Winners and no losers

By Jason Moore NO winners and no losers. Labour won and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats enjoyed some gains. Perhaps the Tories did marginally better as the Liberal Democrats were always going to win votes with their anti-war stance and at the next election I presume that the Iraq war will just be a memory meanwhile the Conservatives made gains even though they were pro-war. The Liberal Democrats' move to the left probably cost them votes in the south but they took votes from Labour in the north. I would say that the Conservatives have consolidated their position and I was quite impressed by some of their young candidates who won seats in London and across southern England. Talk of Britain being a three-party state is premature. At the end of the day it was still a crushing victory by Labour with the Conservatives trailing and the Liberal Democrats way behind them. A 60+ majority for Blair is still a good victory but he is not safe. There were some great moments in the election which kept me glued to my TV screen until 6a.m. I thought Reg Keys, the father of a Military Policeman killed in Iraq, and who fought his campaign in Blair's Sedgefield constituency made a great and dignified speech about the war unlike George Galloway who took a verbal swipe at everyone in sight. Then there was Jack Straw, who campaigned door to door and fought off a rather nasty challenge from Radical Muslims who were being bused in from across the country; there was Oliver Letwin the Conservative Shadow Chancellor who increased his majority despite plenty of tactical voting and talk of “beheading.” But probably my moment of the night was John Prescott arriving in London and broadly proclaiming “Labour won it.” No nonsense, no spin just the truth. And then there was Robert Kilroy Silk who managed just a handful of votes and thankfully the UK Independence Party are also in the same boat. There were winners and losers but there were also some very big losers.