Elections - open thread

I will post later, or tomorrow, my thoughts on the local, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections as results still coming in.

But any initial thoughts from my argumentative select band of readers are welcome ?

Punchie, come on, give us a real revolutionary perspective .

Comrades in Scotland , I know some of you pop over here,what do you make of what seems like the loss of most or all of the SSP and Solidarity MSPs? How to take a successful left project and fuck it up!

And my Brummie comrades, what of Respect gaining a second councillor?

And of course what does all this say for New Labour, a Brown coronation and the McDonnell campaign?

Update

Labour has lost seats in Brighton and Hove.It was NOC before ,

Labour - 24 seats
Conservatives - 20 seats
Greens - six seats
Liberal Democrats - three seats
Independent - one seat

The result is now :

Conservative 26
Labour 13
Green 12
Liberal Democrat 2
Independent 1

Still NOC but with the Tories the party with most seats. The leader lost his seat. He was pretty dead cert to be selected for Brighton Kemptown parliamentary candidate.

So will the Greens or Lib Dems make a pact with the Tories or Labour ?? Lib Dem's look pretty irrelevant, but could still have some influence as even with the Greens voting with Labour the Tories still have more councillors. Expect a lot of horse trading. Unlikely to be full blooded Tory given the lack of an overall majority, so lets see what real difference it makes. It will put the Greens on the spot, lets see what they do with their influence .

Whatever happens Cameron will be very pleased. He was down in Brighton yesterday spreading his smarm. Pre 97 all three constituencies returned Tory MPs. It was quite a shock when all three went Labour.

One good thing though, David bloody Van Day did not get elected. After his 'glittering' pop career he opened up a ice cream stall and now works in PR. He seems to get his face in the local rags quite a bit.