did this government really not see the defeats coming?

[ThatVikRinA22]

if so im gobsmacked. truly.

lib dems have the lowest number of seats since the party was formed.
ha bloody ha.
there were no elections here but had there been i would have relished voting these bastards out

we had no tory candidates.

Labour and an independent won our seats

yes agree that is a worry yak. If people want to vote for a party not in the main 3 why dont they vote green or even monster raving looney or something!

They need to wait until the next general election, the shit will really hit the pan!

too late for me, they already cut my job :( bastards

sea, how long left in it?

went five months ago, thing is, now it's gone they will never bring it back :( am very bitter about it still!

I can understand that. Have you found another job?

not yet, am trying to be optomistic though!

Yes, they saw it coming. This always happens in elections which fall mid-term. It's bad, but not disastrous; no where near bad enough to send any particular signal to Westminster.

Good luck to you SEA. My DH has 7 weeks left of his notice with his retail company and he has at least managed to get a couple of phone interviews. Just waiting for photocard driving license to arrive and he can go for face to face interviews- they insist on a photo ID.

Actually if anything I'm surprised the lib dem vote held up so well. Ditto with the Tories.

Given they've implemented the harshest austerity cuts since WW2, it's a minor miracle they've only dropped a few percent of votes in council elections.

Often council/bye elections are used as protests and Labour always typically do better in council elections. I'd be interested in seeing how many seats have gone back to Labour after a single term under Tory/Lib Dems. I suspect many of the council seats lost might be because previously people protest voted the last Labour lot out prior to the general election.

Given the fact that all the press was predicting a wipeout, I';d be amazed if they didn't ... politicians are rather fond of reading the papers, i'm told.
If by 2015 there's reasonable growth, less pressure on incomes and people feel more secure, the Tories will win. If we'r still in the doldrums they won't. Probably the result of the French election will have more signficance than these results, to be honest.

I'm sure they saw the defeats coming. You don't enact unpopular policies and expect to survive the mid-terms unscathed.

They did see it coming. There is no money, they don't have a majority and they are enacting major cuts. They knew this would happen.

Miliband has made nearly as much progress with these results as Hague did against Blair.

oh god he's GOT to go, hasn't he? nice guy, i'm sure, but he's completely failing to capitalise on this. too sinusy.

Yep, Aitch, he is kind of Mr Charismisn't, innit.

such a shame, he came across plenty well on here i thought but yes, he really does remind me of Hague at this stage. heard him on the radio last night, clearly addressing a crowd, it was all 'and let me tell you, friends...' like it was 1949 or something.

I dreamt about Ed last night. He had plenty of charisma then, I can tell you

Mid term council elections are always an opportunity to give the governing party (or parties in this case) a scare. The loses the Tories have sustained are nowhere near as bad as tony Blair had in council elections in, I think it was 2002 or 2004, and he still won the 2005 election.

Unlike Hague however I doubt mr sinus will ever be foreign secretary though.

What surprises me is the tory back benchers who put the defeats down to 'unpopular policy like gay marriage'
WTAF?
Do this people not live in the same country as the rest of us?

Insancerre: who said that!?

it was on r4 last night, tory hardliners demanding that cammo goes back to basics and drops loony liberal ideas like gay marriage etc.