.

I think this would be bad. I think we need a couple more parties represented in Parliament, not one less, and we certainly need a small-l liberal party to counteract the authoritarian tendencies of both Conservatives and Labour.

So what to do?

Well, you can still hold the balance of power without having to risk attaching yourself too closely to one party. Offer whichever party has most votes (as opposed to seats) confidence and supply. Tell them you’ll vote through the budget and against any motion of no-confidence. On everything else, vote as you would like to; support the good, amend the ugly and stop the bad. You can still force an election if you want if things become too bad, you’re not tied into supporting policies which are a long way away from what you want and you’re making sure that your party stays together.

Moreover, you can honestly say that you’re making sure the country is governed by providing confidence and supply but that you are still holding the government to account. You retain your integrity.

Best wishes,

Dave.

The headlines are, with my comments underneath:

Half of people aged 18-34 (48% of people aged 18-24 years old and 49% of those aged 25-34) said they would be more likely to vote for a party committed to an increase in spending on education

In other news, the Pope has released a statement saying that he is indeed a Catholic and a bear has been seen coming out of the woods saying ‘do you mind?’¹. People understand the value of education.

Nearly three-quarters of adults (73%) agreed that giving young people affordable access to local education and training would reduce crime and anti-social behavior

Gordon Brown’s announcement on education, training and work for young people – a carrot of availability for everyone and a stick of reducing benefits for not taking offers – picks up on that in two ways. It addresses the immediate concern but also assuages fears about young ‘uns hanging around with nothing to do.

Four-fifths 82% of adults in the Norwich North constituency agreed that every local person who met entry standards should be entitled to a free place at a local college or university

Fees were never popular.

One quarter (24%) percent of respondents said they trusted the Conservatives to invest most in education. One in five (20%) chose Labour, 10% opted for the Liberal Democrats, 4% for Green and 2% chose Ukip.

Which is worrying, to be honest. Education should be one of our strong suits.

If there was an election tomorrow 34% of people would vote for the Conservatives, 30% for Labour, 15% for the Liberal Democrats, 14% for the Green Party, and 7% for others.

A 4% lead can easily be overturned. The majority at the 2005 election was about 11%; that does mean we’ve lost a lot of support, but given the expenses scandal took down the previous incumbent, Ian Gibson, it is perhaps not all that bad for Labour.

xD.

1 – Shamelessly nicked from Mitch Benn of The Now Show.

Here’s the data he presents, from PSR Keele, as a chart.

What this tells me is that, in terms of actually winning the election, assuming that Labour do at least moderately well in Scotland and Wales, it’s only England that matters. We need to wait to see what effects devolution has had. Since 1998, there have only been two general elections; we don’t know if, for instance, disaffected Labour voters will vote for Plaid Cymru or the SNP, move to the Liberals or stay at home.

xD.

From today’s Lords (link here; it may stop working tomorrow morning when Hansard is posted):

Lord Oakeshott: [...] Documents leaked to the Liberal Democrats, which appear to detail systematic tax avoidance on a grand scale by Barclays, were injuncted last week. The Sunday Times and the Guardian had already made them front-page news and these documents are widely available on the internet from sites such as Twitter, wikileaks.org, docstoc.com and gabbr.com. Yet the Guardian had to remove them from its website and cannot tell its readers where to find them. These documents describe deals worth billions of pounds set up by the bank in order to make money out of depriving the UK and foreign exchequers of revenue. Barclays would not last for one minute without the British taxpayer standing behind it, yet it is holding out one hand for taxpayers’ money while it picks taxpayers’ pockets with tax avoidance activities on the other. [...]

I think congratulations are in order to Lord Oakeshott. Aside from that, it does suggest that any other banks who have unfortunate leaks are going to have to think twice about injunctions in the small hours if parliamentary privilege is going to be used to tell people where those memos can be found. I am not sure of my ground, but I think I’m right in saying that the actual text of the memoranda is still covered by the injunction; it is only the fact that “these documents are widely available on the internet from sites such as Twitter, wikileaks.org, docstoc.com and gabbr.com” which may be repeated.

xD.

I took away a few things from it all.

- Firstly, I was gratified that the nutty left wasn’t there but that there was a broad range, from government ministers through ordinary Labour party members, trades unionists, Greens, Lib Dems and that they were largely willing to come together for an occasion like this. I did see George Galloway floating around, though, but without any groupies.

- Secondly, there was an acceptance that, the rights and wrongs of high finance notwithstanding, London (and the UK) had been overly dependent upon them and that we would now have to find, ahem, alternative employment. A lot of people thought this could be to do with green innovation.

- Thirdly, a lot of people seem to understand that we have to work to maintain the vibrancy and toleration of our city.

- Fourthly, it wasn’t just the free market ideology that had been hit; progressives needed to re-evaluate their positions, and quickly, in this brave new world.

- Fifthly, there was a widespread feeling that we should work across London, not just focussing on the Mayoralty. That having been said, progressives would have to work hard to remove Johnson in 2012.

Below the fold are my notes and thoughts on the sessions I attended. I don’t know if anyone’s collating these, but it would make sense, if there are future events like this, for something like Liberal Conspiracy to have someone at each breakout session. Some of the other bloggers I saw there include the Tory Troll, Mayor Watch, Boris Watch, Peter Kenyon, Dave Hill, Sunny Hundal and Steve Cowan.

xD.

This is not going to be chronological; if anyone’s that interested, the schedule for the day is here. It’s probably a good sign that for each of the breakout sessions, there was more than one I wanted to attend.

First plenary
Second plenary
First breakout – Learning lessons from London Votes 2008
Second breakout – Transport
Third breakout – Blogging London

First plenary

Ken ‘the once and future king mayor’ Livingstone gave the first talk. He mentioned a generational turning point. There had been a broad, social democratic consensus in the quarter-century following the Second World War. I think that point is debatable; the situation constrained state actions to a great degree, but the effect is perhaps the same. Following that, Friedman et al came to popularity (and a particular mention for mobility of capital being increased) but that era has now passed with the current financial crisis.

In a rather witty remark, Ken said that he was sad Reagan hadn’t seen the collapse of his dream before saying

I expect an apology from Thatcher imminently

The question, then, was as to the new structures that should be put in place. One that drew near-universal applause was that every person should pay tax on money in the country where they earn it and, similarly, corporations should pay taxes on profit in the country where they make them. This would have to be done through global and international agreement, effectively closing off tax havens.

It could not be denied, according to Ken, that the economies of London and the UK would be damaged because of the problems in the City. As a solution, he proposed that London should be at the forefront of the new technologies that we, as a species, need to deal with the serious environmental situation; on this, Ken painted a bleak picture, largely agreeing with the Tyndall centre.

Closing, he mentioned the need for greater support of London’s dynamic cultural centre and a need to recognise the importance of happiness – and so to put in place a progressive consensus for the future of the city.

Second up was the playwright, Bonnie Greer, who started by recalling two huge, generational shifts through which she had lived; the Sixties and now. In both instances, a part of the shift is technological. Then, it was the television, now it is the internet and mobile technology. In both instances, older people colonise the space made by young people who either very quickly adapt or grow up with these new technologies.

Greer went on to say that, soon, most humans will live in cities, which will have consequences for how we view race. Nevertheless, manufacturing will return but it will be high-tech. There will have to be greater cross-generational cooperation as the idea of a passive pensioner changes to that of an active senior who may have retired but still has two or three decades of living ahead of them.

Greer concluded by opining that political parties would more and more be vehicles for charismatic individuals unless they learned to communicate – properly – with Gen-Y, Gen-Z and the Millennial generation.

Next was Eric Hobsbawm.

If I understood Hobsbawm correctly, he argued that the ideologies of the ‘short twentieth century’ – socialism unbound and capitalism unbound – were both, now, bankrupt. The former failed at the end of the eighties while the latter’s thirty year dominance, although we don’t know how severe the current crisis will be, had ended with it. The future, in short, belongs to a mixed economy.

He added that even the left parties of Europe of rich Europe were attached to this free-market fundamentalism, describing Blair and, until recently, Brown as ‘Thatcher with trousers’.

Certainly, the central idea of parties like Labour had not been soviet socialism, but rather that the market would take care of growth and the government of distribution. That position had been undermined by globalisation. It therefore needed refitting, but instead swallowed free market ideology whole. Because of decisions then and the balance of the economy now, the recession will be harder for us.

The question, then, is whether we use old tools like nationalisation. The answer was ‘not necessarily’ as, in something I thought slightly contradicted his opening, Hobsbawm thought we didn’t know how to get out of the current crisis because our leaders are addicted to ‘free market schmaltz’, questioning whether we had really moved away from the idea that profit-making companies were always good; that a large gap between rich and poor was acceptable; that increasing GDP is the sine qua non of good governance.

In order to do this, it was necessary for people to understand that GDP is a means and not an end and that the end – or something closer to the end – would be jobs, house, schools and the like. A good quip: “Poor secondary schooling isn’t changed by the fact that UCL could field a football team composed solely of Nobel prize winners”.

He finished, in his gloomy manner, by saying that climate change would mean a big shift from private to public, bigger than that envisioned by the Government and sooner than we all think. “Time is not on our side”.

Harriet Harman had the unfortunate task of following on from Hobsbawm. I say unfortunate because he really seemed to hold the audience. Nevertheless, Harman did well, starting by identifying people’s presence at the conference as part of a new zeitgeist, related to the real apprehension people felt, particularly about jobs. Although we are in uncharted waters, the Labour deputy leader said that the government would not be like Thatcher about losing jobs.

Something I found particularly interesting was the to- and fro- about Obama. Harman said that not only was Obama not going to fail, but that he had already succeeded in changing both how the world sees the USA and how people see themselves. A large welcome should be organised for him. A later question challenged Harman on this, saying that Obama should be judged on action rather than rhetoric. Harman simply replied that we should support him in building a progressive future – which he was doing – and received strong support from the audience.

Responding to Hobsbawm, Harman said that all tools would be used, and gave a list of what the government was doing to ameliorate the crisis. Specifically, bringing forward capital infrastructure expenditure was mentioned, in contrast to the Tories who wanted to cut those back at the time of a recession.

Harman emphasised the need for coordination of international action and the multiplier effect of states working together and accepted Hobsbawm’s point that a strong economy was a means and not an end. Agreeing with Greer, Harman added that our new economic arrangements would have to be fairer and based on high tech industries; £20m bonuses would no longer be acceptable.

To that end, what Polly Toynbee described as ‘socialism in one clause‘ – the duty on public bodies to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Harman closed by saying that there were those who would exploit the current situation to build racial divisions. At the June 4 elections, it was imperative to work for a high turnout because there is a real chance of the BNP gaining an MEP. Labour would be building on the work of Jon Cruddas (who chaired the session) and Margaret Hodge; Martin Salter would be coordinating that with support from Frank Dobson.

I found it interesting that people listened to Harman really quite attentively. I’ve often seen people shout abuse at any New Labour minister, but the couple that did received very short shrift from the audience. That’s not to say that everyone necessarily agreed, but that they wanted to listen. I assume that Harriet Harman was invited in her capacity as deputy party leader, but it does seem she was acceptable to the assembled.

There was a lot of support from the audience for questions on the need to repeal anti-trades union legislation and in opposition to trades unions’ support for the third runway at Heathrow. Hobsbawm did not directly answer a question on which member of the government could lead the country out of its current crisis, but did say that long periods of effective isolation from normal, run-of-the-mill society at the top of politics did mean that senior politicians lose contact with the ordinary.

Harman liked the idea of resurrecting the ‘Claimants’ Commission’ from GLC days. This, apparently, brought together people who claimed benefits to work out responses to proposed changes in benefits arrangements. A sex worker wanted to ask Harman a question; unfortunately, the one turned into five and the questioner was shouted down, the chair having immediately previously asked people to keep their questions short. The response from Harman was, essentially, that although a small percentage of sex workers freely chose from amongst other options to sell sex, the allowance of that particular market would force a lot of people into it who did not have a choice.

A few closing remarks. Hobsbawm felt that Labour and the unions had sold the traditional idea of a class struggle down the river as they didn’t strike and didn’t demonstrate. Lots of BNP voters thought they were voting for a class struggle; we cannot say that any class struggle is good.

Bonnie Greer said that old left-right paradigms were not working and that the Brits ‘did themselves down too much’.

Ken said that a lot of the questions had been looking backward. The progressive movement was in a weaker position than Thatcher and Reagan had been at the end of the Seventies. They had had a project; ‘we’ need to recraft our traditional ideals.

Second plenary

First breakout – lessons from the London elections

Second breakout: Transport for a progressive London

Third breakout: Blogging London

The headline news is, of course, the victory of Boris Johnson. It is no secret (at least if you’ve been reading this blog!) that I was and remain a strong supporter of Ken Livingstone and that I have very grave doubts about the Johnson mayoralty. I have tried to draw a comparison between relations between the GLA and the boroughs on transport and on housing. On housing, there is no doubt that some boroughs – particularly Tory boroughs, and particularly Wandsworth (11%) and Westminster (10%) – are doing very little in terms of affordable housing. The figures in brackets refer to the amount of newly-built affordable housing as a fraction of total new build in the boroughs; the requirement is for fifty per cent. Despite the protestations of ‘New Boris’, many Conservatives in the capital will resent interference and instructions from on high and simply do not see affordable housing as a priority. I believe the same problems will occur when it comes to the Freedom Pass and other aspects of transport, such as bus routing. Without co-ordination and, indeed, compulsion from the centre, the boroughs will do what they perceive as best for their patch, rather than what is best for the totality of London. It represents a step back from strategic governance of London.

Staying with transport, Johnson has a pretty good starting point: the Bill authorising Crossrail is working its way through Parliament; London Overground has come on-stream and work to improve it is taking place; the East London line is being extended and plugged into London Overground. There are many challenges, not least of which is Crossrail. Johnson will, likely as not, try to make good on his pledge to scrap or, at least, redeploy the bendy buses in London. This, combined with his rather creaky mathematics on a new Routemaster, could end up in a lot of money being spent in rather inefficient and unproductive ways. If we take as a single example the 507 route that connects Waterloo and Victoria stations, we see the advantages of the bendy buses for some routes; few people are travelling without paying as most have travelcards and the ease and speed of ingress and egress is important on a route that is carrying full busloads of commuters at peak times. I understand that Mr Johnson wants to develop river services. While it sounds like a nice idea, the tidal nature of the Thames means that times will never be the same from day to day. At best, it will remain a minor part of London’s transport mix.

My concern is that much of the good work of the last eight years will be either lost or not used to best effect. Livingstone had a vision for London and a vision for London’s transport that encompassed a variety of modes, saw cycling and walking as part of the mix, and put being able to move about, even if you’re poor, as a high priority. For this reason we saw, for instance, London Overground to facilitate circular (day-to-day living) rather than just radial (in-and-out journeys for work in the centre) journeys and the driving through of the Tube to one of the poorest boroughs, Hackney, that did not have a tube station to call its own. Equally, the ambitious plans for further trams and the Greenwich Riverside Transit bus scheme and the like must lie under a cloud.

There is a particularly dark cloud over the Freedom Pass. Shortly before the election, Mr Johnson announced Brian Cooke, chair of London Travelwatch, as one of his supporters. I wrote about it at some length here, but with an advisor who has panned the Freedom Pass and a light-touch attitude towards making the boroughs fund the Pass, I am doubtful that it will be extended in any meaningful way and concerned for its future as a whole.

Beyond that, I fear that the environment and congestion will worsen in London as Johnson is at best lukewarm about the c-charge and opposed outright to the £25 charge for the most polluting cars. I also remain concerned at the effect of Boris shooting his mouth off at the wrong time.

Lib Dems

The Liberal Democrats fell apart. Brian Paddick was not the man to lead them to a bright new dawn in London. It would appear that Boris Johnson’s victory is due to Lib Dems and UKIPpers supporting Johnson, with their shares of the mayoral vote dropping 5.2 and 5.1% respectively with the Tories’ rising by 14.3%. To be honest, there’s not much more to say than that a resurgent Tory party can take votes from Lib Dems and some former ‘dissatisfied Tories’, which bodes not well for Labour in the next general election.

The Lib Dems on the Assembly now hold the balance of power. There are eleven Tories; the eight Labour AMs and two Green AMs mean that, no matter which way the BNP go, the Lib Dems must choose between red and blue. It will be interesting to see which way they generally go and whether they articulate a coherent vision for London.

The Greens

I make no secret of my positive disposition towards the Green party. I think they will be disappointed not to have achieved another seat, but given that all the traffic was towards Johnson and Labour was going hell for leather to make sure that everyone who might vote Labour did vote Labour. As my friend Aled, who ran for the Greens, says in the comments

“Despite the major party Labour-Tory ’squeeze’ which crushed the Lib Dems, we held onto our 3 seats and weren’t that far off 3. Our vote stayed pretty much the same as last time and our constituency votes rose in most places, meaning we saved all deposits except one.

We were also a clear fourth in Mayoral 1st Preferences and came 3rd on 2nd Preferences (however meaningless that is!).”

The BNP

The BNP have a seat on the assembly. Across the capital, 5.33% of voters chose to vote for them. It behoves all of us to watch Richard Barnbrook like a hawk. The only good thing is that the BNP’s share of the vote barely rose, by one-fifth of one per cent, and that they were unable to win a constituency member even in City & East. There, they did poll 9.62%, which is still pretty worrying.

I am not sure what long-term effects the BNP’s victory will have. It is their first win off a local council, but they had been hoping for two seats. They will seek to capitalise on the publicity and the salary and expenses will be useful; however, their previous elected officials have been woefully inadequate, frequently not turned up to meetings and attracted allegations of sleaze pretty quickly. It will hopefully galvanise people to work against the BNP in east London, much as happened in the West Midlands. In the short term, I am very concerned about what will happen; it is all to easy to see an increase in racially-motivated violence, as happened in Tower Hamlets when the BNP gained a councillor.

The Left

The left don’t matter in London. Despite being able to cast a second preference for Ken, only 16,976 gave their first preferences to Lindsey German and the Left List for the mayoralty. By way of comparison, their 0.68% share of first preferences is less than the 0.91% for UKIP, 1.60% for the Christian Choice and represents slightly less than a quarter of the 2.84% who voted for Richard Barnbrook of the BNP.

There is scarcely more comfort for the left on the Assembly. Respect (George Galloway) only ran in one constituency, City & East, and came third behind the Conservatives. The Left List (the SWP part of Respect) did best in the Enfield & Haringey constituency, where they won 3.5% of the vote.

I would go so far as to say that the only thing achieved by the left parties was to stop the BNP getting a second seat on the Assembly.

One London

UKIP/Veritas/One London have disappeared; I cannot say I am particularly surprised or disappointed. Damian Hockney and Peter Hulme Cross were non-entities on the Assembly. Hockney stood down from the mayoral election after protesting that media attention was all on the large parties; given that Sian Berry received quite a lot of coverage and Lindsay German a fair amount, I think the charge doesn’t stand up. Given that Hockney and Hulme Cross stood as UKIP, ditched them for Veritas and then became One London when Kilroy-Silk’s party fell apart, I’d say that it was pretty obvious that they were going to be kicked off the Assembly.

Labour

It’s bad. Of that, there can be no doubt. It’s not quite time to write Labour off for the next election; not yet, anyway. For many people, myself included, this is the first, major setback at elections in our adult life; I was not old enough to vote in 1997 and a period without the executive of London may prove a salutatory experience.

Labour did, in fact, gain one seat on the Assembly and the vote for Ken was slightly up, by seven-tenths of a percent, on last time round. There is still a viable, progressive coalition in London but against a strong opposition, it is not enough on its own unless every ‘core’ Labour supporter turns out to vote. I suspect that the current state of the national party did not help, but the performance of Ken and the London Labour party against a rubbish overall picture was remarkable.

Three final points

The Evening Standard was cheerleading for Johnson and against Livingstone for some time. I may return to this in future, but the unique position of the paper as the only paid-for, London-wide newspaper (if London Lite and thelondonpaper can even be considered newspapers) gives it a powerful position. I am well aware that it is a private newspaper, but the effect is similar to the BBC campaigning for the Tories. It may be time to launch the Morning Courier.

The London Assembly has been a bit anonymous. This is a subject I will definitely return to as individual AMs and the Assembly as a whole need to be more visible.

Beyond London, the lessons are fewer as the demographics of the capital are very different to the rest of the country. The main issues is that voters are leaving the Lib Dems for the Tories and that, at least when there is no European election, UKIP voters are joining them. I don’t know whether this will impact on the timing of the general election.

xD.

The VoteMatch tool allows you to find the candidate closest to your preference based on the issues in the upcoming election but it can also exclude a candidate or candidates. That allows you to either just eliminate your first preference and choose your second or, assuming that it is a two-horse race between Livingstone and Johnson, choose between those two.

It does present something of an existential problem for the LibDems. On the one hand, they do not wish to antagonise Mr Cameron; equally, many on the social democratic wing, which I think is the preponderance of ordinary members, would probably prefer Mr Livingstone to Mr Johnson. Mr Clegg seems to be leaning towards the Conservatives but, for the time being, reform of the election system for Westminster remains in Labour’s gift. The appeal of a senior figure within the Labour movement but from outside Parliament might be attractive in a way that someone who could be seen as part of the nomenklatura might not. It is also, perhaps, going to press the issue of which way the Lib Dems will jump.

xD.