If We Must

Labour has just won more local council seats than the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP combined.

In terms of seats, which are after all what matter, UKIP has come fourth. Fourth. Out of three.

UKIP is claiming to have had a stormingly good night in Sunderland. UKIP won no seats in Sunderland. None. Next door in South Tyneside, it lost one to Labour. What, the BBC didn't tell you?

One quarter of all of UKIP's wins were in once county, that of Essex. But it did not actually win outright even in much-trumpeted Basildon.

Of the 96 members of Manchester City Council, one is now an Independent who was elected for Labour, while the other 95 are all Labour. On a council that the Lib Dems used to run quite recently, and on which the Conservatives also have a very long history.

Have I missed something, or is that  story? Like the supplanting of the Lib Dems by the Greens as the Official Opposition on recently Lib Dem, once Conservative, and now Conservative-free Liverpool City Council?

The Greens were also second in votes cast in Manchester, and doubled their vote nationally.

UKIP's projected share of the national vote has dropped from 23 per cent last year to 17 per cent this year. Six points. In one year. Their actual vote was about nine per cent of those eligible to cast it.

UKIP did win one seat in Hull. Labour won two. Twice as many.

The Lib Dems kept control of Eastleigh, so the hype about UKIP taking that parliamentary seat next year is rubbish.

While Neil Hamilton was recording Question Time, the good people of Wandsworth were giving him all of 396 votes, nowhere near enough for him to be elected.

UKIP controls no councils, and winning around 150 seats from one end of England to the other calls to mind the old joke about picking up a mark on an exam merely for having written your name.

Having defeated his Labour daughter, Councillor Malcolm Pritchard of Hyndburn has gone Independent after a mere 50 minutes as a UKIP Councillor.

Have you got the message yet?