The results are in.

[Workingman]

And what results they are: Cons down; Lab down; UKIP down; LD up, Indies up, Greens up.

Flipping through the channels I have found the analysts John Curtis, Michael Thresher and Peter Kellner all predicting a hung parliament at the next GE, whenever it takes place. That would most likely end up in a coalition, even a grand coalition.

[TheOstrich]

I don't really think you can read anything substantial into the results.

I may well be wrong but I would have thought more people will have deliberately voted "against" their incumbent parties than will have voted "for" them, so the LibDem / Green surge is merely the result of protest / tactical voting and not any genuine belief in their policies.

Dorset voted in a Tory council, and locally, all three Tories won the seats, despite the social media campaign against them - and fairly comfortably as well. Apparently, the local discontent was not as strong as one might have thought from monitoring Facebook!

[cromwell]

The Tories lost 1300 seats! And it still makes no impression on T May.
There was certainly some local discontent here. Labour lost the council seats of Airedale and Ferry Fryston, Knottingley and Hemsworth. For some context Hemsworth is the place where the saying was that they didn't used to count Labour votes, they weighed them!
One local councillor has pointed the finger at Yvette Cooper, saying that she wouldn't know what democracy was if it poked her in the eye. She is a big remainer, her seat voted 2-1 to leave in the referendum. Interestingly I have just found out that a petition to deselect her has received 24,000 signatures. There has been a virtual news blackout on this.

I agree with you Os about the LibDems. their vote will have gone up because nobody wanted to vote for the other two. There have been quite a few independents elected here btw. If the Tories or Labour get a better leader in the Libdem vote will collapse imo.

The thing that does strike me is that after their abysmal showing in the local elections, the two main parties will be absolutely desperate to stop the Euro elections from going ahead. They would find it difficult to explain away Farage giving them a good hiding.

So look forward to redoubled attempts to cobble together some miserable compromise on Brexit under the title of a national agreement or some such.

[medsec222]

I agree Cromwell that there will be desperate attempts to stitch up some sort of compromise to avoid EU elections. What a woeful lot they are - they would sell the country down the river to save their own skins.

Looking at the result of the elections in my area, the turn out was poor, about a quarter of those eligible to vote, but the Labour candidate got in, as always. However, the Independent candidate, the one I voted for came in second. It would have been nice to see someone other than a Labour candidate elected for a change.

[Workingman]

I have a slightly different take on the LibDem thing, depending upon how the party uses the results.

Vince Cable is stepping down and it looks likely that the popular Jo Swinson will be taking over. Her "election" and the local results could be used as a springboard to waken the party from is moribund state and portray it as a modernising party. There is a whole new electorate out there since the AV and tuition fees fiascos.

Yvette Cooper is 'Marmite' woman - like her / hate her. As I understand things the petition to deselct her is unofficial and open to anyone with an Internet connection. Were it to be an official procedure under Labour party rules it would need 33% of here electorate to oust her. Deselection, in practice, is much harder than the media makes out.

The Tories: well! Heads in the sand? They say that they have been punished, but that it is time to pull together and carry on. Talk about deluded, the punishment has only just begun. In the upcoming Euro elections the Brexit party annihilate them. There are predictions that they will be down to single figures for MEPs and those will be more than they deserve.

[cromwell]

The lunacy continues. May has spun the results as being bad because her deal hasn't been passed. Talk about calling for the men in white coats.
Now she is offering Corbyn a "temporary" membership of the customs union in order to get Labour support for her deal. They want a permanent membership.
To the tories, May says it is OK, you can change the latest version of the deal later.
If it's so bad that it needs to be changed later, why back it now???
The cast of the Muppet Show could do a better job than this.

[Workingman]

More fudge, vicar?

I do not get any of this. The newspapers are all over the place with the ConLab "deal". Some say it is 99% done while others say that negotiators on both parties are miles apart. It cannot be both, can it?

And even if there is a deal the signs are still there that it will not be passed by either House.

We need a reset. All these extensions are getting us nowhere.

[TheOstrich]

We need a reset.

Reset? We need to wipe the hard drive and start over …..