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Lemmings head cliffwards

The British Labour Party has been pounded in the local elections in England and Wales, and will be badly hurt by the loss of the mayoralty of London. In results similar to the Conservatives’ local election disasters in the 1990s, Labour has come third in many places, ceding strongholds like Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and North Tyneside in England. It has been trounced in Southampton, formerly under tripartite rule, and lost its only council in southern England, namely Reading. In symbolism and in substance, the defeat of Ken Livingstone, a highly capable mayor of London, by Boris Johnson, who started out as a joke but was hugely backed by a partisan press, will hit Labour confidence even harder. Senior Labour figures have looked and sounded bewildered, bleating the same old phrases that have alienated millions of the party’s supporters over the last 11 years. As to policy, there may not be substantial changes at the local level, as the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have worsened their Tory predecessors’ reduction of local power and have buried public services under an avalanche of destructive performance-auditing. The new Tory and Liberal Democrat councils will find, as Tory councils did in the 1980s, that the demands on local government are substantial. So, aside from squeezes on education and social services — easy targets — little is likely to change. The changes will probably be greatest in London, despite the restrictions introduced by Tony Blair, who disliked Mr. Livingstone, into the act creating an executive mayor. Londoners can expect an end to the congestion charge, which has greatly eased traffic flow, and the re-privatisation of public transport, which will reverse another Livingstone success.

The Labour defeat is, however, not an automatic pointer to the next general election, which must be held by June 2010. Tory voters might well turn out in greater numbers from now on, but other voters will remember what 18 years of Tory government (1979-1997) were like. Secondly, the recent results are not about the Iraq war; nor are they about the subordination of British foreign policy to the United States. They are about economic uncertainties and employment prospects. That means even moderate economic success will help Labour, which cannot go down further. The ruling party will try desperately to ensure a fourth consecutive national term by doing what three Labour governments failed to do — implement electoral reform for the House of Commons. But for now, Labour looks like lemmings headed for the cliff.

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