'Mortified' Labour languish in third place for local elections

With just over half of the results through this morning, Labour are facing the prospect of putting in their worst local elections performance in living memory.

Both Opposition parties will be more than satisfied with their vote, having increased their total share of council seats, but Labour will be hard pushed to elide grimness from the story emerging at the polling stations.

At 9am, with the results of 84 wards known, Labour had lost 211 councillors (down to 773) and ceded control of seven councils. The Tories were up 104 seats (to 657) and had gained seven councils. The Lib Dems, while increasing their clutch of council seats by 64 (to 535), they lost control of two councils. It was a stronger voter turnout this year at 40% - a 9% rise on last time round.

According to BBC predictions, the Tories will capture 38% of the vote, compared the Lib Dems' 30%. Labour are in third with only 26%, the corporation said.

The New Labour project's guiding animus has been its fear of losing elections. It has demonstrated its phenomenal quality as a vote-winning vehicle – but today, New Labour is in unfamiliar territory. The Home Secretary told BBC Radio 4 that he was "mortified", conceding it had been a "bad night" for his party. At the G8 summit in America, Tony Blair admitted that the war in Iraq – an action so profoundly associated with him personally – had cast a "shadow" over yesterday's vote.

A jubilant Tory party co-chairman, Dr Liam Fox, said that the results had been "excellent", and represented their "biggest lead over Labour since 1992". This was "the solid base we need to win the general election", he said.

"It has been Labour's worst electoral performance in living memory and it is the first time that a government has been pushed into third place in mid-term elections."

He added: "We have made progress from a high base right across the country - winning back councils, especially in cities and towns, that we have not held for over a decade."

The sense of triumph the Tory leadership may be expressing at the moment will be tempered in private with the knowledge that they have been here before. In 2000, with the endorsement of 38% of the local electorate, the party under William Hague believed it had built a solid foundation to challenge Labour at the general election. Their antediluvian euphoria was swept away by a second, more devastating, Labour landslide the following year.

The Lib Dems are also in celebratory mood today, as the party surged past Labour's share of the vote "for the first time in living memory".

Liberal Democrat Chief Executive Lord Rennard said: "Thursday night’s local election results show the Liberal Democrats continuing to gain support and council seats - and challenging Labour in what were previously Labour heartlands.

He added: "Liberal Democrats believe that our gains in the 2004 local election results are the precursor to substantial gains from Labour at the next General Election – just as their local election gains in the mid 1990s pointed the way to substantial gains from the Conservatives at the 1997 General Election."

Londoners should know who their Lord Mayor will be at the end of today.

The makeup of the UK's 78 MEPs will be known on Sunday.

(gmcg)