I would like to call on the collective wisdom of CoffeeHousers. I have read everywhere that Thursday was Labour’s worst result for 40 years, whereas it looks to me as if it is the worst since World War One. Here’s why. As far as I can determine, the source for this “40 years” was Tony Travers from LSE. We walked out of the BBC studio in City Hall together on election night, and Tony showed me his book of wisdom – the year 1968 was a freak bad year for Labour in London as it had 28% of the vote (as I blogged earlier). Tony made this point in the studio – referring to London only – and it seems it has been repeated ever since. But now the GLA votes are all counted, Labour is on 27.1% of the vote. This – unless I have missed something – means the 40-year statistic being quoted everywhere ain’t right even if we are talking just about London.
But talking about the UK, then Labour’s Projected National Share (PNS) was 24% last week.
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