Bad Night For Labour At The Polls

By Sky News SkyNews - Friday, May 2 06:22 am

Voters have given Labour a bashing in the local elections, leaving it heading for its worst result in more than 30 years.

"It is a massive rebuff to Gordon Brown on his first test at the polls as Prime Minister,"says Sky Political Editor Adam Boulton on his blog.

The Conservatives were the biggest gainers, with significant wins around the country including Bury, Southampton and Harlow.

If the figures were to be reflected in a general election, the Tories would win a Commons majority of more than 150.

In a comment on his Webcameron website, Tory leader David Cameron said: "It looks like it's going very well."

Bury was one of the Conservatives' principal targets, with victory giving the party control of an area in the north of the country.

The victory in Harlow is also significant as it is regarded as a seat which closely matches results in general elections.

The party also did well in Birmingham, as even though it failed to take overall control, it took six seats from Labour to strengthen its position as the city's largest party.

The Tories missed one of its targets by failing to gain overall control of Worcester.

However, Conservative Party chairwoman Caroline Spelman told Sky News: "The point is that Conservatives are winning all across Britain."

Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears said that national trends could not be extrapolated with any confidence from local results.

But she told Sky News: "What we hear tonight we will, of course, take extremely seriously."

Not all councils tallied their results during the night, while the result of the London Mayoral election will also not be revealed until later in the day.

But writing on his blog after the overnight results show, political editor Adam Boulton predicted the Mayoral result would follow the same pattern as results nationwide:

"Conventional wisdom as London woke up to a day of vote counting was that Boris Johnson would cap the Tories' strong council performance."

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