Election update: Brown vows to 'learn lessons' after poll drubbing

Published on Friday 2 May 2008 02:18

A CHASTENED Gordon Brown vowed today to "learn the lessons" after crashing to a disastrous defeat in his first electoral test as Prime Minister.

With Labour facing its worst set of council election results in four decades, Mr Brown admitted that it had been a "bad night" for the party.

Projections of its share of the national vote slumped to 24%, trailing behind the Liberal Democrats, as scores of Labour councillors across England and Wales lost their seats.

Meanwhile, a jubilant David Cameron celebrated a night of sweeping gains with a whirlwind tour of the scenes of some of the Tories' most significant triumphs.

The Conservative leader – who saw his party's projected share of the national vote rise to 44% – said it had been a "vote of positive confidence" for his party on the road back to power at Westminster.

In Downing Street, Mr Brown blamed the "testing" economic conditions for the Labour's poor performance which drew comparisons with the drubbing John Major's Tories suffered in 1995, two years before their landslide General Election defeat.

"It's clear to me that this has been a disappointing night, indeed a bad night, for Labour," the Prime Minister told reporters.

"I said I was going to listen and lead. We are in difficult economic circumstances. I think people accept that we're going through some of the most challenging times we've seen in many years.

"The test of leadership is not what happens in a period of success but what happens in difficult circumstances."

Meantime, Tory hopes of crowning their night of success with a triumph in London rose after one bookmaker, Paddy Power, announced it was paying out on a Boris Johnson victory, hours before the count was completed.

Mr Cameron said it was a "big moment" for his party, which now had the chance to demonstrate that it was ready for government.

"I think these results are not just a vote against Gordon Brown and his Government. I think they are a vote of positive confidence in the Conservative Party," he said,

"I think this is a very big moment for the Conservative Party, but I don't want anyone to think that we would deserve to win an election just on the back of a failing Government.

"I want us to really prove to people that we can make the changes they want to see. That's what I'm going to devote myself and my party to doing over the next few months."

With almost all the results in, apart from London, Labour had suffered a net loss of 298 councillors – worse than the gloomiest pre-poll predictions – and control of eight councils.

Labour was hit particularly hard in its Welsh heartlands, losing Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil, Torfaen, Caerphilly and Flintshire.

It also lost Wolverhampton, Hartlepool and Reading – which had been its last bastion outside London in the South East. There was however the consolation of regaining nearby Slough from no overall control.

The Conservatives, in contrast, gained 254 councillors and 12 councils.

More importantly for Mr Cameron's prospects of gaining No 10, the Tories showed they were able to win across the country with gains from Southampton to North Tyneside. Other notable gains included Bury in the North West and Nuneaton and Bedworth in the Midlands which they took directly from Labour.

The Liberal Democrats, in contrast, were only able to make limited gains, despite Labour's evident unpopularity. Overall they picked up 28 more councillors and one authority.