Blair braced for bloody nose at poll

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party was braced last night for heavy losses in the council elections in which more than 6,000 seats were being contested across 166 local authorities in England and Wales.

Mr Blair has faced taunts that he had been dropped from Labour's campaign literature because he had become a liability.

However, Tory leader Michael Howard was also under pressure after opinion polls suggested the Conservatives' hopes of doing well in the European elections could be hit by a surge from the UK Independence Party.

UKIP is set to pick up a dozen seats in the European Parliament, a four-fold rise from its current three seats, according to the latest forecast.

If correct, the figure would confirm early predictions of big gains for the only party standing on a platform of pulling out of the European Union.

Yesterday's Gallup figures predicted the Tories would keep ahead of Labour, with 23 and 20 seats respectively. In the outgoing Parliament the Tories held 36 seats to 29 Labour MEPs.

The Liberal Democrats will boost their presence from 10 to 14 seats, according to the figures.

But some commentators have suggested that UKIP could even beat the Liberal Democrats into a humiliating fourth place. Britain's seats will fall from 87 to 78 in the new Parliament.