Poll nightmare puts pressure on Brown

British prime minister Gordon Brown was today facing pressure from his own MPs for a radical change in direction after a nightmare at the polls saw Labour slump to its worst results for a generation.

A BBC projection based on the votes in councils in England and Wales put Labour’s national vote share at just 24%, 20 points behind David Cameron’s Conservatives on 44% and beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25%.

The margin was similar to the drubbing received by John Major in council elections in 1995, two years before he was ejected from Downing Street by Tony Blair.

The Tories would enjoy a landslide Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats if the results were repeated in a general election.

One prominent Labour backbencher warned the prime minister that without radical change he would see his government “slipping away”.

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman admitted the results were “very disappointing”.

Watching events unfold at Conservative HQ, Mr Cameron said the results were going “very well” for the party, which planted its flag in Labour’s northern heartlands by seizing control of Bury and made a surprise gain in Southampton - one of the few southern cities where Labour still has MPs.

Conservative local government spokesman Eric Pickles said Conservative successes meant Mr Brown would not risk calling a general election until the last possible date in 2010.

“The ship of state is heading towards the rocks,” he said.

Labour MPs pointed the finger of blame for the bloodbath at the state of the economy and Mr Brown’s decision to scrap the 10p rate of income tax, which hit millions of workers’ pay packets in the weeks before the elections.

Ed Miliband, one of Mr Brown’s key lieutenants, admitted the 10p issue had made the campaign “difficult” and the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tony Lloyd, said it had hurt Labour on the doorstep.

Mr Lloyd said the electorate had sent a “very clear signal” to Labour in a “referendum on where the government stands”.

Cabinet minister John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen, said Labour must listen to the concerns of voters in the south of England.

“(If) we go from here, show the voters that we have been listening to the things they are genuinely concerned about, show that we can address them here in the south, then we can and will win the next general election,” he said.

There were calls from the left of the party for a shift in direction, with Norwich North MP Ian Gibson urging the prime minister to offer railway renationalisation, union rights for agency workers and a more generous minimum wage to restore the confidence of traditional Labour voters.

John McDonnell, who tried to challenge Mr Brown for the leadership last year, warned that New Labour policies had brought the party “close to a potentially irretrievable tipping point”.

“Without a radical change of direction, we are witnessing a Labour government slipping away,” he said.

With results in from 99 councils, Labour had lost 145 councillors while the Conservatives had gained 144. The Liberal Democrats were up 10.

With around 50 councils counting ballots today, Labour’s total deficit could hit 250 or even 300 before Mr Brown’s pain is complete.

Tories were hoping to cap their council successes with victory for Boris Johnson in the London mayoral battle with Ken Livingstone, due to be declared late today.

However, observers believe it may not be possible to read directly across from the national swing to the personality-driven contest in the capital.

Conservatives won Nuneaton & Bedworth in Warwickshire from Labour and West Lindsey in Lincolnshire from the Lib Dems, while also seizing Elmbridge in Surrey, Harlow in Essex, Maidstone in Kent and Wyre Forest in Worcestershire from no overall control.

Some of Labour’s worst results were in Wales where the party lost control of the former Valleys strongholds of Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent, which were captured by independents.

Torfaen in the south and Flintshire, in north-east Wales, fell to no overall control.

First Minister Rhodri Morgan admitted he was “very apprehensive” as it appeared that the tide was “running strongly” against his party.

Liberal Democrats salvaged their flagship council Liverpool through a last-minute deal with Independent councillor Nadia Stewart, who joined the party to give it a wafer-thin absolute majority after it appeared to have lost overall control.

The party also reasserted its grip on former Labour stronghold Hull, which it first won last year only to see the city slip from its hands due to defections, and gained St Albans from no overall control.

Nick Clegg’s party fell slightly short of its performance in 2004, when it was buoyed by opposition to the Iraq War.

But the Lib Dem leader insisted his party had done well in its first test with him at the helm.

“We’ve overtaken Labour. We have won seats and I was told we were going to lose them,” he told the BBC.

“We’re on the move again. We have confounded expectations and proved we are capable of winning seats from the Conservatives and Labnour in their heartlands.”

The Greens were celebrating in Norwich, where they leapfrogged Lib Dems to become the main opposition grouping on a council for the first time in their history – just two seats behind Labour.

And the far-right British National Party gained eight seats – two each in Rotherham, Nuneaton & Bedworth and Amber Valley and one in Pendle and Thurrock.