Election Live: The Dobbo bounce

Live Blog: May 7/3.05pm

SO, here we are again. Haverstock School. The canteen. Just where we were six hours ago for Glenda’s Great Escape. Now, all eyes are on the ward by ward council elections. The counting began an hour ago.

Wind back 24 hours ago and we were thinking the Lib Dems were on course to make council gains on the back of a surge generated by Clegg, Fordham and Shaw. As it didn’t materialise, Labour members are supping coffee in the canteen this afternoon with fresh confidence. They might just form a majority council here, just four years after losing its grip on the Town Hall.

The smiles have shifted from Lib Dem faces to Labour. Don’t be fooled into thinking Labour will storm straight back into Judd Street because they won the parliamentaries. Some people will have voted only in the General Election and not bothered with their local vote. It’s not a straight transfer. Nobody will assume anything.

But Frank Dobson piled on an extra 10,000 votes last night and if there is a similar pattern in the Town Hall polls, then Labour stands a far better chance of winning in critical targets like Cantelowes, Camden Town, Gospel Oak and Kentish Town, all former fortresses for the party now almost exclusively held by the opposition. It’s going to be tight, but a Dobbo bounce may change the character of this local grudge match now. It could push Labour over the line for another victory few saw coming.