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| Muggers beware! |
Firstly, the local election losses for the Tories weren't that bad for mid-term. They had some really good results when these seats were last fought over, now those gains have been partially restored. The results were encouraging for Labour but only to be expected for the Tories, especially since they have just had a run of gaffes and bad publicity.
The party for whom the results genuinely were bad was the Lib-Dems, who - I hope - will continue to get wiped out electorally until they ditch the leadership that led them into betraying their personal pledges after the last general election. A lot of results I looked at didn't just have Lib-Dem candidates beaten, but had them thrashed into fourth place. Here in Reading, if the same sort of thing happens next year, we could find ourselves with more Green councillors than Lib-Dems.
But the other reason that the Boris victory doesn't say anything significant about national politics is Boris Johnson himself. He is a charismatic, controversial, lively, highly-intelligent character who says what he thinks and genuinely seems to try to live out his beliefs. The exact opposite of the political clones in leadership at Westminster. In many ways like the 'Red Ken' of yesteryear.
London seems to like larger than life figures for its mayors; maybe Ken Livingstone could have won again this year if he had been a bit younger and sparkier - he seems more 'Grey Ken' than 'Red Ken' these days, and rather more inclined to toe his party's line.
In summary, I don't think Boris won because he is more 'authentically conservative' than his party's leadership; I think he won because he is seen as being simply more 'authentic'. Maybe London's voters value authenticity rather more than voters across the nation; or maybe national party managers just don't want to give us that option.
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