Local election meltdown for Labour
Labour will be pushed into the third place behind the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats at next month’s local elections, experts have predicted.
Analysis by election experts Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher for the Sunday Times shows Labour trailing the other two main parties in 34 English local authorities going to the polls on June 4th.
A separate opinion poll from YouGov puts the Tories up two on 43 points, Labour down seven on 27 and the Lib Dems up two on 18.
The gloomy poll predictions follow a second successive nightmare week for the government, in which it faced defeat and climbdown over Gurkha resettlement and MPs expenses in the Commons.
It got worse for Labour when details of ministers expenses claims were obtained and published by the Daily Telegraph.
Peter Watt, former party general secretary, told the Sunday Times that the government appears to have “absolutely no direction”.
“Publicly, Gordon talks about values and his moral compass, but actually the way he conducts himself behind the scenes is anything but that – it’s brutal,” he said.
“This is Gordon’s politics: when things go wrong, you find someone to blame and you blame them hard. That’s what he does. The last ten years is littered with people who’ve been cast asunder.”
A reshuffle after next month’s polls is widely expected, with floundering home secretary Jacqui Smith and deeply under-pressure Hazel Blears facing the axe.
Blairites and left-wing MPs are expected to come into the Cabinet in a bid to ‘stop the rot’ ahead of next year’s general election.
