After eight years Boris Johnson who came up to visit Bury Market last year during the election campaign and has been replaced in London’s City Hall by the Labour MP for Tooting Sadiq Khan. Personally, even though I voted for Zac Goldsmith the Conservative candidate, I think it is a great testament to the opportunities that do exist in this Country when someone from a working class background can be elected to hold high office. Whether that is s shopkeeper daughter’s from Grantham becoming Prime Minister in the case of Margaret Thatcher or a bus driver’s son from South London becoming Mayor of London in the case of Sadiq Khan. I could add the son of a steel mill worker from Sheffield becoming Member of Parliament for Bury North in my own case.

It is, of course a disappointing result for the Conservatives in London but the results in the capital at last year’s general election were rather different from the rest of the country. Labour won 45 of the 73 seats and in 53 of the 73 seats there was a swing to Labour despite the fact there was a swing to the Conservatives nationally.

The results of the Scottish Parliament elections will serve give hope to London’s Conservatives. After being wiped out North of the border in 1997 the results announced yesterday saw the Scottish Conservatives overtake Labour to become the official opposition to the Scottish National Party in Holyrood – now who would have though that the day after the wipe out in 1997. Strange things can and sometimes do happen in politics.