Reg Anthony

Anthony, you are mixing up the figures for the constituency seats (3.01%) with those for the London-wide additional members (8.18% in 2004). Sort those out correctly and the picture becomes even more depressing:

- The figure for the constituency seats actually fell from exactly 10% in 2004;

- The figure for the London-wide additional members was actually just 1.9% this time.

It was on this latter figure that we fell to 9th place - yes, ninth - behind the Christian Alliance, Respect and Abolish the Congestion Charge. It is also the figure which paints the truer London-wide picture, because we were one of just seven parties to stand for all fourteen individual constituency seats (though the Christian Alliance stood in thirteen). Respect and the BNP both stood for just one individual constituency seat.

I am very upset by these results. I only clicked "terrible" on your survey because you didn't have an option marked "catastrophic" and, no getting away from it, these results are catastrophic.

We always knew that we were helped in '04 by the London elections being on the same day as the Euro elections, but that does not explain such a huge fall. I think it is worth comparing this year's results with 2000 as well as 2004 and they are even more telling:

- In 2000, we achieved a marginally better figure (exactly 1%) in the mayoral election than we did in 2008 (0.9%).

- In 2000, we also achieved a marginally better figure (exactly 2%) in the additional member vote for the assembly than we did in 2008 (1.9%).

What this means to me is that we have squandered the great opportunity we created in 2004, not only to the extent that we are now back where we started before those elections, but to the extent that we are struggling to match where we were as a little-known party eight years ago.