Battered Blair to reshuffle Cabinet

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was set to reshuffle his Cabinet this morning after Labour suffered a humiliating defeat in local council elections.

In Labour’s worst electoral bloodbath since Mr Blair came to power, the party is expected to have lost more than 250 councillors across England as well as control of more than a dozen town halls.

Jubilant Conservatives were claiming that they were set to break through the 40% level in overall share of the vote and gain well over 200 seats.

Supporters of David Cameron hailed the result as a vindication of his decision to reshape the party since he won the leadership last December.

The disastrous results led to calls from Labour backbenchers for Mr Blair to set out a timetable to hand over the premiership to his presumed successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Former health secretary Frank Dobson said the reshuffle would amount to no more than “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic” and insisted the party needed “new management”.

A close ally of Chancellor Brown, former minister Nick Brown, suggested Mr Blair may not be the man to reverse Labour’s “drift”.

“We can’t drift on,” he told the BBC. “It’s pretty clear what’s gone wrong and we need to address it.”

Asked if Mr Blair could turn Labour’s fortunes round, he replied: “I don’t know but he has got to try.”

Reports suggested that Mr Blair’s deputy John Prescott would publicly take the brunt of the blame for the electoral debacle. But it was unclear whether he would pay the ultimate price in today’s reshuffle.

Mr Blair has so far sought to portray Mr Prescott’s affair with a civil servant as “a private matter”.

Also thought to be vulnerable in the shake-up of the government’s frontbench team is Home Secretary Charles Clarke, despite Mr Blair’s repeated insistence that he should be allowed to stay on to sort out problems with the deportation of foreign prisoners.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, who have both found themselves the subject of negative headlines in recent weeks, may be spared the axe.

Mr Blair’s strong public expressions of support for them give them hope that they will keep their seats at the Cabinet table.

Ms Jowell said that “noise” from national controversies had drowned out strong campaigns on the ground, and suggested that local activists felt “let down” by Labour’s MPs at Westminster.

With some 23 million people – half the UK electorate – entitled to go to the polls in 176 local authorities in England, yesterday’s ballot was the largest electoral test ahead of the general election expected in 2009 or 2010.

Labour’s worst losses were in London, where it was toppled from power in Merton, Camden, Lewisham, Hammersmith, Fulham and Bexley.

In Bexley, Tories dramatically seized control directly from Labour, gaining 23 seats and leaving Mr Blair’s party with a rump of just nine councillors.

In Barking and Dagenham, the far-right British National Party won 11 of the 13 seats it contested, while it also picked up council seats in Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent and Sandwell in the West Midlands.

Conservative success in London and the shires was not repeated in the large cities of the north, with Mr Cameron failing in his effort to establish a toehold in places such as Manchester and Newcastle and coming fourth to the Greens in Liverpool.

Senior Labour aides suggested the results showed a “north-south divide” in the political landscape of England, with the Tories failing to break out of their traditional heartlands.

Liberal Democrats increased their majority in flagship council Newcastle upon Tyne but failed to make the breakthrough they were hoping for when they replaced former leader Charles Kennedy with Menzies Campbell earlier this year.