Gordon Brown toyed with a euphemism today and then cast it aside.
These results were disappointing, he began to say, before correcting himself and admitting that they were in fact, bad.
He had no choice of course. A new leader who'd promised to renew his party has in fact done worse than his predecessor Tony Blair ever did, even after the public had tired of him and his unpopular and unsuccesful war.
Labour's problem, then, is there are no easy explanations and therefore no easy answers to the mess they find themselves in.
The party, in effect, had its leadership crisis just two weeks ago, over the 10p tax debacle. On all sides there's much talk of listening to the electorate without much sense of what that really means.
Allies of the prime minister now openly compare his plight with that of John Major. The hope is that their man is in the same position as Mr Major was in the early 1990s - that the country will in the end, stick with him, rather than risk a flashy, untried and untested opposition leader.
Today's polls suggest, though, that he may be in fact in the same position as John Major in 1995 - headed for defeat.
I can find no-one in the Tory or Labour high command that does not believe that Boris Johnson will this evening be declared the next Mayor of London.
I can't help reflecting on the day I broke the news on this blog that Boris was thinking of running.
In truth, I didn't really take the idea seriously. Labour must now be rueing the fact that they too did not take Boris seriously until it was too late.
A booky BBC colleague, Robin Chrystal, suggests that Boris may be getting a little extra help from on high. Some religious calendars indicate that today is St Boris' Day.
The Bulgarian and Greek Orthodox calendar of saints has 2 May as his feast day.
St Boris was the pagan ruler of Bulgaria - Boris I - in the ninth century. According to some sources his conversion to Christianity met great opposition in Bulgaria. Boris ruthlessly suppressed it and executed 52 boyars together with their entire families.
He ended his life as a monk.
London beware.
Bad for Labour. Very bad. And with worse likely to follow. For once there can be no spinning, no rival interpretations, no debate about what local elections results mean.
If - as insiders on both sides now expect - Boris Johnson is elected mayor of London later today David Cameron will be able to herald his party's most successful night since John Major's general election victory in 1992.
This, of course, does not mean that Mr Cameron will follow Mr Major into No 10 but it does mean that something will have to change dramatically for Labour to prevent that happening.
What could that something be? A change of Labour leader? No, for all the discontent with Gordon Brown, hardly any Labour MP believes that's possible, let alone desirable. A change of policy? Certainly, though it's already clear that there is disagreement about the direction in which policy should change.
Thus, Gordon Brown will be left to blame unprecedented economic turbulence for the unprecedently bad political position he's in. He will offer to listen to voters' concerns. He'll promise to steer the country through troubled times as he did as chancellor. He expects that greater scrutiny will expose the opposition for the lightweights he believes they are.
Above all, though, he will simply have to hope that - in the words of the old election song - things can only get better.
John McDonnell - the left-wing MP, who tried and failed to mount a challenge against Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party, has just warned his party that they will be sleepwalking their way to disaster if they seek to minimise tonight's defeats.
Labour's vote seems to have fallen most heavily in its heartlands. The BBC's boffins report that in those wards where it won more than 45% of the vote last year, Labour's vote is down by five points compared with three points across the key wards as a whole.
This poor performance can't be blamed on apathy. Turnout in its heartland wards is almost exactly the same as last year.
The second of the two Norwich brothers - Ian Gibson - has now told Gordon Brown that "we're there to help". Coming from one of his party's most serial rebels this is help that the prime minister may feel he could do without. But Gibson, like his Norwich political sibling Charles Clarke, will now feel empowered to tell the PM that he knows how to solve his party's woes.
At last, the inquest begins.
Asked whether Gordon Brown can win the next election, Charles Clarke replied with the resounding reply "It's possible" before adding "but it will require changes" - changes, he went on, to his team, his message and sense of purpose.
Not a threat to change the leader but a demand that the leader change his approach fast.
The BBC's final calculation of the projected national share is now in and confirms that it is a very bad night for Labour and a very good one for the Tories:
Labour 24% - the worst figure in 40 years
Conservative 44% - 4% higher than last year
Lib Dem 25% - 1% lower than last year, 4% lower than 2004 BUT pushing Labour into second place
Expect Team Cameron to try to mount a tour of Southampton, Bury and Nuneaton tomorrow to show that he has won in the South, the North and the Midlands.
Expect Gordon Brown to be contrite, to promise to listen, to blame economic uncertainty and promise to weather the storms.
Expect Nick Clegg to find councils to visit such as Hull and St Albans to highlight where he has made progress.
NB. If you're just joining me, you might be interested in this brief guide to what I'm looking out for tonight.
John Denham says that the Lib Dem vote in the city collapsed and that voters felt "shaky and uncertain" and that the government needs to reassure them. I'd be grateful for more local intelligence on what led to this Tory upset.
I note from a quick search of the web that the Tories ran on a very populist platform promising:
• a 10% discount on council tax for pensioners and free bus travel throughout the county is an attempt to appeal to the grey vote
• a public say on a "large" casino for the city
• the fight to save one patch of the city from a proposed gypsy transit site
NB. If you're just joining me, you might be interested in this brief guide to what I'm looking out for tonight.
The first wow result of the night. The Tories have gained Southampton - they didn't expect to and we didn't expect them to.
This is the home of the cabinet minister, John Denham, who's warned his party of the danger of losing the southern voters who Tony Blair wooed so successfully. Those warnings will now surely get louder.
NB. If you're just joining me, you might be interested in this brief guide to what I'm looking out for tonight.
With now just over 220 of the BBC's key wards declared, the change in vote share for the three main parties is:
CONSERVATIVE +6
LABOUR -2
LIB DEMS -4
The BBC boffins tell me that it's beginning to look quite likely that the Conservatives have performed better than they did last year, while Labour may be heading for an even worse performance than in 2004. Whether the Lib Dems will end up a little weaker than last year remains uncertain.
Tory sources are predicting that they'll gain 200 council seats - high enough for them to claim real success.
After disappointments in Cheltenham and Worcester they have had successes in Harlow and Nuneaton.
NB. If you're just joining me, you might be interested in this brief guide to what I'm looking out for tonight.
More flesh on the bones of the boffins' analysis. With 100 of the BBC's key wards declared the estimate of the change in vote share is:
Labour down 3%
Conservatives up 6%
Lib Dems down 4%
Now, you can't simply add these figures to the vote share in 2004 and get tomorrow's Projected National Share. Why? Because the figures above are the change in share in those wards and not a projection of what the final figure will be.
Proof that individual results will tell stories that don't fit neatly into the PNS figure comes from Worcester which the Tories have failed to take. This is one of the seats David Cameron needs to win an election.
NB. If you're just joining me, you might be interested in this brief guide to what I'm looking out for tonight.
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