Conservative Elected London Mayor

Boris Johnson's Victory Part of Strong Backlash Against Labor, Gordon Brown

LONDON, May 2 -- Journalist-turned-politician Boris Johnson was elected London mayor on Friday, capping his Conservative Party's nationwide stomping of the ruling Labor Party in a rebuke to the leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Let's get cracking tomorrow -- let's have a drink tonight!" Johnson, 43, a famously playful iconoclast instantly recognizable for his rebellious blond hair, said in a midnight acceptance speech at City Hall.

Johnson, who becomes London's first Conservative mayor, soundly defeated two-term Labor incumbent Ken Livingstone on a day when Labor finished an anemic third nationally behind the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats -- Labor's worst local results in 40 years.

Analysts said the party's dismal national showing was largely due to shaky public confidence in Brown, who took office last summer. As the British economy suffers fallout from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, Brown's approval ratings have sagged to 28 percent amid fears that he lacks in leadership and direction.

Voters took generous helpings of revenge on Brown and Labor in what the Independent newspaper called "The May Day Massacre." The Daily Express headline quipped: "Brown and Out."

In elections for more than 4,000 local seats across England and Wales, the Conservatives finished with 44 percent of the popular vote, far ahead of the Liberal Democrats with 25 and Labor with 24, according to a BBC analysis.

"We are renewing the Conservative Party," David Cameron, the clearly buoyant Conservative Party leader, told reporters Friday afternoon as counting proceeded, insisting that the vote was a show of confidence in his party and not simply a vote against Labor.

While voting in local races is not a precise predictor of voting in general elections , analysts said momentum was clearly with the Conservatives ahead of national elections that must be held within the next two years.

"This is catastrophic news for the Labor Party," said Philip Cowley, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham. "You can see it in the faces of the Labor politicians -- they all know this is a disastrous result."

Cowley said Labor's performance had an ominous historical precedent. Its share of the vote, he noted, was slightly worse than the Conservative Party's showing in the 1995 local elections-- two years before the party was routed from power nationally by Labor, led by a young newcomer, Tony Blair.

Brown's challenge now is to keep Cameron and the Conservatives from ending Labor's 11 years in power.

"I think for a lot of people in the Labor Party, there is a feeling that Brown is not what they thought they were getting," he said. "Astonishingly, a lot of them thought he would be their savior."