200

From this piece (on bbc.co.uk)

Labour is suffering heavy losses in local elections in England and Wales, with several councils changing hands. It has lost more than 200 seats and will finish in third place according to a BBC projection of results.

And oh yes, the Tories actually won a few seats.

Now I just heard a guy on Radio 4 saying he could actually feel the disapproval in the crowds and explaining how it was obvious this was a protest vote about Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq.

I hope it isn’t.

Britain has a (small) standing army that is surprisingly active worldwide for such an inconsequential little country and most Britons see bodies returning as part of the deal. Nobody wants to see our boys get killed, especially in a conflict where they don’t belong, and out of which the politicians have laid no clear path. But there just isn’t the knee-jerk body-bag reflex that seems to prevail in the US.

I hope this vote was about a wider, more fundamental dissatisfaction with a government that has lost touch. I think the fact that this senior Labour spokesperson claims this is only about the war is yet another case of them missing the point precisely because they are so out of touch.

I hope Britons were saying that they want a party with a clear, centre-left policy that favours peace over war, the public over privatisation and that is isn’t ashamed to have created the minimum wage or signed the European Social Charter.