Labour Party Bashed In U.K. Elections

Pro-Independence Party Wins In Scotland; U.K.-Wide Defeats Seen As Rebuke For Blair's Pro-War Stance

(CBS/AP) 
Blair — who has said he will formally announce next week he will resign as prime minister — has claimed three national poll victories since 1997. Some activists concede the unpopular Iraq war and a domestic cash-for-honors scandal have made him an electoral liability.

David Cameron's Conservatives won hundreds of council seats, but fewer than they hoped for in northern England.

"You always take a hit in the midterm, but these results provide a perfectly good springboard to go on and win the next national election," Blair said.

With results from 291 of 312 English councils counted, Labour lost 460 seats and control of eight councils, while the opposition Conservatives gained 837 seats and control of 37 more councils, to a total of 155. The third-place Liberal Democrats lost 247 seats and lost five councils to a total of 21.

"Look at the huge lead we have over Labour and you can see we are the ones setting the agenda in British politics, we're the ones with the momentum in British politics and I think we are ready to serve our country again," Cameron told the AP Friday in the north of England.

After all 60 Welsh assembly seats were declared, Labour held 26 seats, compared to 15 for second-place Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party.

"Overall, what we're seeing are the midterm blues," the Leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, watching ballots being counted in the town of Blackburn, northern England, told British Broadcasting Corp. television. "That's just a fact of life."

He said it was typical for the party in government to fare badly in municipal polls, before "bouncing back at the general election."

Labour's performance was marginally improved on results in 2006 local elections and better than polls had suggested — though still among its worst-ever election performances.

Britain's opposition Conservatives, led by the youthful Cameron, made some advances — but failed to gain a single council seat in the northern city of Manchester, deemed a key test of the party's revival and ability to win favor in Labour's traditional heartland.

In 1970, Conservatives held 62 parliamentary seats in the north, compared with 19 following the 2005 general election.

Leighton Vaughan Williams, political analyst at Nottingham Business School, said the Conservatives had not shown enough progress to suggest they would sweep the next national poll — expected in 2009.

Treasury chief Gordon Brown — Blair's likely successor — had some cause for optimism, Williams said. "Margaret Thatcher's Tories used to suffer hellish beatings in midterm local polls in the 1980s," he said. "But every time, they stormed back to victory in national elections."

[bm6005]

Time they have. They just lack the ability.
Posted by rhs648

Ability and GW Bush. An oxyMORON if ever!!!

[bm6005]

George Bush is looking better every day.
Posted by rhs648

Compared to what?

[rhs648]

"You god da*m crooks are trying to ruin the democrats, you won't give them anytime to legislate."

Posted by rharrin1

Time they have. They just lack the ability.

[gkc99]

Bliar's party has taken an ***-whuppin just like the Bushit/Chickenshit party is gonna take an ***-whuppin right here in the USA next year.

[rharrin1]

George Bush is looking better every day.
Posted by rhs648 at 09:05 PM : May 04, 2007

Only through a republican ******* eyes.

[rharrin1]

There agenda has been to do nothing othere than investigate the republicans in the hope of deflecting any attention on there do nothing agenda.
Posted by notblue at 05:30 PM : May 04, 2007

You god da*m crooks are trying to ruin the democrats, you won't give them anytime to legislate.
Now they got three more republican crooks to investigate, please give them time to do their job.

[rhs648]

Remember the expression "you don't miss something until you lose it." Obama, Hillary, McCain, Edwards, or Rudy. George Bush is looking better every day.

[rhs648]

It's all politics folks. It doesn't matter if it is 1977, 1987, or 2007. Some things never change. Democrats today and Republicans tomorrow. One thing both parties can count on is that people have short memories and even shorter attention spans.

[notblue]

inventagod, it states the liberal democrats came in LAST. You people will be dissapointed when another Republican is elected not becasue the the Republicans are any better but because the Democrats have accomplished NOTHING for the American people, all they have accomplished is being anti-republican. There agenda has been to do nothing othere than investigate the republicans in the hope of deflecting any attention on there do nothing agenda.

[inventagod2]

Yes, indeed - anything that touches Bu$h is good as gone...
I was laughing as I watched the 'GOP hopefuls' on parade the other night... There won't be another Republicon president for forty years.
Watch and learn from the Brits.

[lochlan-2009]

The GOP is expecting the same here. Just hope it's not part of the agenda.

[notblue]

Love the CBS headline to this article, it's important to actually read the article. The headline should have read LIBERAL DEMOCRATS finished last, but that's not normally the way headlines are printed at CBS.