Cameron's Conservatives Lose Local Council Seats Across Britain - BusinessWeek

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party lost seats on local councils to the opposition Labour Party in elections yesterday after more than a month of damaging headlines.

With results in early this morning from about half the 181 local councils being contested, the Tories had lost more than 250 seats, about a third of those they previously held, according to a tally by the BBC. Labour gained more than 400 seats and regained control of the local government in Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, after eight years.

Extrapolated nationally, the results gave Labour a projected lead over the Tories of 39 percent to 31 percent, the BBC said.

Support for the Conservatives has slumped to the lowest since the coalition government came to power two years ago. Cameron has faced a backlash over the March 21 budget that raided charities and pensioners to help fund an income-tax cut for the rich; the economy has slipped back into recession; and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is under pressure to quit.

The count in the highest-profile contest, for mayor of London, starts this morning, with the winner due to be declared during the evening. Polls in the capital carried out before yesterday showed the Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, extending his lead over Ken Livingstone, the former mayor who is running for the Labour, in a break with the national trend.

Final Poll

The latest poll, carried out from April 30 to May 2 for the Evening Standard newspaper, gave Johnson a lead of 53 percent to 47 percent over Livingstone in the decisive second round of counting, when second-preference votes from the five minor candidates are totted up. YouGov Plc (YOU) questioned 2,119 Londoners online and its voter predictions are based on the 1,238 respondents who said they were certain to vote. No margin of error was given.

In the overnight results, Cameron's coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, also lost 120 seats, more than a third of the seats they previously held.

Labour is set to gain more than 700 seats nationally when counting is complete, the BBC said, in line with pre-election forecasts. A similar voting pattern at a general election would give the opposition party an 82-seat majority in the 650-seat House of Commons. The next general election is scheduled for 2015.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eddie Buckle in London at ebuckle@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net.