Greens celebrate as others look to silver linings

The Green Party was the only party left jubilant as the results of the election became clear last night. While Labour returned an extra four Assembly Members, going from 8 to 12, they failed to seize the Mayoralty despite the poor performance of the conservatives across London and the country at large.

While some Tories were celebrating the re-election of Boris Johnson the loss of three Assembly Members including prominent figures  Brian Coleman and Richard Barnes was a body blow.

Nationally Johnson’s win takes the sting out of the Conservative’s local election losses and will be welcomed by David Cameron despite rumours that Johnson may be a potential rival for the Conservative leadership within a few years.

The Liberal Democrats were beaten into fourth place in both Mayor and Assembly races but just managed to hold on to two seats (down from three). UKIP managed to increase is vote but were hoping for Assembly seats and will be very disappointed to have missed out by less than one percent. The BNP was, as expected, wiped out of existence.

The Greens achieved their best ever Mayoral and came in third place on the Assembly, an enormous psychological result even if they remain on two seats. They also polled well on the Constituency seats coming in third place in seat after seat.

Siobhan Benita achieved what seemed like the impossible with her result getting more than 3% of the vote from a standing start in January. She will be disappointed not to have beaten Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones although Lib Dem supporters will be breathing a sigh of relief that their man did not come in fifth.

We’ll be taking a closer look at the numbers over the weekend but will be interested to hear your views on the result, why Ken lost (or Boris won) despite the swing to Labour or anything else that takes your fancy.