The commentariat has been struggling to find an adequate description for the awfulness of last week's English and Welsh local election results for Labour. For its originality, colour and, er, style I've decided the award should go to the ever-readable Matthew Parris: "It's over. There was nothing constructive in the voters' message. These elections were not an invitation to change. They were a big two-fingered salute, a raspberry, a pressing of the de-trousered national buttocks to the window of the polling station".

Writing on Friday, Parris, a former Tory MP, also offered a list of 30 cliches he expected to hear over the following days from Labour MPs trying to get over the loss; wake-up call, message from the electorate, take it on the chin, listen to voters, learn lessons, heed concerns, need for change, get back in touch, sharpen up the act, show contrition, find a new narrative, feel their pain, show humility, understand more, blitz of initiatives, sense of purpose, simpler messages, sharpen the argument, clearer sense of rcdirection, relaunch, refocus, rediscover, redefine, repair, refresh, reshuffle, rethink, renew, begin fightback, still two years left.

On that measure, Labour has had a hugely successful few days. In the space of one interview yesterday, the Prime Minister himself tried out about half of them.


___________________________________


You could argue there's not much read-across from England's three-party politics to how last week's results could play in Scotland. But what about Wales? Plaid Cymru, like the SNP, is in power and offers a vehicle for anti-Labour protest votes. And what happened? Well, Labour took "a kick up the backside", according to Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy. But it was not Plaid Cymru that did best out of this. Tories picked up around half the seats Labour lost. LibDems picked up where they were already building strengths; Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. Plaid Cymru came out ahead but lost control of the one council it had controlled, Gwynedd. Even the party president and the council leader lost their seats. One of their problems was a 'save our schools' party, and independents didn't do badly at all in what First Minister Rhodri Morgan described as an anti-politician mood. Beneficiaries of that include former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, who parted company with Labour after a "moment of madness". His wife, Lynne Hughes, became a Plaid Cymru member of the same council.

One of the lessons learned by Paul Murphy, who has been delegated by Gordon Brown to handle relations with the devolved administrations, is that there's been too much talk about the constitution in Wales and not enough about prices at the supermarket checkout and petrol forecourt. If that's true, you have to wonder why Wendy Alexander marked the first year of SNP government yesterday with an acrobatic U-turn with half-twist over an independence referendum?


_______________________________________

Stanley Johnson, father of the foppish, Etonian new mayor of London, was asked on BBC News24 about his son's credentials in governing. "He's got good Greek and Latin," he replied. "And if you've got good Greek and Latin, you can do a lot of things, and that certainly includes running a city like London".
_______________________________________

Talking of Tories, Alex Salmond is not inviting Margaret Thatcher to tea at Bute House. He would like to make clear that he is not up for basking in her aura, as Gordon Brown did at Downing Street, ahead of saying that he rather admires the former Prime Minister for her strength and determination. This was the first anniversary message to readers of the Daily Telegraph. The Morning Star has not interviewed him recently, but given the opportunity, he'd probably sing the praises of Fidel Castro's health policy.

_______________________________

Time to catch up with quite a lot of polling action:

As exclusively revealed in The Herald, TNS System Three polled between 26 and 29 April and found the biggest lead ever for the SNP

Holyrood constituency
SNP 45
Labour 31
Tory 12
LibDem 11

Holyrood constituency
SNP 41
Labour 29
Tory 12
LibDem12
Others 6

Westminster
Labour 39
SNP 31
Tory 17
LibDem 10

According to YouGov in the Daily Telegraph last week,

Holyrood constituency
SNP 36
Labour 31
LibDem 15
Tories 13

Holyrood regional
SNP 37
Labour 28
LibDem 13
Tory 13

Westminster
Labour 34
SNP 30
Tories 17
LibDems 14

Doing a good job?
Alex Salmond 53
Annabel Goldie 41
Nicol Stephen 27
Gordon Brown 26
Wendy Alexander 21

YouGov also asked about support for different constitutional options, and incurred the displeasure of the First Minister for a fairly loaded question about the SNP preference of Scotland becoming "a completely separate state outside the United Kingdom".

Independence 19
Keeping devolution as it is 34
Devolution with more powers 38

Even when comparing independence with the status quo, support for the SNP's position rises to only 25%.

And Progressive Scottish Opinion, commissed by the Daily Mail, asked 1006 people, reporting on 23 April on a question that only asked about the constituency voting intentions:

SNP 40
Labour 33
Tory 13
LibDem 10

So there is a consistent picture of a comfortable SNP lead for Holyrood, Labour ahead but by much less than in 2005 on Westminster intentions, and the LibDems and Tories battling around the mid-teens for a poor third place. The smaller parties' hope may be that Thursday's results show Tories have begun to break through in parts of northern England which had been as resistant to David Cameron and Conservatism as Scotland has been, while Nick Clegg's poor UK poll showing was far behind the actual LibDem results - nothing spectacular, but modest progress.