Full poll results

THE Justice Secretary Jack Straw has admitted that Labour’s disastrous election results this week could force Gordon Brown to wait until the latest possible date in 2010 to call a general election.

In an interview this morning, Straw also suggested, before hurriedly correcting himself, that voters were punishing the prime minister in the party’s crushing defeat, in which it lost more than 300 council seats.

The Conservatives gained 12 local authorities across the country, from Southampton in the south to Bury in the northwest, and the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales. Overall, Labour, with an estimated 24% of the vote, was beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats.

Boris Johnson, the new London mayor, crowning a triumphant day for the Conservatives, said he was confident he would run the capital successfully.

“I will work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me,” said Johnson.

The new mayor set out his plans immediately after winning the vote just before midnight last night. He said he was looking forward to the Olympics and that he also wanted a “national debate” about a possible new aiport in the Thames estuary.

He promised to cut crime and improve transport, while admitting there might be the “odd indiscretion” during his tenure. He invited the electorate to “boot me out with gusto in four years time if we haven’t pulled it off”.

Straw, speaking on BBC radio’s Today programme this morning said that Labour’s policy of abolishing the lower rate of tax had turned many voters against it. “They wanted to punish him [Brown] - or punish us in respect of the 10p [tax rate],” he said.

“Those it has affected, it has affected adversely and those people are understandably very upset about why it is that a government that has cared and continues to care very much about lower-paid people should be doing this.”

The far-right British National Party also won its first seat on the London assembly after passing the 5% voter threshold.

Richard Barnbrook, leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham council and a mayoral candidate, will take up one of the 25 assembly seats.

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