Current mood:	worried
Entry tags:	politics

Yes, the coalition parties got a drubbing. Yes, Labour won back lots of seats. But that's not the big story, and Labour would do well to resist the urge to rub Lib Dem faces in it (not that they are resisting, of course...). The big story of what happened yesterday was turnout. In most places it was less than 30%. LESS THAN 30%!

This is not a ringing endorsement of the Labour party, this is a big two fingers up to ALL politicians. It explains the Green wipeout in Cambridge when they had net gains overall, and came close to taking (for example) Birkenhead with over 40% of those who turned out voting for them. It explains the gains for Respect in Bradford - and we're already seeing hopes for all sorts, including saving the Odeon, attached to Respect, which I shall be very sad but very unsurprised to see dashed.

Triumphalist Labourites tweeting that (for example) in one ward in Hull they got 80-odd percent of the vote and intentionally not mentioning the turnout (18.7%) are 1, missing the point and 2, setting themselves up for a big fall. When you factor in turnout, that Hull ward was won by 15.7% of the vote. That's not something to crow about, not for politicians of ANY stripe.

The public hates us ALL. Yes, at the moment they detest the coalition parties more than Labour, but that won't last if Labour get in. Politicians of all parties need to be very worried indeed about the message that extremely low turnouts are sending us, because at some point there's going to be a really big upset if we don't. Possibly even if we do.