We've now got results up on the site for each of the 624 wards in London. The graphs and tables show the Mayoral first choice vote compared to the London Assembly London-wide seats vote, with a bit of analysis to try to quantify the size of the progressive anti-New Labour vote in each ward.

Find your ward by browsing from the list under each London borough (top left) or jump to it by putting in your postcode in the box above.

London Strategic Voter at the 2008 London elections was always mostly about preparing the ground for the next General Election. Or, as we say on each ward page:

London Strategic Voter intends to use the 2008 results, and the information they provide on voters' real political preferences, to organise strategic voting in your Westminster constituency at the next General Election (in 2009 or 2010).

Our aim is to organise intelligent tactical voting seat-by-seat at the election to target a “No Overall Control” or hung parliament after the next election - kicking out pro-war New Labour whilst avoiding giving an absolute majority to the pro-war Tories. We do this because we want electoral reform and think this is our best chance to get fair representation for the 40% or so of us who don't vote New Labour or Tory.

Tactical voting now, so that we can get rid of the need for tactical voting in the future.

Watch this space for more analysis & discussion on each of the parliamentary constituencies in London.

Ken Livingstone's view of the results and their meaning at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/09/livingstone.boris

Thanks for visiting London Strategic Voter at the 2008 London Elections.

The results can be found at http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/.

A clear layout of the results with some excellent analysis from the Green Party/broad Left of New Labour perspective is at The Daily Maybe (http://jimjay.blogspot.com/).

It's a pretty disastrous result, to say the least, but what can we salvage?

Nationally

Firstly, don't believe that although the English and Welsh have voted Tory in large numbers, there is any great belief in or support for the Tories out there. The Tories have no answers to any of the environmental & economic problems that are making people feel insecure.

Secondly, don't believe that a Tory absolute majority is the most likely result of the next General Election, which is now most likely to be in 2010. The Tories are not going to get 44% and Labour are not going to get 24%. The most likely result remains a “No Overall Control” or hung parliament, which is Strategic Voter's objective.

Our job is to use the next 2 years to get the information out to progressive voters about the voting options and tactical vote most likely to be effective in the constituency where they live, and to build a head of steam behind the demand for electoral reform to follow a hung parliament result.

Strategic voting is going to get complicated: we will need to resist the inevitable emotional blackmail of progressive voters by New Labour (“it really is us or the Tories now”), and the tide of propaganda by the establishment and mainstream media to persuade us that two party politics is now back and beyond challenge, and to decree the reform of “first past the post” elections unthinkable.

Where we can, we will highlight those seats where the game isn't Tory-v-New Labour and we can do great things. For example, Norwich South, where the Green Party is now the clear lead challenger to the Fungus the Bogeyman/Blairite New Labour MP Charles Clarke.

But in terms of strategic tactical voting there will still remain loads of New Labour-Tory marginal constituencies, with third and fourth parties nowhere in First Past the Post electoral terms. In some of those we will need the Tories to win, so that New Labour's absolute parliamentary majority is removed, whilst in others we will need New Labour to cling on, so that the Tories are themselves denied an absolute majority. Strategic Voter will let you know which is which, and, for those of us unlucky enough to live in such seats, advise on the options.

In London

The turnout was high, and Left of New Labour parties were squeezed as progressive voters rallied round Ken Livingstone's flag in the doomed attempt to save London from Boris.

The Daily Maybe points out that both Brian Paddick of the LibDems and Sian Berry of the Greens got more second preference votes in the Mayoral election than Ken or Boris. That probably reveals that voters didn't really understand the voting system, as those second preference votes went straight in the bin, but it still shows that 13.5% of Londoners were prepared to vote Green as second choice.

LSV will be back soon to analyse the results, and to set out what they mean for strategic tactical voting at the next General Election. The first job is to quantify the size of the progressive vote in every ward in London, and examine where it went. Watch this space.

London Strategic Voter is a website for all people who want to kick New Labour out of office at the next General Election, but aren't stupid enough to imagine that the Tories offer any kind of alternative.

We are here for all those sick of New Labour's wars and lies, and finding themselves looking for “left of New Labour” electoral alternatives and tactical voting options. The site is independent and not linked to any single political party.

Our aims at the 2008 London Mayoral and Assembly elections are:

* to raise awareness of the fact that a very large number of Londoners want a wider choice and demand a wider representation than simply New Labour or Tory - a fact you wouldn't be aware of if you rely on the mainstream media

* to raise awareness that the elections for both the Mayor and the London Assembly are not like the “First Past the Post” elections we get for Westminster and for local councils. Though the system is deeply flawed (see Guide to the Assembly election for details) in both elections we get two votes, and so we have the opportunity to register our genuine political preference on 1 May, rather than having to hide it behind a “tactical” vote as many of us have to do at General Elections

* to encourage progressive voters to use their votes for the London Assembly to give a strong showing for “left of New Labour” parties - partly to ensure that our views are represented in the London Assembly, and partly to help sort out which party has the leading “left of New Labour” challenge in each parliamentary constituency going forward to the next General Election

* to use these elections to help build a strong base of London progressive voters ready, willing and enabled to vote strategically to get rid of pro-war, anti-environment and pro-privatisation New Labour MPs across London at the next General Election - as part of the overall national Strategic Voter objective strategy of achieving a hung or “No Overall Control” parliament followed by electoral reform.

and having done all this…

* to strongly encourage progressive voters give their second Mayoral vote to Ken Livingstone, to keep out Boris Johnson and his nasty right wing clique

This site gives you ward-by-ward information on how the 2004 London elections went in the ward where you live - and contains information that may surprise you about how many people in your area oppose both New Labour and the Tories, and share the view that a better, more democratic political choice is needed. In 2004, across London, 47% of people voted for parties other than Tory or New Labour.

Either

• find your borough - the Council area in which you live - in the list of boroughs. Then find your ward from the list

or

• Type your postcode into the box above and click Find Ward

then

• Find out the state of the parties in your ward in the 2004 Mayoral and London Assembly elections, and London Strategic Voter's recommendation on the best anti-New Labour tactical vote for 1 May 2008 where you live.

• Tell your friends & neighbours about us and don't forget to vote on 1 May!

For more on the candidates standing for Mayor go to Guide to the Candidates for Mayor

For more on the London Assembly election, go to Guide to the Assembly election for information on the voting system and Guide to the parties standing for the Assembly for information and our view on the available choice.

For more on London Strategic Voter's rationale and approach, read on…

London Strategic Voter's comment & recommendations for the Assembly elections at Guide to the parties standing for the Assembly

685,000 Londoners voted for Ken Livingstone as their first choice for Mayor in the 2004 London election, but only 468,000 voted Labour for the London-wide seats in the London Assembly. This means that a remarkable 217,000 Londoners voted for Ken but refused to vote for New Labour.

We at London Strategic Voter did this because we wanted a progressive, “left of New Labour” alternative to New Labour’s hard right warmongering and lies. We are guessing that many of the rest of 217,000 did too.

The 217,000 showed themselves to be sophisticated progressive voters, who have grasped the concept of electoral self-empowerment through intelligent “left of New Labour” strategic voting.

Together with the 120,000 who voted Green and Respect for the Mayoral election, and a good few of the 285,000 who voted Lib Dem first choice for Mayor (say one tenth), we comprise the London Progressive Voters.

We constitute about 350,000 voters, around one fifth of the London electorate, large enough and important enough to make all the difference to results across London at the next General Election.

What are our key issues at London Strategic Voter? Here's a start:

• New Labour committed what the 1945 Nuremberg Trials defined as the paramount war crime: starting a war of aggression. Iraq. Five years later, it's still going on. We're still bombing - and over a million Iraqis lie dead. New Labour wants to sweep its crimes under the carpet and “move on”. We want to bring all New Labour MPs who voted for the war to justice.

• Action not spin and outright lies on climate change.

• Stop privatising our NHS.

• Fair votes & genuine democracy through electoral reform - and end the scandal of election-stealing by the major parties with fake postal votes

• Effective action to address the housing affordability crisis.

• No bale out of the bankers at our expense to solve the credit crunch - don't nationalise the banks' losses, nationalise the banks!

Gordon Brown intoned “no return to boom and bust” for ten years whilst cynically stoking up the biggest consumer debt bubble in economic history. It is just desserts that he will now have to face the electorate in 2009 or 2010 during the worst bust since the 1930s, and he will richly deserve everything he gets. But progressive voters need to beware, because both New Labour and Tories alike will be determined to make ordinary people pay to bale out the bankers and the super-rich, whose greed made this crisis, and who will seek to hang on to the riches they made from us during the boom, but pass on to us the losses suffered from the bust.

A Strategic Voter is someone who wants to use their vote to the maximum effect in support of the progressive cause. Strategic Voters want to change our dire “first past the post” electoral system to a system where every vote counts. But, faced with first past the post elections at present, Strategic Voters are prepared to vote tactically for a candidate or party who is not necessarily their first choice, in order to give that vote maximum impact. For more on the theory and practice of Strategic Voting, go to More on LSV's Approach

…is to actively target a hung parliament, with as many progressive, left-of-New Labour MPs as possible, from whatever party, holding the balance of power.

We will do this by giving progressive voters the information they need to vote strategically, parliamentary constituency by constituency, so that we can kick out precisely the number of New Labour MPs needed to deny New Labour an overall majority, but not so many that we hand the Tories an absolute majority.

Once we have got a hung parliament, our next aim is to reform Britain's archaic, failed, unfit for purpose General Election voting system, so that going forward there will no longer be any need for tactical voting, and we can all vote for parties and policies we actually believe in, with a hope of our views actually being represented in parliament.

For more on the theory and practice of Strategic Voting, go to More on LSV's Approach

New Labour's high command are scared rigid of Londoners at the next General Election. They are right to be, because so many pro-war New Labour MPs have seats here, and are vulnerable to defeat.

New Labour's tactic is to tell the progressive voter that we have nowhere else to go (“it's us or the Tories”), and then, having bagged our vote, laugh in our face and pursue right wing policies identical or worse to what the Tories would have done. Strategic voting is about calling that bluff and proving that it is not “us or the Tories”, by actively targetting a hung parliament that will rein in New Labour's hard right politics.

London Strategic Voter thinks that London can be a big part of the story of achieving a hung parliament, by demonstrating that left-of-New Labour options do exist, voters do have somewhere to go, and that this can cost Labour seats that it used to take for granted.

If you live in London, 1 May 2008 will be your only opportunity to cast your vote until the next General Election.

The great thing about the 1 May London election is that it has a form of fair voting (proportional representation), far from perfect, but immeasurably better than the archaic, deliberately unrepresentative first-past-the-post system we will get at the next General Election. This means that we can vote for the candidates and parties we actually support, with much less risk of our vote being wasted.

In the Mayoral election there is a genuine risk that Boris Johnson could win for the Tories. Fortunately we all get two votes for the Mayoral election. As long as we fill in the ballot paper correctly and don't spoil it (see http://londonelects.org.uk for more details), we have the chance to vote for the candidate we like best as first choice and then (assuming Ken & Boris are lying first and second after the first round), the chance to keep Boris out by voting for Ken in the second choice column.

More on the Assembly election….

Find your borough - the Council area in which you live - in the list of boroughs. Take a look at the page of analysis for your borough. Then find your ward, and take a look at the data and LSV recommendation for your ward.

Then, if you have feedback, post it in our forum! If you want to find someone elsewhere in London to do a vote-swap, then go to the voteswapping topic in the forum.

To jump straight to the ward by ward information for your ward enter your postcode in the box in the top right hand corner of this welcome page.

If you don't know the ward you live in, enter your postcode in the same box, press go and our magic ward finder will do it for you.

If you don't know what borough you live in then look on the side of your dustbin! If you don't know your postcode then we give up!

This site has been produced by volunteers independently of any political party. We don't have any external financial support. We would like to improve the site further and put an advert for it in The Big Issue and (if funds allowed), Time Out. This will cost money. If you would like to financially Support London Strategic Voter, please email LSVoter@hotmail.co.uk, and tell us how much you can pledge. If we get pledged enough to be able to afford the ad, we will call them in.