Britain's Brown suffers major defeats in local polls

As results poured in, Labor -- with Brown leading them into elections for the first time since taking office last year -- was set to finish in third place behind the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the BBC said.

The ruling party could face further humiliation in the London mayoral race, which pitched the current mayor, Labors Ken Livingstone, against the Conservatives maverick Boris Johnson.

Voting in the capital took place Thursday, the same day as in the nationwide local polls, but counting starts at 0730 GMT and the results are expected to be announced sometime after 1600 GMT.

The Conservatives have 44 percent of the vote, the Liberal Democrats 25 percent and Labor 24 percent, according to BBC projections, which added that this result would be its worst since the late 1960s.

With results from 100 out of 159 local councils officially announced, the Conservatives had won 45 local councils, Labor 14 and the Liberal Democrats six. The remainder was not controlled by any single party.

Labor lost six councils and 162 councilors and the Conservatives gained eight councils and 147 councilors.

Senior government figures pinned the blame on the global economic downturn and insisted Brown -- who succeeded Tony Blair in Downing Street last June -- was still the best man for the job.

Harriet Harman, Labors deputy leader, told BBC television: "We all think these are disappointing results and we recognize the economic context with people feeling the pinch... "But we are determined to listen and confident to take the country forward."

Some commentators suggested that the results could represent a tipping point for the Conservatives hopes at the next general election, which must be held before the middle of 2010.

"The possibility at least that the Conservatives might win the general election is no longer inconceivable," Professor John Curtice, professor of government at Strathclyde University, told BBC radio.

Brown has been shaken in recent months by poor opinion polls and by lawmakers’ dissent over tax reforms and plans to extend the period of pre-trial detention for terrorist suspects to 42 days. It seems unlikely that he will face a leadership challenge in the wake of the results, but is expected to try and relaunch his government.

"A change of Labor leader? No, for all the discontent with Gordon Brown, hardly any Labor MP (member of parliament) believes that’s possible, let alone desirable," wrote the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, on his blog. "A change of policy? Certainly, though it’s already clear that there is disagreement about the direction in which policy should change."

In all, some 13,000 candidates fought for more than 4,000 seats on 159 municipal councils in England and Wales as well as the 25-member London Assembly and mayoral vote. Polls closed at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) Thursday.

In 2004, the last time the seats were contested, Labor came third in the national vote equivalent with a 30 percent share of the vote. Then, the fall-out from Britain’s involvement in the widely unpopular Iraq war hit them hard but Blair’s government went on to win the general election the following year.

London’s mayor controls an annual budget of more than 11 billion pounds (14 billion euros/22 billion dollars) and his decisions affect 7.5 million Londoners plus millions of visitors.

While a Johnson victory would be another huge boost for the Conservatives, a Livingstone win could reassure Labor that their dip in form is only temporary.
Most opinion polls have put the two men neck-and-neck.

Recent national opinion polls have put Labor between 14 and 18 percentage points behind the Tories, with one saying the gap was the widest since 1987, when Margaret Thatcher was in power.