4:12am UK, Friday May 06, 2011
The Liberal Democrats look set to be the big losers as ballots are counted in elections across the UK.
The referendum is the first for more than 35 years
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is likely to come under fire after the party's councillors paid the price for a backlash against their position in the Coalition government.
Party members said they were expecting to lose 12 of their 15 seats in Sheffield, where Mr Clegg has his parliamentary seat.
Other officials said the party could "lose everything" in Liverpool, which has been a traditional stronghold, and in Manchester. In Hull, the Lib Dem council leader admitted defeat before counting had even started.
The result of the referendum on changing the system for Westminister elections to the Alternative Vote (AV) will not be known until late on Friday, but the Lib Dems look set to face defeat on that issue as well.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "We don't expect to have an easy night.
"We do expect some reaction at a local level, however excellent our councils and councillors have been."
Lib Dem MP for Manchester Withington John Leech was more forthright in a message he posted on Twitter. "We've taken a real kicking in the ballot box tonight," he said.
More than 9,500 seats in 279 councils have been contested in most of England, bar London and a few counties.
With high expectations that it can capitalise of dissafection with the Conservative and Lib Dem over spending cut, Labour will be hoping to win hundreds of new councillors.
However, a YouGov survey for The Sun suggested Ed Miliband's party had suffered a dip in support in the run-up to the elections.
The survey gave Labour a slim two-point lead with on 39%, against 37% for the Conservatives and 10% for the Liberal Democrats.
Tory Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Labour was at a low point when the seats being contested were last up for election in 2007 and was now under pressure to show it had turned things around.
"Labour will make gains, we will make losses - we have said all along up to 1,000 councillors," the former Conservative leader told Sky News.
"But there is a test out there not just for us. Ed Miliband has led them into an election - 1,500 seats, victory in Scotland, 40-45 council gains: that's a fair and reasonable target for Labour, if they are really on the way back."
The Conservatives are defending 5,000 local council seats.
Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman suggested the Tories could even pick up some council seats because of the "total collapse" in Lib Dem support.
The outcome of the referendum on switching from First Past the Post to the Alternative Vote will not be known for hours.
Sophie Ridge's Guide To AV.
Indications are that the 'No' campaign will triumph but whatever the result the recriminations have already begun.
Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown rounded on Prime Minister David Cameron in Friday morning's newspapers over his failure to distance himself from the 'No' campaign's "regiment of lies".
"You cannot fund a deeply vicious campaign to destroy the personality of your partner, who has been unmoved in his brave support of the coalition, without there being consequences," Lord Ashdown told The Times.
The AV referendum pitted the Prime Minister against his deputy
And he told The Guardian: "David Cameron is the Prime Minister. He sets the tone of politics in this country.
"I have to say that he did not dissociate himself from a campaign whose nature I believe every previous British prime minister in my time would have disassociated himself from. That is a grave disappointment."
Lord Ashdown dismissed the idea that the issue could cause the Coalition to disintegrate but said that Lib Dems were "exceedingly angry".
Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes indicated the party would demand concessions on key issues like NHS reform as the price for the Conservative conduct of the AV campaign.
For David Cameron, the 'No' vote will prove that conceding a referendum in order to win Lib Dem backing was a gamble worth taking.
Read Jon Craig's blog on the potential winners and losers of the referendum
In Scotland, the SNP picked up many of the voters who deserted the Lib Dems as well as snatching seven parliamentary seats from Labour.
An overall majority for Alex Salmond's party would cement his position as First Minister and make a referendum on Scottish independence more likely.
Meanwhile, elections to the Welsh Assembly are on a knife edge, with some opinion polls before election day suggesting Labour could be able to gain an overall majority.
However, on the night party sources said although they expected an improvement on the 26 seats it held in the last assembly - but admitted they may not be able to
surpass the "magic figure" of 31 needed to govern alone.
The result in Northern Ireland is not expected to change dramatically, although it is possible Sinn Fein could enjoy a late surge of support to become the largest party.
But it is clear the votes cast in the array of elections could transform the political landscape across the nation.
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