Low expectations
Tonight Labour can't do worse than expectations because expectations of their performance are so low. It means it will be hard to distinguish a poor night for the party from a dire one.
So, the question is - how do you judge tonight's results? And already the mother of all rows has begun about how many losses make a disaster.
My approach will be to look at the share of the vote the government gets - will it be worse than the 26% they got in 2004? Worse than the 25% John Major's Tories got in 1995? But those stats highlight a problem with nights like this - Labour went on to win a general election after that 26%, the Tories went on to be slaughtered.
We'll look too at the number of councillors who lose their seats. There's no science in this but two hundred is not a bad psychological benchmark. Tony Blair's pain steadily increases the higher over that figure his losses go.
With over 100 key wards now declared, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ calculates the change in the parties' share of the vote so far as follows:
CON +3
LAB -1
LIB DEM -2
I'm 
Comments
I think it will be worth staying up for the London results to come in...
Nick, could you please tell us what the national turn-out has been!? I cannot find it anywhere on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ web site and do not have access to a television.
Thank you!
Nick
The biggest disaster in this election is the increase in BNP votes - a direct consequence of the three major parties scrabbing over the same centre/centre-right ground.
The rise of the BNP is sadly a misguided attempt by some to rebalance what is seen as an electoral deficit.
Lambeth could be interesting in this respect. One of my neighbours setup a website (electionmemory.com) to tell people about who is standing and on what manifesto.
Apparently loads of people have been using it and actually deciding who to vote for (policies over parties etc).
Nick
According to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ website, Gosport Council shows a loss of one Conservative seat and three Labour - I believe Gosport was a Conservative target council - how does this fit with Tory plans?