Thanks to the lovely Steve Hanlon. Please do go back and comment on the past few days’ election posts here, here, here, here, here and here.

Update: unfortunately my links list now appears to be buggered. Oh well. Particular apologies to non-Labour bloggers listed as Labour, and Labour bloggers listed as non-Labour!

I thought Cllr Malik was playing a joke on me when he texted at 5pm that there was to be a by-election in Holywell ward of Oxford City Council. But no, he wasn’t; it would appear that Cllr Richard Huzzey (Lib Dem) is stepping down for reasons unspecified, so there will be another election on 12 June. Labour came fourth in this ward, which is mainly university colleges, with very few permanent residents, last week.

Just when I thought it was safe to hang up my rosette, here we go again…

One of the uses of the internet is that stories that aren’t picked up by the MSM (apparently, that means “mainstream media”) get an airing. So, in the spirit of that, and in a continued avoidance of the state of the party in the rest of the country, I thought I would post a round-up of Oxford local elections coverage from the blogs and t’internet.

As you’re here, you’ll have read my thoughts.

Here are some thoughts from Andy Lomas, our candidate for Barton, who was unlucky enough to have missed out by just four votes. His website is called Cole not Dole - and here’s why.

The Virtual Stoa celebrates the hard-won one-party-stateness of Jericho.

The Oxford Inciter, who must live near the Virtual Stoa, is not so pleased; at least he pays me the faint compliment of suggesting that I may be “somewhat brighter than the average in Oxford’s Labour Group”, but I’m not sure he is a fan of local politicians at all:

If, when playing Scrabble, you find yourself with a completely useless set of letters, you can throw them all away and take another set. It is a pity you cannot do that with politicians. There are one or two whom Oxford would miss, just as some of your Scrabble letters are worth keeping, but it would otherwise be great to get rid of them all and start again.

The Don draws the wider lessons.

A blog called Socialist Unity appears to think that the IWCA and Greens losing in Oxford is a defeat for the left: they might think so, but it won’t be a Green or IWCA administration that turns Oxford into a living wage city. That’ll be the Labour party.

Oxford Respect note their 6.5% for their single candidate in Cowley ward, which gives me a chance to link to this delicious Q&A to a commenter on an earlier post about how their candidate would be as a councillor.

We await with bated breath the thoughts of Stephen Tall, no longer Lib Dem councillor for Headington, his colleague David Rundle, and the third-placed Lib Dem candidate for Headington Hill and prolific blogger, Jock Coats.

Update: Jock has now posted his thoughts. He’s not particularly happy with us quoting his views on drugs to the local electorate, I gather.

… I’m not going to work in a Henley by-election. Ken Livingstone is a massive loss to this country’s capital city, Boris Johnson is a clown, and I’m sorry that he was ever allowed out of Oxfordshire.

Having made my own celebratory post, my thoughts have turned elsewhere, to the rest of the country.

To be honest, it looks pretty dreadful, and may get worse at 8.30pm when the London vote comes through. (I did my own bit of London GOTV yesterday, calling four members of my family in London to remind them to vote for Ken, but I didn’t realise how bad it was. Living outside London, one gets heartily sick of news for and about London, and we had a council to win here.)

Hopi’s post on this is spot-on, and more nuanced than the spin of the news organisations.

On the bright side, Kerron Cross appears to have held on, beating the BNP by 14 votes in South Oxhey on Three Rivers Council, according to his Facebook status. And my friends in Reading, where I was this time last year, seem to have pulled some last reserves of electoral energy out of the box - Cllr Jon Hartley held on, thank goodness, and they are still the largest group, even if not an overall majority. Pick-ups in Liverpool look good, too, but Cardiff is still Lib Dem.

Comments appear to be buggered. Have looked up the answer on the Wordpress Forums, and it appears to be gibberish (that’s short-hand for “well beyond my technical understanding”). Are there any keen Wordpressers out there who can help me fix the problem? If so, please pretty please email me.

Hello all. Good morning. Well it feels a) like morning and b) damn fine to me, but I’ve just turned on News24 and it appears to be nearly 3pm and not good at all for my comrades elsewhere in the country.

I’m still in a happy haze, albeit one with shredded hands (from leaflets) and feet (from pavements). By the time I went to bed last night, I’d pulled a cheeky 24 hours.

My day looked like this: 5am picked up by the lovely Sadiea to do the early morning in Lye Valley. Long-term readers will know that spending a little time in Lye Valley on election day (the former seat of my friend Dan Paskins) is a bit of an election day talisman for me: but this year, as we knew before the day that Lye Valley would move from the “marginal” to the “pretty damn safe” column, it wouldn’t be a priority to knock up there, so I made sure to get my Lye Valley quality time early doors.

Walking from Lye Valley to my polling station, Cllr Malik pulled his car to screeching halt beside this apparently unoccupied activist and I put in an unscheduled extra hour helping him get out the Cowley Marsh good mornings. Then finally I got to use my vote, and walked over to Rose Hill, via Templar’s Square’s full English, to do the school gates at Rose Hill primary and set up the committee rooms at Bill Buckingham’s. Ed had three German friends over for the duration - Eva, Florian and Marie - and between nine-thirty and eleven we had a nap in Bill’s armchairs. From eleven til 4.30pm, we ran a near-complete knock up of three of the four polling districts in Rose Hill and Iffley ward, and at 4.30pm we were pulled to Blackbird and Greater Leys. At 10pm, we arrived back at the committee rooms for councillor Val’s chicken casserole and red wine, then off to the count.

>insert - the telly’s on and Nick Clegg has just said “we are beating the Tories in xx in xx and in Oxford” - well, yeah, mate, you’re beating them into third place behind us in Oxford. Not a good example to use if you’re Nick Clegg!<

So, to the results. Firstly, the big news: Labour gain Marston (from the Liberals), Quarry and Risinghurst (from a Liberal-turned-Tory), Blackbird Leys and Churchill (both from the Independent Working Class Association). Congratulations Cllrs Beverley Hazel, Laurence Baxter, Val Smith and Mark Lygo!

Secondly, congratulations to some hard-fought holds - especially Cllr Maureen Christian, who succeeds a retiring Labour councillor in a seat (Headington Hill and Northway) she held for 19 years until 2006. Some of the holds which were theoretically marginal just weren’t, last night: Jericho and Osney (Colin Cook racking up 900-odd votes); Lye Valley; Cowley Marsh; Cowley; Hinksey Park. As expected, Littlemore (John Tanner) and Rose Hill and Iffley were straightforward - Ed’s been re-elected with a 500-vote lead over the next party, amazing when you consider it was much closer in 2004.

There were two really big disappointments: Barton, where Andy Lomas ran Cllr Patrick Murray damn close, losing by just four (four!) votes, and Northfield Brook, which was just a bit too far out of reach for Richard Stevens, despite an amazing campaign.

Final scores out of 48, with 24 up for election:
Labour 23 (one short of outright majority)
Lib Dems 16
Greens 7
IWCA 2
Tories 0

So, now there’s a new challenge: getting the council back on its feet after two years of Lib Dem mismanagement. Expect a city council that sorts the finances; invests in play areas, playschemes and youth football; pays its employees a living wage and pushes all local employers to pay a living wage too; makes the rubbish and recycling system work better, especially in places like Greater Leys and Jericho; builds more houses and argues hard for an urban extension to Oxford to help solve the housing crisis in the city. Also, expect an executive where the members are still on speaking terms with one another. I’m so looking forward to working with the officers and staff of the city council to make our city an even better place to live.

Those who read Luke’s blog will already know, but here’s the brief headlines from Oxford. (NB - I know it doesn’t fit the narrative, but we’re a south-east region city, with a hyper-marginal parliamentary seat).

Labour take the council, albeit one seat short of outright majority - 23 seats. Libs are decimated (okay, that’s not strictly accurate), Greens go from eight to six, Tories go from two (both defections) to zero. IWCA go from 4 to 2.

Labour are four up on where we were before - winning Marston, Blackbird Leys, Churchill (Wood Farm) and Quarry and Risinghurst. We were four (four!) votes short in Barton. Commiserations to Richard Stevens in Northfield Brook and Andy Lomas in Barton who should have been joining the Labour city council group, and worked incredibly hard for it.

I’m off to bed. Analysis in the morning, but I’m elated.

Update: Oxford Mail here. City council (minus full numbers) here.