With support for Liberal Democrats running at 25% across the rest of the country, London stands out as an anomaly with only 11% for the party list.  It seems that the heavy media interest in the Boris v Ken confrontation actually got in the way of good democracy.

Labour introduced the idea of having elected mayors, partly to bring some excitement back into politics, and it has certainly had that effect.

But higher turnouts are not the only measure of a healthy democracy. What is also necessary is a real understanding of the options, so that people make informed choices.

During the run-up to these elections I came across many electors who believed that they had to vote for Ken to keep Boris out, or vice versa. They didn't know about the second preference vote - at least not until I told them. 

Even more worryingly, with the news focussing interminably on the mayoral contest, they didn't know they had a constituency Assembly member. They didn't know about the party lists and how these affected the eventual balance on the Assembly.

The London Elects booklet was a welcome addition to the literature, and it was clear if lengthy. Sadly it was delivered far too late in the campaign to have much impact.

The political parties did their best to explain the various voting systems in London. When I say 'political parties' round here, that means only the Lib Dems and Conservatives. Believe it or not, Ken Livingstone and Labour didn't deliver a single election leaflet in Chessington.

Nevertheless the media dominated the buzz around the London Elections. It was in their interest to simplify the story to a classic confrontation between two strong characters. After all, simple fights and rows sell newspapers, complex issues don't.

I'm not attempting to make excuses - this is about learning lessons. But my fear is that the machinery of democracy is now so dominated and skewed by the media that democracy itself is the loser.

Update

Since I wrote this I've received the analysis of the London Elections from Make Votes Count. This is a link to the pdf.

Can anyone explain to me why the Royal victim of blackmail, and his employee, were given anonymity by the courts? Blackmail trials are fairly rare, so is this normal practice? Or were they given special protection because of the Royal links?

I'm all for protecting victims, but I sincerely hope this was not special treatment.

Of course, anyone interested has been able to google and find out the names for ages. And any viewer of 'Have I Got News for You' would have noticed the juxtaposition of questions at around the time when the story broke.

Well - after all the gloomy predictions, Liberal Democrats achieved 25% of the vote across the country, beating Labour into third place. This is almost exactly the same as four years ago, when anger over Iraq sent many voters in our direction. Having found the Lib Dems they seem to like us and have stayed with us.

To sum up, as I write Lib Dems have achieved an overall increase of 19 councillors, have hung onto Hull (after a defection lost us control temporarily) and Liverpool (though a defection to us was the decider), and have gained St Albans and Burnley. Sadly we lost control of Pendle.

I'm particularly pleased with a snippet of news from Wales. Merthyr Tydfil, elected six Liberal Democrats, I think for the first time ever. And one of those is Kevin O'Connor - no, not the councillor here in Chessington South, but his son (and brother of Cllr Rachel Reid). Congratulations Kevin! 

It just shows how damaged Labour is that it lost control in Merthyr so resoundingly. This is the town that elected Keir Hardie as the first ever Labour MP in 1900. Instead it is now represented by a complete mixture of parties, who now have to negotiate some kind of coalition.

I won't exactly have time tomorrow to blog - but maybe afterwards I'll explain a bit about what political activists get up to on polling day.....

Just three messages for tomorrow...

Don't forget that you can give a first and second preference for Mayor. There is no need to use your first vote tactically, so vote for Brian Paddick.

Let's get Stephen Knight elected for South West London - it's very close.

Make sure you vote for a party list, and don't let the BNP get a seat.

The Evening Standard thinks that Stephen Knight can win the South West London seat for the Liberal Democrats. After all he only needs a 1.3% swing to take it.

Don't be misled by the headline - this would not be the first Lib Dem on the London Assembly (we have five at present) but would be the first Lib Dem elected to one of the 14 super-constituency seats. (I tried to explain the complexities of this in a recent posting.)

Major shake-up at Assembly may give Lib-Dems first seat

.....

Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics said: "The face of the London Assembly could well change and you have to remember that last time only one of the seats changed hands.

"This time we are looking at four possibilities but only predicting the actual change of two of the seats."

The Assembly is made up of 14 "super constituency" members, voted for by name, and 11 London-wide members appointed from party lists after voters cast a "top-up" vote for a party on a third ballot paper.

The most vulnerable constituency, the South West seat, is currently held by Tory Tony Arbour but the London Communications Agency predicts it could change hands with Lib-Dem Stephen Knight turning around a majority of 4,067.

"The super constituency includes Hounslow, Kingston and Richmond and is one of only two seats held by the Tories despite them not having a single parliamentary seat in the area," said Mr Travers.