The results of the 4th May 2006 UK local election are pretty much in. There seems to be minor discrepancies between what the various news sources are reporting at present, but it'll settle. The general pattern of what happened is plain to see, whatever the exact figures may be.

176 of the UK's councils were up for grabs, involving slightly fewer than 4500 actual councillor places. In terms of the three "main" parties (Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats), as expected Labour lost quite a few seats, and ended up over 300 down from the last similar election. The Conservatives gained almost exactly this number of seats and the Lib Dems hardly saw a change in numbers at all. Voter turnout was around a less-than-humongous 36%, down a few points from 2004.

Based on various key results and magical mathematics, the BBC has projected that the national share of the vote in a General Election would be Conservatives having 40%, Lib Dems having 27%, and Labour having 26%. A Sky News projection suggested that the Conservatives would likewise have a 10 seat majority in the House of Commons if this pattern repeated at a general election.

A couple of the smaller parties also did well, notably the Green Party (yay!) and the British National Party (extreme boo). The Greens gained an extra 20 councillors, giving them a total of 92 councillors nationally. Appallingly, the BNP gained even more councillors - a total of 27, meaning they have around 46 active councillors in total. Neither of these parties have overall control of any council.

The BNP were especially successful in Barking and Dagenham, where their residents now how the shameful dishonour of the second largest party in their council being the BNP. This is in the constituency of Margaret Hodge, a Labour MP who recently publicly announced that 80% of the white families in her area were "tempted" to vote BNP. Some Labour party members are considering taking disciplinary action over her comments which they feel publicised and encouraged people to vote BNP. After the election results, the BNP's Richard Barnbrook did indeed announce his great thanks to her for her help.

A table of the overall results and changes as currently reported by the BBC follows.

Just before that however, following his party's mega losses, Blair has reshuffled his cabinet, because of course it's them and not him that is the problem. Most notably Charles Clarke has been sacked from the position of Home Secretary due to the foreign criminals deportation "scandal". This is the same Charles Clarke who Blair turned down a resignation from just 6 days ago, saying (according to a Downing Street spokesman, that he was "totally supportive" of him. The Poorhouse is not sure that "totally supportive" is quite the best description of sacking someone. John Reid is now to become Home Secretary.

Other cabinet biggies include Jack Straw being replaced by Margaret Beckett as the Foreign Secretary. Des Browne is taking over Reid's former role as Defence Secretary, Alan Johnson becomes Education Secretary, and if you want to know the rest of the shuffle the BBC will happily give you the details.

John Prescott, who apparently slightly disgraced his Government via having an illicit affair, retains his job title, salary, cars and houses but loses...his workload. His responsibilities for things like "housing, local government, regeneration, planning and urban and regional issues" are being dissipated, many to Ruth Kelly, now working as "Community and local government secretary". The Poorhouse isn't quite sure what Mr Prescott will therefore now be doing, and sees getting paid the same high rates for doing much less as a reward rather than a punishment. George Osborne spoke some sense today (and he's a Conservative!), saying "If you're looking for ways to cut waste in government, you can start with John Prescott."