All three main parties are finding good things and bad things in the council elections results from Thursday.

It's been good for the Tories but they've lost some councils to the Liberal Democrats and only made small progress in East Lancs.

It's been bad for Labour but not as bad as expected and they even made the odd gain in Pendle and Burnley.

It's been good and bad for the Liberal Democrats but we've held on to Pendle, strengthened our position in Burnley and got back a single seat in Rossendale.

But for one party the results have been a disaster, and that's the BNP.

This was to be their big year. Across the country they had almost 900 candidates.

They were forecasting 60 or 70 wins, and few anti-fascist campaigners were confident it would not happen.

But they only won a handful of seats. In the northern towns which had seemed such fertile territory for their messages of hate and division their candidates have flopped.

Burnley is no longer "BNP Capital of England". Their only win on Thursday was in Padiham.

Three wards threw them out including Briercliffe where their councillor only polled half the votes of the successful Liberal Democrat Anne Kelly.

Anne was once a pupil of mine at Colne Grammar School (longer ago than either of us would like to admit) and I rejoice in her victory!

There are still six Burnley wards with the BNP in second place and I hope all the main parties will maintain the pressure to force them further into the wilderness.

That's what has happened in Pendle where there was a danger that they would follow up last year's solitary success in Marsden ward in Nelson.

In the event only one of their candidates came even second and they lost three second places they previously held.

In Southfield ward, next door to Marsden, they trailed in fourth. Their votes dropped everywhere else.

It seems that more people are now rejecting a party that fosters divisions between people and creates tensions in communities.

Building a society which is both tolerant and diverse, in which people can live and work together in co-operation and harmony, is not always easy. But it has to be the way forward.

The failure of the BNP last week is good news indeed for all of us working for these ends.