It's probably not going to be a John F Kennedy 'remember where you were?' moment but the day Boris Johnson ousted Ken Livingstone and became the first Tory mayor of London is extremely significant.

David Cameron's Conservatives now have something high profile to run. They've got a fair amount of time on their hands so they can concentrate a lot of effort - and people - on the job.

This year’s elections were a real success for the Liberal Democrats. We beat Labour into third place for only the second time in our history. Not all the results are in yet – but it’s almost certain we’ll have won more councillors and control of more councils. And that’s even though we’re fighting the same set of seats as we did in 2004, at the height of public anger about [...]

Any election count is a rollercoaster ride, and this one has been no different. But as the final results come in, the Greens are five seats up, and have gained enough firsts and new records in Norwich to make Charles Clarke extremely nervous.

Norwich City Council is the first in the country to have a Green opposition, with parliamentary candidate Adrian Ramsay leading the second-biggest group on the council, two [...]

Labour pains

Cliches about the Beatles and miniskirts were being wheeled out, as Labour suffered its worst hammering at the polls since the 1960s - slipping to third place nationally, on just 24% of the vote. The Tories surged to 44%, while the Lib Dems experienced neither great gains or losses. Some blogs, including Guido Fawkes decided to host Live Chats, while the BBC co-opted citizen journalists [...]

Labour's Alun Michael says the 10p tax debacle was a big issue on the doorstep in the run up to the 1 May elections and by the time concessions came from Number 10 people felt it was too little, too late.

Michael, who represents Cardiff South and Penarth, said the prime minister's reaction to concerns that the abolition of the tax band would hit the poorest in our society was [...]

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has told newstatesman.com she believes Boris Johnson looks likely to succeed Ken Livingstone as the next mayor of London.

Counting is underway in the battle to decide who will govern the UK capital - one of the most prominent jobs in UK politics - with the result due to be announced later on Friday 2 May.

Over the phone from her Redditch constituency, where the Tories [...]

I've spent most of the morning ringing round Labour MPs trying to get their reactions. Strangely today they're rather hard to come by. But I caught up with Ann Clwyd by phone at Bristol airport to get her reaction to the results particularly the ones in Wales where her Cynon Valley constituency is.

She told me: "Don't worry, I’m not leaving the country permanently - I’m going to Rome for [...]

It was disappointing night for Labour. They had made Liverpool their number one target in the country but they failed to gain the City Council. Labour had hoped that taking Liverpool would be the one good news story on May 2nd against a background of losses across the UK and Wales.

The Liberal Democrats held onto Liverpool against a background of 12 months of bad news stories. Poor financial settlements [...]

I was sitting on a panel in the Sky News studios at 2.30am this morning when something horrible flashed up on the giant screen in front of us. Not the tally of lost seats or the projections of what the night's results would mean if reproduced at a general election - though these were bad enough.

No. It was the sight of the Tory leader and Francis Maude enjoying [...]