Newham - The Dear Leader Returned With Soviet Era Vote

Weighing the Labour vote is a cliché in Newham, but the combination of a Mayoral election at the same time as elections for Newham's two parliamentary seats has provided a far larger turnout and an substantial increase in Sir Robin Wales' vote from 34,061 to 64,748. Overall turnout was up to just over 50% of the electorate in Newham.

Wales' actual percentage vote remains largely unchanged at around 68% of the votes cast. Labour's mayoral vote was just 145 short of the combined parliamentary votes for Stephen Timms in East Ham and Lyn Brown in West Ham, suggesting that the general election has dragged up the Mayoral vote considerably.

In 2006, the second candidate was Abdurahman Jafar of Respect, who received 15,881 (31.8 of the vote). This time, Respect didn't even stand and the second place candidate was a Tory (who increased the Conservative vote from 8,822 to 15,330). Alan Craig of the Christian People's Alliance has seen his vote remain largely unchanged, falling slightly from 6,559 in 2006 to 6,503 yesterday.

There was simply no credible candidate to stand against Wales - and so little reason to vote at all, even if you loathe the man. The one thing we can definitely be sure of is that Wales will be even more unbearable over the next four years than he has been over the last four.

That means the fun starts - especially in defence of Queens Market and whatever new harebrained schemes the Dear Leader comes up with between now and 2014.

Newham election results 2010 can be found here.