Blair's party suffers losses, blames Iraq

[BluberryPoptart]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...9&u=/nm/20040611/ts_nm/britain_elections_dc_5

 

[DrTeeth]

It has been predicted that Blair's policies on Iraq would cost them votes, but I don't think anybody would have expected the Lib. Dems. to take second place.

I don't know that much about UK politics, but it seems that there are a lot of Euro sceptics in the UK (maybe more than in other countries) and they voted conservative. Maybe Iraq pushed the people who are enthusiastic about Europe from Labour to the Lib. Dems.

Anyway I'm happy to see the Greens win a few seats as their Dutch colleagues (sp?) lost.

 

[DrTeeth]

Btw, I'm only talking about European elections. Don't know that much about the regional elections.

 

[FizzingWhizzbees]

Well...today's been an absolute disaster for Blair and co. They've lost over 500 council seats and lost control of 15 councils. They've been pushed into third place behind the Tories and Lib Dems, making this Labour's worst ever local election performance. They've even lost places like Newcastle, which has been a Labour stronghold for over 30 years. Previously they'd had a majority of 24 (I think) seats in Newcastle, but they lost them all to the Lib Dems. That really shows the strength of feeling against this government.

It'll be interesting to see how Blair responds to this. He's been quoted as saying he'd resign the leadership of the Labour party if he became an electoral liability, and after Labour's worst ever local election performanance there will be many who do see him as someone who's likely to lose them elections rather than win them.

Quite honestly, I think this is no less than Labour deserve at this point. I do think it's unfortunate that lots of hard-working Labour councillors will have lost their seats, but at the same time, the leadership of the Labour party need to be shown the level of discontent among Labour voters.

It'll be interesting to see the European election results when they're published on Sunday. The media have been predicting that UKIP could get as many as 12 seats, so if that's accurate it'll be very interesting to see where the votes come from - will the Tory or Labour vote be most affected?

Anyway, I think I'm just rambling aimlessly now, lol.