MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Blair to shake up cabinet after poll rout

Tony Blair will carry out a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle on Friday as he tries to fend off demands from Labour MPs that he must quit after the party's poor performance in England's local government elections.

Following the furore over the failure to deport foreign criminals, financial problems in the health service and the revelation of John Prescott's affair, Labour however did not suffer the electoral meltdown that some of the party's strategists had suggested.

Labour lost control of a string of councils, including its London flagship of Camden, and more than 250 councillors. The Conservatives made solid advances, gaining some 250 councillors and winning an estimated 40 per cent share of the vote, their best result since 1992, which will confirm their revival under David Cameron. However, they failed to make headway in northern inner city areas, such as Manchester, which remain Tory-free zones.

Labour's share of the vote was projected to fall to 26 per cent, third behind the Liberal Democrats on 27 per cent, and equalling its result in 2004, the worst under Mr Blair's leadership, and well down on the 32 per cent in 2002 when this set of councils was last contested.

With Labour set to come third in terms of its overall share of the vote ? well behind the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats ? Mr Blair will carry out a reshuffle that aims to reassert his grip on the government.

Labour has lost control of a string of high-profile councils it has controlled for many years. In London, the principal battleground where seats in all 32 borough councils were contested, Labour lost overall control of Camden and surrendered to the Conservatives Hammersmith & Fulham, Croydon, Bexley and Ealing, the latter often considered a bellwether council. In one small compensation the party regained control of Lambeth.

Outside London, Labour lost control of Stoke on Trent and Bury, while the Tories took over Crawley.

It was perhaps a disappointing night for the Liberal Democrats, fighting their first major elections under the leadership of Sir Menzies Campbell. They re-took Richmond from the Conservatives and became the largest group on Camden council, but they unexpectedly lost control of neighbouring Islington and of Milton Keynes, two of their flagship authorities.

The British National Party made localised advances, winning 11 councillors in Barking & Dagenham in East London, where Margaret Hodge, the local Labour MP controversially warned last month of a haemorrhage of white, working class support from Labour to the far right.