Results so far from the 3 May elections look poor for the left.

The Scottish Socialist Party, hard hit by the split forced for personal reasons by Tommy Sheridan, crashed to only 2579 votes in Glasgow (it had 31,000 last time, in 2003), and lost its MSPs.

Sheridan himself, standing for his new "Solidarity Scotland" group also lost his seat, though he kept a stronger personal vote (8544).

The SSP will now face a difficult struggle to readjust and relaunch itself as a party building primarily through workplace, union, and community intervention, rather than mainly through elections, as it has been in recent years.

In England, the Socialist Party went down from three council seats in its stronghold, Coventry, to two.

The results show only one nett council-seat gain in England for the BNP, who were standing many more candidates this time.