Results of British local elections announced

Friday, May 2, 2008 

The result of yesterday's local elections in the United Kingdom has been announced. It shows gains for both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party, while the Labour Party has seen a significant fall in its share of the vote.

The Conservatives made the largest gains, with their number of councils increasing by 12. Below is a quote from the Conservative website, on the results:

A graph showing the increase and decrease in city councillors for the three main parties. Blue represents Conservative, red represents Labour and yellow represents the Liberal Democrats
Image: Anonymous101.

David Cameron has described the Local Election results as "a very big moment for the Conservative Party". We have achieved our best local government showing since 1980: - 256 seats and 12 councils gained, including Bury, Nuneaton and Bedworth, and the Vale of Glamorgan - 44 per cent of the national vote won

Labour made significant losses in the elections. Gordon Brown, who leads the party, agreed that the result was poor for the party. Below is part of his quote:

First of all I congratulate all those who have been successful in being elected as Labour councillors and say how sad I am about those Labour councillors who have done a tremendous job, fought a very hard campaign and have been unsuccessful. It’s clear to me that this has been a bad night for Labour. We have lessons to learn and then we will move forward. My job is to listen and to lead and that is what I will do.

Several smaller parties have also made councillor gains, including Plaid Cymru, the British National Party, the Green Party, the UK Independence Party and RESPECT.

Sources

• "Elections 2008: Councils A-Z" — BBC News Online, May 2, 2008
• "Gordon Brown promises to listen and lead" — Labour, May 2, 2008
• ""A very big moment" for the Conservatives" — Conservatives, May 2, 2008