It doesn’t matter why David Davis resigned. Perhaps it’s the genuinely principled stand I’d like to believe it is; perhaps it’s simply political grandstanding. We’ll very likely never know, and shouldn’t waste much time speculating. What we should do now is use this opportunity, and use it properly.

Whether Davis likes it or not, this will never be a single issue campaign as it is. If Labour runs against the Tories, then it will turn into a campaign of Labour against the Tories, not libertarians against fascist cunts. Davis might want to campaign on the single issue of 42 Days, but is seems unlikely that Labour would let him if they even bother to stand. They don’t want to win the argument on their little piece of state terrorism, and have never wanted to - surely the dodgy doings with the DUP were enough to prove that?

No, they won’t fight on 42 Days. They’ll respond to any arguments Davis puts forward, perhaps - but only that. Otherwise, they’ll run on a full slate of policies, and hope for public apathy on their own liberties compared to the other issues they’ll campaign on to deliver them an increased share of the vote - and trumpet that as a victory in a Tory safe seat. They’ll attack the Tories, ignore the issue of freedom and duck as much that is thrown them as possible. That’d be the case whichever issue Davis ran on, simply because he’s a Tory; the only way you’ll get away with a single issue campaign is to belong to a group founded on that single issue. Shami Chakrabati would get away with it here. Davis won’t, as he’s a member of a national party with a policy platform which it’s now in Labour’s interest to bring up. They’ll would portray it as a cheap partisan trick, and avoid the crucial issue that they themselves are behaving in such a reprehensibly authoritarian fashion that even hardline Thatcherites will vote against them. They’d fail and lose the election because the seat is in the Conservatives’ pocket - but at the same time they’ll try to bury any debate on civil liberties.

We can’t let that happen. Anyone who values their freedom to walk the streets without being swept away into anonymous and unaccountable penury - for that is the precedent this sets - must make their voices heard. Whether you approve of Davis’ decision to resign or not, it’s crucial to act now; he’s resigned, we can’t do anything about that, and must work with what we’ve got. And that’s a potential national debate on civil liberties which the government will attempt to dodge at every opportunity, as it knows it’ll be hammered in a fair fight. They will try to divert the debate, and we must stop them.

So we must make a noise. We must get out there, shout, scream, petition, abuse, argue and campaign on the issue so Labour simply can’t escape. If people in every constituency from every party that values the simple concept of freedom come out and let the government know just how angry they are, then they won’t be able to paint this election as a Punch and Judy sausage fight. And the frequently illiberal Tories (not least Mr. “Gays don’t need rights” Davis…) won’t be able to co-opt the issue, as it’ll be clear everyone except the DUP are furious. Davis will win the by-election, yes - but if everyone makes a noise and makes it clear they’re only supporting him because of what Labour have become, then the Tories won’t take anything from that. If we want to stop the 42 Days legislation, we need to start now, and we need to show that it’s everyone. It’s our last chance.

So fetch the megaphone…

Perhaps I’ve under-estimated Clegg’s political skills. The media swallowed his line on the results with barely a murmur of dissent. “Thursday night was a success for the Lib Dems,” comes the chorus. “They gained 31 seats nationally, and beat Labour to 2nd place.”

That’s not a success. The Lib Dems dropped from 26% of the national vote in the 2007 local elections to 25% this year. They did not rise to second place. Labour fell to third. If an election were to be carried out now under their beloved PR, the Liberal Democrats would lose out.

Yet the narrative is one of moderate success. And perhaps the reality is too - for Clegg’s spin.

That the party’s poor performance can, in part, be attributed to him, is not. It’s easy to see how the death in the water of his overblown plans to rebrand the Lib Dems, his awkward positioning over Europe and unfortunate personal admissions could have affected performance. Add to this the structural weaknesses of a party neither sure whether it is one thing, the other, or somewhere in between, and I do wonder how they ever hope to move beyond third-party politics…

Ali is absolutely right to say that the Lib Dems need a complete rebrand if they’re to get anywhere. If not, they’ll simply remain Westminster’s resident repository for protest votes - or worse.

The dust has settled from election night(s), the result of which as been a major leap for Tory hopes for the next General Election. But the local and mayoral elections have been something of a dress rehearsal for the next General Election, expected in 2010. Gordon Brown wasn’t ready to risk his reputation in October last year, the Tories were nowhere near ready to mount a serious challenge, and the media was nowhere near prepared for modern election broadcasting. Thursday’s coverage proved that.

Last year’s local election coverage was fairly poor. As has been noted elsewhere, the BBC excelled themselves with what was once the tame domain of Peter Snow’s Swingometer, now under Jeremy Vine’s control, showing such enlightening animation as the infamous Ming’s Bling charade.  I was watching the live feed from 18 Doughty Street: no animation, but a bit of banter.  Crucially, 18 Doughty Street was getting results in faster than the BBC.  While they wasted their time with lowest common denominator broadcasting, the bloggers got on with delivering results.  For a political nerd, awake at 2am to hear results they could gather more fully a few hours later, it became clear that the BBC was wasting my time.  You might think they would learn from their mistakes.

They tried.  A trio of bloggers were introduced by Emily Maitlis once and hour or so, along with some informal chat with lurking politicians.  Iain Dale certainly used his presence to good effect, but the BBC failed to use him.  He was rapid-firing results onto the web, providing a far more useful tool than the BBC’s graphics, which flashed for a few seconds after a long delay.  PoliticsHome, too, was delivering solid results very swiftly.

But the two real winners of the evening were ConservativeHome and PoliticalBetting.com.  ConHome, through its network of contacts, was giving accurate results quickly, with a degree of presentability and professionalism missing from other non-mainstream sources.  They had the courage to call a win for Boris Johnson before anyone else had; the Evening Standard only ran a front page story on a special late edition when Tessa Jowell, among others, had made it clear that she thought a Livingstone victory highly unlikely.  ConHome used the Cover It Live software Scribo has tested in the past, providing a community feel to their operations.  This use of liveblogging, aside from a more conventional live results update, was an excellent balance, providing comment and speculation in an informal conversational style, while also keeping the more established rapidly-updating blog for presenting results.  In this, ConHome gave the best balance of results delivery and all-night enjoyment; I gave up with the BBC’s coverage and stuck to the blogs after a while.  ConservativeHome has established itself so well because its editors understand what people want from their website; it continues to grow in the right direction because it perfectly meets the desires of its readership and genuinely responds to them.  It’s close enough to the heartbeat of the Conservative Party to be of use (liveblogging from inside CCHQ, for example), but is divorced enough to ensure it does not become a collective yes-man (calling a Boris Johnson victory 24 hours before CCHQ had hoped).

One cannot forget PoliticalBetting.com, though.  PoliticalBetting stands alone as providing decent analysis of polls without stuffiness.  The huge number of comments under each thread is indicative of this - although I confess to rarely reading them.  PoliticalBetting was worth refreshing as results came in, but I found the longer-term commentary far more interesting.  The MORI/YouGov debate has been fascinating, showing how the unconventional internet polling firm can deliver far more accurate results than standard, established practices.  There is an important train of thought that suggests the Johnson victory would have been less likely had YouGov not provided the Evening Standard with six consecutive polls going in his favour - but the accuracy of YouGov’s final poll proves their sampling techniques.  As the only polling company predicting a Johnson win, one must consider the relative accuracy of national polls - YouGov’s last national survey found Labour 18 points adrift; an errant dodgy poll, or the most accurate one to date?  PoliticalBetting has been a must-read in the run-up to the elections, and will continue to be in the time leading up to the next General Election.  Charting the Labour decline will be a delicate balancing act, but one must trust PoliticalBetting to provide the most pithy and helpful analysis around.

It is a shame that the BBC let themselves down with the increasingly banal election night coverage.  The idea of importing bloggers to the format failed to liven the programme up - which is a particularly poor effort considering the fact that the viewers of 2am are concerned with results, not a quick chat with Emily Maitlis.  Having heavy-hitters from each party wheeled out to sit in the studio is a tiring gimmick: none of them are going to say anything of any value, simply spinning their stories in valuable time that could be used to give viewers the results they are smoke-screening.  It is a scandal that, especially after the Ming’s Bling disaster, the BBC failed to quality control their hyper-graphics set.  The Wild West theme to Nick Clegg’s graphics was as irrelevant as it was cringeworthy: Jeremy Vine in a cowboy hat firing a pistol at hologram tin cans does not come across as particularly successful.  I have no interest in seeing a presenter dress up stupidly and put on a forced accent to, eventually, tell me nothing new.

The real winner in this election was the New Media.  The blogs get 10/10 for effort, with the odd thing to improve for 2010, when technology and professionalism have progressed a little further.  Maybe LabourHome can get its act together next time, too; it could be an invaluable resource, but is currently a bit of a waste of space on a blogroll.

The local election results have put Labour into third place, giving them their worst election result for 40 years.  The Tories are riding high on 44%, and the LibDems are more or less stagnant.  So, where next for the three major parties?

Labour

Labour has taken a thorough beating.  There is no escaping the fact that voters have turned away from Labour in their droves, leaving hung councils all over the country.  Labour’s losses have been biggest in south Wales and the Northern industrial towns.  The mood of the South has already shifted.  Labour needs to act dramatically to prevent a Tory government: the cabinet needs refreshing and a whole raft of new policies need airing.  The only way to meet a desire for a breath of fresh air is to provide one: Labour needs an “interim manifesto” and needs charismatic leaders to implement it, acting like a party newly elected from a decade on the opposite side of the House.  Only with this kind of radical thinking can they stave off a general election pounding in 2010.  There are three concessions if this plan fails: first, that the coming disaster will not be quite so catastrophic; second, that a solid Labour legacy would be left; and third, that the (relatively speedy?) return to government will see skilled young ministers with experience and vision in equal measure.

Liberal Democrats

With Labour’s fast sinking, the LibDems needed to capitalise on the best chance they will get for perhaps a decade.  I have long argued that the LibDems can and should be in second place: Thursday’s results have achieved that.  But the LibDems have not earned their victories here, and Labour could manage to reclaim ground against them.  If Nick Clegg and his party is to begin actively earning such leads, he must forge an identity as one of the three parties - not the third party.  They must behave like a front-runner, producing full manifestos and speaking of a real belief that they can win.  Clegg has failed to make any news with policy changes or party identification.  A complete package laying out what the party believes in, a run of top ten policies, a logo change, and a ditching of that gaudy yellow corporate image, combined with an advertising campaign, would begin to set them apart.  If this sounds a bit like what the Tories have recently done, it should: Cameron’s use of PR has been brilliantly effective, and the LibDems should shamelessly follow their lead.  Providing, of course, that a genuine serarate identity is forged.  The party needs reform, but I firmly believe it could be in second place nationally before too long, and mounting an effective opposition to the Tories.  As the Tory slogan now runs, “you can get it if you really want”!

Conservatives

These elections have been something of a “go to your local elections and prepare us for government” moment for the Tories.  I believe Brown has reached his tipping point - the point at which regaining a poll lead is implausible, although not impossible.  The Tories are getting the vote out, but these new voters are by definition volatile.  Also, there are still more than enough apathetic voters to put a spanner in any party’s works.  The Tories must therefore fight to retain their share of the vote.  Their victories here will be seen as a test: if they perform poorly (factoring out further Brown failures), they will be heading for some hostility two years down the line.  In short, they may have peaked too soon.  Given the Westminster electoral system’s propensity to lift Labour artificially, the Tory majority may well be slim, and therefore volatile.  The Tories cannot be complacent.  I do not expect the public image to slide, but, behind closed doors, a creeping complacency may take them by surprise.  Nonetheless, one must be quite clear that the weather looks very rosy indeed for the Conservative party.

The BBC is projecting a 7% rise in Tory vote.  Labour has spent the day lowering their expectations and then ramping up those of the Tories.  Like with the SNP in 2007, Labour are universally rubbish at playing the expectations game.  The Tories will sleep well tonight, whatever happens in London.  Nationally, they appear very seriously set for General Election victory.  Say what you will about the Conservatives, this has been a very good night for them.  There is much to encourage the Tories.

UPDATE: 02-05-08, 20.00

The following graphic comes from Martin Bright, showing how the results would be received.  It truly is a bad night for Labour - a loss well into the “panic” zone.  Much champagne for the Tories.  The LibDems will spin it as best as they can, but surely their results will, upon inspection, be received in a decidedly lukewarm fashion.