UK Local Council Elections and London Mayor

Thursday 1st May was the UK Local Council elections and also the Election for the London Mayor, and the English Voters choose to make it BLUE! for David Cameron and his Party, The Conservatives.

This was the first time for voters to express there opinions on New Labour since Gordon Brown had replaced Tony Blair as PM, without having being elected by the voters.

Of Course Local Elections are and should be based on local issues, such as Council Tax and local services, but the national position can play a part. Voters seemed to want to send a message to the PM about his change of policy on tax for lower paid workers, known as the 10p tax which though announced in the 2008 Budget only became operational from April 2009 and had just hit these workers and others policies such as petrol (gas) charges which in the UK contain a bigger element of taxes than cost.

One part of the UK which has given problems to The Conservative Party is the North, which has in the past 10 years remained loyal to New Labour but at last after making inroads in recent elections The Conservatives started to make headway. One council Bury in the North West my area in particular went to The Conservatives and it was encouraging to see one of the new members of the council which brought this swing was a young newly elected Councillor Sam Hurst aged 20, a University Student being elected for the district Radcliffe East.

LONDON'S MAYORAL ELECTION was a real coup for Conservative Party Leader David Cameron after Ken Livingstone (New Labour) had been Mayor for 8 years. The Conservatives selected a real larger than life politician names BORIS JOHNSON, a London MP, who as well as being a former journalist and editor us quite a TV star in his own rights on a news based quiz show.

London did see a large turnout and even though Mayor Livingstone polled a similar number of votes as in 2004, Boris Johnson was Elected Mayor with a much larger majority.

These elections successes for The Conservatives are the first indication that in the next General Election which is not expected until 2010, that David Cameron and his Party are back on track to be elected as Government for the first time since 1997, interesting political times ahead!