The Election - What Happened In London

Well I think enough of the Londonist staff have sufficiently recovered from last night to try and make a bit of sense of what actually happened in the capital.

So here we go.

Overall turnout was up 3% on 2001 with 58.2% of us bothering to get out there and vote.

At a glance, we can see that Labour took 44 seats, Conservatives got 21, 8 went to the Lib Dem's, and 1 seat went to some party called Respect...never heard of 'em.

Overall there was nearly a 5% Swing from Labour to Tory, with Tony's lot losing 11 seats in London (if you really want to, you can read the gloating Standard coverage here).

The Tory gains came in Putney, Enfield Southgate, Ilford North, Wimbledon, Hammersmith & Fulham, Bexleyheath & Crayford, Hornchurch and Croydon Central; while the Lib Dem's took charge of Hornsey and Wood Green and Brent East.

Of course it was Bethnal Green and Bow which took a lot of the spotlight with Gorgeous George's Respect Party taking the area away from Labour's Oona King, with a massive swing of 26.2% going George's way.

Other headlines include Stephen Twigg losing Enfield Southgate to the Tories; Justine Greening displacing Labour's Tony Colman in Putney; Conservative Stephen Hammond taking Wimbledon with a 7.2% swing away from Labour; and Labour's Barbara Roche being ousted from Hornsey and Wood Green after a gigantic 14.5% swing to the Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone.

The closest result was proabbaly Croydon Central, where Tory Andrew Pelling took the seat from Labour's Geraint Davies by just 75 votes after two recounts.

Useful links:

London results, seat-by-seat.

London election focus from the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph and The Times.

Paxman v Galloway from the BBC.