Tony Travers on the borough elections:
Seen alongside Ken Livingstone's vote in 2008 and Labour's general election Houdini-acts in inner city parliamentary seats such as Westminster North, Hammersmith and Poplar & Limehouse, the 2010 London election results suggest Labour is developing stronger heartlands in inner London.
And the Barking and Dagenham results (both parliamentary and council), along with others in outer London boroughs show that Labour can mobilise its vote there too. The secret of at least some of those heroic constituency holds was that candidates who've shown serious local - localist? - commitment reaped the benefits. That's certainly the view of Emily Thornberry, who increased her majority in Islington South and Finsbury when the national polls suggested she was sure to be defeated by the Liberal Democrats. She told Sunday's Politics Show:
The reason we've done so well is that we've had such a connection with people. We haven't had any money. but we have been talking to people on the doorsteps. In my constituency we spoke to 16,000 people in four weeks...obviously we've lost some of our marginal seats, but the reason we will get them back is that we will talk to people directly about policies...the advantage that we in Labour had was that we were able to talk to people about what changed their lives...where there were seats and where there were areas where the party were really up for a fight, they got support.
Watch her, along with Grant Shapps and Ed Davey, from about 40 minutes in.
