Boris is re-elected and other electoral matters

[x_butterfly19_x]

Boris Johnson has won a second term as London mayor, beating Labour rival Ken Livingstone by 3%, after a far closer contest than expected.

Mr Johnson won on second preference votes after failing to gain more than 50% in the first round.

He bucked the national trend after heavy Tory losses elsewhere.

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Comments

[myste_uk]

It does indeed indicate that there's a lot of discontent with the current government, but no it won't mean any change to when we next have a parliamentary election - the coalition is in power for a fixed 5 year term (next general election is 7th May 2015). The only way we would have one sooner is in circumstances that won't happen eg if 2/3rds majority of MPs vote for an early election - this is part of why the coalition was important to the conservative government.. they and the lib dems form over 2/3rds of parliament, wheras on their own they didn't reach that size majority so the opposition would be able to club together to vote for a new election).

However having the change in political makeup of local councils does make a difference at a local level. Local policies can effect us as much as national ones, although the local councils are under wider constraints applied by the ruling power in parliament. But they have some autonomy... so a labour council may fight to protect different local services than a conservative council, for example, but both would be limited in how much they can protect, so all have to make cuts of some form under current centrally set austerity measures. So in a way, these local election results mean a real loss of power to the current government, albeit a much smaller loss than if they were voted out of parliament.

I hope that makes some kind of sense ;)