Labour made to suffer at polls

Last Modified: 02 May 2008
By: Channel 4 News

Tories local election gains point to Boris Johnson win in London, as Labour plunges to third place in share of vote.

It has been a very bad night for prime minister Gordon Brown who has seen his party lose five councils so far and its share of the vote slump below 25 per cent.

With 118councils declared in local election in England and Wales, the Labour Party has made a net loss of eight councils

The Conservative Party has gained 10 and the Liberal Democrats unchanged.

If this voting behaviour was echoed in general election, Tory leader David Cameron would enjoy landslide House of Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats.

In terms of councillors, the Conservative made a net gain of 182, the Liberal Democrats up 19 and Labour down 214.

This is reflected in the national share of the vote, projected to put Labour on just 24 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent and the Conservatives on 44 per cent.

If this voting behaviour was echoed in general election, Tory leader David Cameron would enjoy landslide House of Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats.

With 50 councils still counting ballots, Labour could effectively lose up to 300 councillors.

The results so far

With 118 councils declared:

Conservatives +10 councils +182 councillors
Labour -8 councils -214 councillors
Lib Dems 0 councils 19 councillors

Once the votes are counted all eyes will turn to London where the results of mayoral elections are expected from 7pm this evening.

Although Boris Johnson's lead over Ken Livingstone was narrowing in the last week of the election campaign, according to opinion polls, the Conservatives will hope resounding results elsewhere in England and Wales will point to a win in London.

However, Livingstone - a two-term mayor seeking another four years in office - has upset the national picture before.

If neither candidate receives 50 per cent of the votes cast, the results will depend on second-preference votes redistributed from other candidates. It is this that makes the London election so difficult to call and what makes traditional opinion polling so unreliable.

Elsewhere in local elections there were few significant gains for the minor parties, although the BNP and UKIP both gained councillors, eight and two respectively.

The Green Party, who gained three seats, were celebrating in Norwich were they overtook the Lib Dems to become the main opposition group on a council for the first time in their history.