Despite a rather lack-lustre campaign, the election was good news for the Liberal Democrats at least in terms of their share of the vote. Of couse the first-past the post system completely discriminated against them in terms of seats.
It took 26,000 votes for Labour to win a seat, 46,000 for the Tories and 100,000 for the Lib Dems.
This meant they only gained 16 new seats and lost 5 they had previouly held making an overall increase of 1l seats.
But despite their commitment to neo-liberalism, voters across Britain supported the Liberal Demcrats on the basis of what they saw as a left alternative to New Labour.
Clearly opposition to the war in Iraq was the motor force behind this dynamic which spectacular gains from Labour notably in Manchester Withington with a swing of 17.3 per cent and in Hornsey and Wood Green of 14.6 per cent as well as in the more predicted university town of Cambridge with a swing of 15 per cent.
They also took Cardiff Central with a swing of 8.7 per cent and Leeds North West with a swing of 9.6 percent, both areas with high student density.
It wasn't only in seats that the Lib Dems won that this phenomenon could be seen.
There were massive swings against Labour to Kennedy's party in other seats too - even anti-war MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot in Hackney North saw a swings of 10.8 per cent against them whereas pro-war Andrew Smith in Oxford East suffered an 11.8 swing against him, plunging from a 10,000-plus majority down to 960, with almost all of the votes switching to the Lib Dem candidate, while the Greens made only marginal gains.
The Liberal Democrats also did well across Scotland with a 5.4 percent swing against Labour - and in the process appear to have damaged some of the softer base of the Scottish Socialist Party and maybe the SNP in this Westminster contest.
In Wales too they will be pleased have taken Ceredigion from Plaid Cymru and are probably responsible for the overall loss of 1.7 per cent of Plaid's showing at the last election, whereas their vote improved by 4.6 per cent. Only the militantly anti-war MP Adam Price, who has led the campaign to impeach Blair, stemmed this tide tripling his existing majority and achieving a 3.5 per cent swing against new Labour.
If opposition to the war in Iraq was the key to the punishing of new Labour, it was not by any means the only issue.
Opposition to tuition fees and student loans, and to identity cards, support for free personal care for the elderly as well as pledges to higher income tax for the rich and the replacement of concil tax with a local income tax were also telling questions for voters.
In this context it is not surprising that the other part of TAB