Well they asked for it!

This morning , Britain's governing Labour Party is surveying the wreckage of the local elections, held yesterday. The results for Labour could hardly have been more stark. It has fallen, unbelievably, into third place behind the Liberal Democrats, with a pathetic 24% of the vote. The Conservative Party is riding high on on 44%. If these results were converted into a General Election result, then Labour would be virtually wiped out.

But we know there won't be a General Election any time soon and if there were the results would be nothing like as stark. Local elections are used as a means of sounding off on national issues. But even so the results could hardly have been worse. Privately the Labour Party was calculating that a worst case scenario would be a loss of 200 seats - and it looks as if they are on target to lose more or less 200.

There may be worse to come. The flagship of the Mayoralty of London, held for 8 years by Ken Livingstone, might be lost to Boris Johnson, which would not only be a disaster for Labour but also for the people of London.



There is no point in the Labour Party trying to gloss over this defeat, no point in trying to minimise the damage. It is extensive, though not yet mortal. And one man above all has to carry the can for it- Gordon Brown. His Premiership has been marked by indecision, stutter, bad decisions and rank incompetence and, if there were some ready candidate in the wings I would urge Gordon to go.



But there isn't and Gordon won't go. But somehow the Labour Party has to get back, if not to the image of a party of visionaries created prior to Tony Blair's initial success in 1997, at least to a position of calm, competent government with a record of delivery. At present, Labour's successes - and there have been a number - are being obliterated by the dithering and the mistakes.

We have a Prime Minister who cannot connect with the public - unlike his charismatic predecessor - and, in my opinion, some people in top Cabinet positions who are just too lightweight for the jobs they have. There needs to be a reshuffle, there needs to be new steel in the government and, most of all, the Prime Minister needs to show that he is in control.

Last night's results are hardly the best of springboards for doing that but it should be a wake up call for a government which, on current form, is stumbling and bumbling to a massive defeat at the next General Election.