defeated Tory mayors are screaming blue murder; Major will be replaced, the only question is when.
Evidently the vote reflected mass anger with Tory policies - higher taxes, the attack on the NHS and the rest of the welfare state and the chronic failure to get out of recession and mass unemployment.
All these failures would have meant a bad result for the Tories, but what made their defeat so crushing was the chronic disunity in the Tory party over Europe. This is an historic divide in the Conservative party; and in the run-up to European elections it is disastrous.
Beyond the expected rebuff for the Tories there are important factors to note from the results.
The Lib Dems won seats heavily in rural and prosperous southern areas where disaffected Tories naturally turn to them rather than to Labour. However, the Liberals made progress in some inner-city Labour-controlled boroughs, where the right-wing has imposed harsh cuts policies and witch-hunted the left.
This was the case in Lambeth, where there is now no overall control, and Islington where the Lib Dems now have 14 seats. Thus the Liberals were generally able to make
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 62, May 14 1994, Page 5