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- guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 May 2000 16.44 BST
As today's headlines underlined, Labour suffered worst: more than 500 seats down in the local council elections and the expelled dissident, Ken Livingstone, triumphantly vindicated in his quest to run London for the second time, 14 years after Margaret Thatcher expelled him from County Hall.
But fate was kind to Mr Blair in one respect. Victory for the Liberal Democrats in the Romsey byelection, a seat previously held by the Tories, helped to take the shine off what William Hague would otherwise have presented as an unalloyed success .
With a turnout of 60 per cent, twice as high as the night's other elections, this was a damaging defeat for Mr Hague, barely 12 months away from the expected general election. It showed that crude tactics on law and order or asylum seekers could be confronted and beaten back.
Even more importantly, it showed that the electorate, who squeezed Labour's vote dry to give the Lib Dems a 12 per cent swing, now understands tactical voting . As in 1997, voters are using it to punish the Conservatives. That is not to say that the Tories did not do well in recapturing old strongholds like Torbay from the Lib Dems or that Labour did not suffer the indignity of seeing Oldham fall to the Lib Dems and Hartlepool - Peter Mandelson's base - slip from its grasp.
But the Tory gains were mainly heartlands gains, in the smaller cities and towns of England, recapturing loyalties lost in the Major era. It was good, but not good enough to give Mr Hague much hope of victory in 2001. What it did do was consolidate his leadership over a still-fractious party. Tony Blair will not mind that.
What Ken Livingstone will do next is by far the most fascinating question. A new type of electioneering has been unleashed; populist, personal and de-aligned.
London voters were offered four votes and a substantial choice of parties and people to back, and many seem to have taken full advantage of the new choices available in Tony Blair's political supermarket.
This may not have been what Mr Blair had in mind when he talked, in 1997, about the new politics of choice, cooperation and consensus. But change is difficult to control, as the devolved Wales and Scotland have shown. Mr Livingstone has a few crucial weeks to show he means to live by the new rules, to cooperate with other parties - including his own former party, Labour. Downing Street will be monitoring his actions and his rhetoric, keen to avoid blame if things relapse into acrimony.
But 'Cuddly' Ken is also a deft politician who has learned some tricks from Blair. He may not have the electoral mandate he hoped for but he won against formidable odds and wants to make a success of what is probably his last chance.
The clutch of smaller parties who did better than expected in the GLA elections - assorted Greens, Lib Dems, Christian socialists and - yes - the BNP - show what opportunities are there for the taking.
One Labour official quipped that Ken and the Labour party were like the proverbial "dog and the lamp post." Will Ken pee on it every morning or are we at the beginning of a new era ?
