Labour braced for mauling at polls

The party was expected to suffer heavy losses as millions of voters went to the polls in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and local councils in England and Scotland. It is likely to be a painful parting shot for Tony Blair as he prepares to announce next week his final plans to step down as Prime Minister after a decade in power.

However, the ballots also represent an important test for Conservative leader David Cameron, who needs to show that his party's revival stretches beyond the South East into areas that have been virtual Tory-free zones since 1997. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell also needs some sign of progress to reassure internal party critics that he is the man to take them into the General Election of 2009/10.

Strategists argue that he cannot expect big gains, as many of the seats up for grabs were last contested at a high point for Lib Dems in 2003. And while Mr Blair has little personally to lose from the results, his all-but-certain successor Gordon Brown will not want to inherit a party reeling from a public mauling.

The Chancellor was in Scotland on Wednesday amid signs a late Labour recovery could yet avert humiliation at the hand of the Scottish National Party in the most fiercely-contested battleground.

Pre-vote polls had suggested the battle between Labour and the SNP to form the largest grouping in the Holyrood Parliament is on a knife edge. A close result would lead to a protracted period of horse-trading as each tries to form a coalition administration in association with Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialists or (less probably) Tories.

However, the final poll - in the Daily Telegraph - gave the SNP a clear lead, meaning Labour could even end up out of power at Holyrood for the first time since devolution in 1999. Lib Dems believe they are giving SNP leader Alex Salmond a tough challenge in the Gordon constituency and hope they can reduce him to claiming a seat in the Scottish Parliament through the list system.

In Wales, Labour is fighting to regain control of the national Assembly in Cardiff, which it lost in 2005 when AM Peter Law became an independent. There is little doubt Labour will remain the largest single party at Cardiff, but with Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones claiming its vote is in "meltdown" it may lose enough seats to allow a combination of nationalists, Liberal Democrats, Tories and independents to form a coalition and remove it from power.

In England, Mr Blair's party is simply hoping to minimise the number of seats it loses on councils up and down the country. Predictions are that Labour could haemorrhage as many as 750 of the 2,385 seats it is defending, and the party's control of authorities such as Sheffield, Blackpool, Lincoln, Plymouth and Blackburn with Darwen is under threat.

After a string of poor performances in local elections, Labour holds just 28% of Britain's 21,892 council seats - its weakest position since 1973 - against the Conservatives' 39%.