Boris is Mayor!

I am delighted! This tops off an excellent Local Election cycle for the Conservatives. Boris won with 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Mr Livingstone's 1,028,966 on a record turnout of 45%.

Also all the council results are in now. The Conservtaives have gained 12 councils and 256 councillors. Labour lost 9 councils and 331 councillors. The Liberal Demorcrats held there own and gained 1 council and 31 councillors. Plaid Cymru lost control of its only council but gained 33 councillors.

On the London Assemby, the Conservatives lost 1 Constituency AM to Labour but gained 3 on the List Vote. Giving them 11 seats, Labour are on 8, LD 3, Greens 2 and BNP 1.

The BNP made a few gains this election. They surpassed the 5% threshold in London to get 1 list seat, they also gained 10 councillors to give them 37 in total. The BNP are an issue not just for Labour and the Conservatives but all mainstream parties. They need to be watched closely. I dont see them winning seats at the Next General Election but thay could come 2nd or 3rd in a few seats.

So YouGov got it right, as did ConservativeHome and the London Standard who all called it for Boris.

So my predictions:

* Boris will win the London Mayoralty
Wooo! Yup

* Conservatives will win the highest vote share nationally but will lose Coventry and gain Reading.
Yes, Yes, No. Reading did go to NOC from Labour control

* Labour will come second nationally but do better in Northern England.
Nope, they came third, did slightly better in the North but gained control of Slough in south. They were decimated in Wales which I did not see happening.

* LibDems will lose Loverpool but stay in third with a net loss of seats.
Lib Dems cam 2nd and had a net gain of seats. They technically lost Liverpool for all of 10 mins, stupid defections

On to the BBC coverage, while the David Dimbleby and the Bloggers bit was great, Jeremy Vine was useless. It was the wee early hours of the morning, only people interested in elections would stay up that late. No need for dumbing down. Its a pity they felt the need to do that.

I also discovered a a lovely bit of software during the elction that was used by ConservativeHome, Guido and Slugger O'Toole. Its called Cover it live. Its free and I will be using it during the Eurovison Semi's and Final so stay tuned