Reasons to be cheerful, part one.

Part 1...

We, the Lib Dems, took Bristol. That's England's seventh largest city.

It's odd, by the way, that Bristol was up for election with all the county councils. That's because, legally, it's defined as a county for the purposes of the Lieutenancies Act 1997. It's our smallest county by area.

Here are the largest cities (source Wikipedia) in England, and who governs them. We have a hand in running all of them except London and Manchester.

• London is run by a Conservative Mayor, held to account by a mixed assembly (Con 11, Lab 8, LD 3, Green 2, Nazi 1) currently chaired by Green Party assembly member Darren Johnson. Liberal Democrats run some of the London Boroughs.
• Birmingham is run by a Conservative and Lib Dem coalition, the deputy leader being Lib Dem cllr Paul Tilsley.
• Liverpool is run by Liberal Democrats, under leader cllr Warren Bradley.
• Leeds city council is run but a coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents, led by Lib Dem cllr Richard Brett
• Sheffield is run by Liberal Democrats, under leader Paul Scriven
• Manchester is run by Labour (61 seats), with Lib Dems second (34 seats), and the Conservatives holding one seat.
• And, now Bristol is run by Liberal Democrats, with 36 seats (Con 17, Lab 16, Green 1).
• We also run a number of other British cities, like Newcastle, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Edinburgh (with SNP), Cardiff (minority administration), and Swansea (in coalition).

So, our win in Bristol underlines the fact that we're a party of government, and that we're strong in urban areas. And, there are a number of examples of us working in coalition with others. While we don't seem to have any counties, we do have districts and boroughs throughout England.