The Socialist Party stood in 30 seats in the local elections, standing under the Socialist Alternative banner. They retained two of their existing councillors and lost two.
Dave Nellist retained his seat in Coventry with a remarkable 52.8%, winning by a margin of over 300 votes. This was clear testimony to the respect Nellist has built up though the many years he has been active in the city.
lan Page retained his seat in Lewisham with 1065 votes, again reflecting the long-term work he has done.
Elsewhere Socialist Alternative candidates had some good scores as well, reflecting the fact that the Socialist Party has been intervening in elections for a long time.
Bill Hopwood in Newcastle Byker polled 20%, Paul Malliband in Preston (who lost his seat) polled 19.85, and Pete Glover in Bootle polled 32%.
The rest were in the same bracket as the Socialist Alliance results, which was particularly noteworthy given that the SP seats were more carefully targeted.
The SP itself, however, had clearly been expecting far better results, and made their disappointment clear. In their assessment published with the results Hannah Sell finds a novel way of counting the votes: VOLES.
"Nonetheless, our votes did not reflect the entnusiastic support we received from thousands of people on the doorstep. A far better expression of our support is reflected by the increased numbers of papers sold during the election."