The most important result of the 1 May elections, the vote to select London's Mayor for the next four years, is in.

Boris has won! Absolutely fantastic news, which rounds off a great election for the Conservatives. More than 250 councillor up, plus one London Mayor. All we're waiting on now is the final GLA seat results.

Boris didn't just win - he won convincingly. He enjoyed an 8.1% [149,884 votes] lead over Ken, with 42.5% of those cast, after the first preference votes and although more second preference votes went to Ken - by about 11,000 - all of Ken's second preference votes didn't amount to more than Boris' first preference lead.

Londoners have made their choice, and have chosen a Conservative to be the second mayor of London and, what's more, they have done so convincingly. Corks should certainly be popping in CCHQ tonight.

Now it is just up to Boris to prove to the people of London that they have selected the right person for the job.

On a far more local note, here is the Watford Observer write-up on the Three Rivers council, for which I was standing, and achieved a decent swing in my ward for the length of time that I have been the candidate. Unfortunately, the BNP gained a seat on the council.

All the England and Wales council results are in.

This has been a disaster for Labour. More than just "disappointing" but disastrous. Losing 331 councillors and 9 councils is far more than any was predicting. This is the beginning of a melt-down. And it, really, can only get worse for them. If Ken loses London as widely expected then, well, there is no denying that 1 May 2008 will go down as a catastrophic day in the history of the Labour Party. That Brown's choice of General Secretary has also refused to take up the position makes 2 May a very bad day as well.

Conversely, for the Conservatives it had an absolute triumph. A gain of 256 councillors and 12 councils, when a net gain of 10-200 was said to be the expected area, and more than 200 being champagne cork-poppingly good. And this is even better than that. A "big moment" it was. A Boris victory in London would just be the icing on the huge celebratory cake.

The Lib Dems, despite some good gains, such as Sheffield and St Albans, have utterly failed to make any real impact. They are hardly "regaining momentum", but going backwards in the face of Conservative advancement, with their share of the projected national vote falling another percentage point for the fourth year in a row. Gaining 34 councillors and 1 council is hardly any sort of real advancement. The only real redeeming factor for them is that Labour got an ever lower projected national share than they did. And of course, Paddick has about as much chance of getting elected London mayor as I do.

Labour are in meltdown. This is a fact. A loss of nearly 300 councillors is hitting the extreme panic button region.

It is official: Gordon Brown has failed at his first electoral test as leader of the Labour Party. And failed miserably. With 100 out of the 159 councils who held elections yesterday having declared, Labour is down by 162 councillors - well in to the "bad case" scenario and not far off of hitting the panic button. The worst Labour electoral result ever. And the news that should the projected national vote share for this election be repeated at a general election, the Conservatives would have a majority of 138. I think that some Labour MPs will already be reaching for the panic button...

For the Conservatives, it has been a very good set of results. Gains of 147 councillors and 8 councils, well in to the "good result" bracket, and not at all far away from a champagne-cork-popping celebration. However, we must not get complacent. There is still a looooong way to go until a general election, and Labour's vote will inevitably be higher there. We as Conservatives must show that we are the best people to govern Britain, and that Labour cannot do the job. This needs to be done through coherent and joined-up policies.

As for the Lib Dems, this is a totally unremarkable night. They've made virtually no change to their councillors or councils and their vote has dropped again, even though it is now higher than Labours.

I'm now just waiting for my results to come through. The count is starting at 9.30am, and unfortunately I can't be there as I have to work. Which is annoying.

What the big result which we are all waiting for, however, is the London Mayoral results. There appears to be a consensus among professional political commentators that Ken has lost the race. But we can just wait for the results - and hope.

Michael Portillo = Twit. He's just been talking on the BBC. Since when has 44% not been a bloody good result, at any stage in the electoral cycle? I'll tell you what's not good enough, and that's Portillo. And fancy saying that Boris will be a "disaster" as Mayor!

Labour have now moved in to "very bad result" territory as they now have lost 104 council seats and England and Wales, along with two councils - especially with their lowest ever projected national vote share, of just 24%, which moves them in to third place.

How much worse can things get for Labour? Well, they could always lose the London Mayor... which most commentators seem to be predicting.

Are Labour going to end the evening in third place? The BBC are painting a picture of extrapolated national vote shares of:

Conservative: 44%
Lib Dem : 25%
Labour: 24%

This not a good evening for Labour so far. No Labourite, however rabid, can claim that it is or even that it is "as expected". It is a massive blow to them.

And very good news for the Conservatives.

It's looking good! If this sort of thing continues all night, the cork-popping mark of 200 extra Conservative councillors may well be in reach!

Today is election day. The day that many of us have worked very hard for over the last few months, myself included. Personally, I have been fighting my very first election as a candidate [see above for a photo of my ballot paper] - to become a councillor in the ward in which I live - hence the lack of posts on this blog recently. You can see the two leaflets which I have been delivering in my ward here and here, along with many others across Watford and Three Rivers.

This morning I was up by 5.30am and went on a "dawn raid" in Watford, posting leaflets through doors reminding people that today was election day and that the Conservative candidate in their ward was the one to vote for. Then, after work, I went out knocking on doors and reminding people that they could still vote until 10pm. Some gave positive responses, some just said they "don't vote". But few gave particularly negative responses, which was nice.

The polls have closed across the country, and results are expected to start flooding in soon. Hopefully we will make good progress both across the country and specifically in Watford and Three Rivers.

Watch David Cameron casting his vote below:

I agree with Robert Mugabe*: Gordon Brown is "a little tiny dot on this world". But Robert Mugabe is an even tinier little dot on this world. And a reviled one at that.

But, really, how long does it take to count votes? It's been two weeks since the election was held, surely that is long enough to count and re-count the ballot paper several times!

So why does he now want to hold a recount? Just announce the results and accept that you have lost. Otherwise Zimbabwe will experience the same upheaval and issues that affected Kenya not so long ago, after the Kenyan president refused to accept that he had lost the election.

If Mugabe does not accept that he has lost the election immediately after this recount, there will be hell to pay. If he claims that he has won after the recount, there will be even worse hell to pay. It does not take that long to count votes, and the more Mugabe delays the worse it looks.

But I doubt he'll listen, since I'm an even smaller tiny dot than Mugabe himself.

* Only on the fact that Brown is a "a little tiny dot on this world," though . Just to clarify this.

Hillary says that she won't be "bullied out" of the race for the White House, saying that the "big boys" - such as Senators Chris Dodd and Pat Leahy and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who are all key Obama allies - are trying to push her out of the Democratic race because she is a woman. But when asked whether Barak Obama could beat John McCain in the presidential election, she said:

So... she thinks that women would - or should - vote for her because she is a woman too? Rather patronising, really. Women, just like men, vote for someone because they like their policies. They're not going to vote for anyone just because they have a pair of tits and lack a penis, like they do.

Just think if a man was to say that, replacing the word "women" with "men". Or even if Obama was to say the same phrase just using the word "black" instead. There would immediately be an outcry against it. And the same should apply to Hillary Clinton over this.

I admire the way that Barack Obama has not playing the "I'm black, so vote for me" line. He has made it quite clear that he is about representing everyone who shares his views, not just his race or gender - but everyone.

With this phrase - and her continuous "mis-speaking" - Hillary Clinton has shown herself not fit to be a Presidential candidate.

Incompetent fraudsters.

I'd rather that any Conservative councillors who commit fraud are "incompetent" and "blatant" rather than very good at it.

We know that our system is wide open to fraud. We should do what we can across all parties to ensure that electoral fraud is either prevented or discovered as soon as possible, and the perpetrator(s) punished. Yet Labour, who created many of them, are doing bugger-all to correct it.

But the real question here is why would anyone commit electoral fraud - even incompetently - for a prize as small as the council seat!

... Pokemon style.

The Conservative Future national elections are over, and the results are known.

Chairman
Michael David Rock

National Management Executive
Beaumont-Bott, Anastasia
Douglas, Adele
May, Christian
Meredith, Owen
Ricketts, Cllr Steve
Sullivan, Patrick

Congratulations to everyone who has been elected and good luck with running CF over the next year, and commiserations to those who weren't elected.

But was it really the monkey wot won it?

Mike Rouse, who is carrying out polling on the Conservative Future elections [which you can sign up to take part in here], has the results of the first poll, held just prior to the Bristol hustings which are taking place tonight.

And the results for Chairman support is surprisingly one-sided, with one candidate in particular getting a huge level of support. However, whether this is a genuine reflection of his support or not remains to be seen - and it will be interesting to see how the poll results change in the run up to the election.

The level of support for National Chairman is as follows:

• Richardson, Matthew = 18.9%
• Rock, Michael = 73.0%
• Williams, Daryl = 8.1%

The rest of the results can be seen at Mike's blog and here.

How much will these results effect the candidates, if at all? Maybe there will be some feedback after the Bristol hustings tonight, and maybe some change in the next poll result, which you can sign up to take part in here.

Since so many - like me - are unable to attend the Bristol hustings, maybe someone [like Mike?] Will live-blog the event or provide a summary of what has been said afterwards.

UPDATE: Mike also has an open yet anonymous poll which anyone can fill out without needing to register for the rest of the polling here.

UPDATE 2: Via John Moorcraft, there is a review of the hustings at CF Diary and photos at Nick Webb's blog. No mention of Mike's poll, though...

I think he's slightly getting ahead of himself here. Even if he wins New Hampshire with the same - or even a higher - level of support than in Iowa, he still isn't even a shoe-in for the Democrat nomination, yet alone to win the Presidential election! There are, after all, 50 US states, and winning two of them hardly makes Obama's victory inevitable.

What an Obama victory in New Hampshire certainly could do, however, is all but end Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions - but I wouldn't completely rule her out quite yet, whatever happens.

Even if [or as many seen to think, when] Obama gets the Democrat nomination, he will still have to fight an election against whoever the Republicans select. No matter what, that isn't going to be a battle with an inevitable result. If Obama really truly believes that victory in New Hampshire will definitely get him the Presidency, he may well be getting caught up in his own spin. A week is a long time in politics, and November 4 is still the best part of a year away yet.

Source: The Telegraph

This may seem controversial, but it doesn't really seem very much so to me at the moment. That the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has left a void in Pakistani politics shows that the political leadership in Pakistan is still weak and massively personality focused.

What also makes me doubt Pakistan's devotion to democracy is the choice of replacement for Benazir Bhutto as leader of the Pakistan People's Party - her 19 year old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. I mean, a nineteen year old who is still at university?! Have they really got no-one else? Why do they need a Bhutto at the head of the party so much that he even has to change his name? To me, that doesn't demonstrate a readiness for real democracy.

After all, if any of the party leaders in the UK was assassinated, there would always be several people who could step into the role. It certainly wouldn't lead a "void". And neither would there be any call the son - or any other relation - of the now-deceased leader to take over.

Pakistan may well be ready for democracy, as in electing who they want to lead them, but it certainly doesn't appear to me like they are truly ready for or capable of what I would regard as real democracy with all that that entails within the political system.

What does need to happen, however, is that this election goes ahead - maybe not on the original date, but with only a short delay at most.

You know you're in deep shit when not only your enemies, but even your closest friends are telling you that you're going to lose:

The full Fabian editorial is here.

The problem for Gordon Brown is that he has already had several opportunities to tell us his "vision" - immediately after he took over, at the Labour party conference, the Queen's Speech... yet he has failed miserably ever time. Thus we just have to ask, does he even have a vision for Britain - or even for what his government is to do next week?

But what do the Fabians think that Gordon Brown needs to do to start his "fightback"?

Firstly, a period of calm to restore stability is needed. A twelve year old government can not win on competence alone. But it is an essential foundation.
Secondly, party funding reform and an elected second chamber are now essential for a clean break. (Fabian Society)

Of course, this ignores that this government has hardly had twelve years of competence, but far closer to the opposite. And that Labour have hardly demonstrated an interest in real transparent funding or an elected second chamber! The Fabians view of party funding, however, is that "state funding is necessary" - which, of course, it isn't.

The most important thing that this article is saying is that not only are the Conservatives "favourites to win the next general election" but that Brown has failed rather miserably since taking over - and even the Labour Party have to acknowledge that fact. What matters now is whether Brown has - and can express - a political "vision".

Russia's parliamentary election has been declared "not fair" by a joint observer team of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe. They said that the Russian election

This isn't really very surprising. Russia hasn't been a democracy for even two decades, so there has been little for it to actually sink into the people as a true belief. The politicians involved grew up grew up during the Soviet era, when corruption was rife and expected, and many of them were involved in it.

Democracy simply takes time to sink in in real practice. Claiming to be a democrat is easy, and ever since democracy has become the only acceptable political philosophy, evidenced by the absurd claims of democratic belief from people such as Mugabe and his ilk. And, of course, there were elections under Communism - except the only candidates allowed were approved Communist ones.

Democracy doesn't exist simply through a democratic system being put in place. It requires an acceptance of the principles and actually putting them into practice. Russia hasn't yet reached that stage. It's democracy is still too young and still not deeply embedded. In time, it will. But not yet. And it appears not while Putin is still around - in any capacity.

Source: BBC