Labour heads for election 'mauling' as results come in

There is only one word to describe Labour's outcome at the polls yesterday and that word is: disaster.

Brown must surely now fear that a challenge will be made to his leadership as Labour slump to their worst ever position in the polls since the early seventies.

Against a backdrop of an economic downturn and anger over the abolition of the 10p income tax rate, Labour looked set to be pushed into third place, with a meagre 24% share of the vote, trailing the Lib Dems on 25% and the Tories on 44%.

The extent of the Conservative gains puts the party on course for a general election victory. If these figures were borne out in a Westminster poll it would about to the Tories' best performance for 16 years. It would also echo the kind of landslide victory won by Tony Blair in 1997.

For the government of the day to be beaten into third place is simply shameful, and Brown must now carefully consider his position.

Labour sources described the result as "a mauling" and admitted that Ken Livingstone is likely to lose the London mayoralty to Boris Johnson, the Conservative challenger, later today. Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, said earlier he believed that Johnson had won.

The Conservatives also took Elmbridge, Nuneaton and Bedworth in the Midlands, and Harlow, a highly marginal parliamentary seat held by the higher education minister, Bill Rammell. Labour lost four seats there and the Tories gained five.

Were the votes to be replicated in a general election, cabinet ministers John Denham (Southampton Itchen) and James Purnell (Stalybridge and Hyde) would have lost their seats. Denham told the BBC: "We will get over the difficult times we are going through at the moment."

The universities secretary admitted that voters felt "shaky" about the economic climate, but added: "We will come back from this and win the next general election."

Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, insisted: "There is no crisis."

There is no crisis? Hoon, whose nickname at university was "Buff", seems to have no sense of history, as these were the words - "Crisis? What crisis? - famously attributed to James Callaghan during the winter of discontent, even though it is now widely accepted that Callaghan never actually uttered the phrase.

I'll say there's a bloody crisis. The Labour party are now in third position. Labour have not had such a low share of the vote since records began when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister.

One can only surmise from this that Ken will pay the price for Gordon's unpopularity and that the London Mayor will probably be the homophobic racist Boris Johnston.

As far as Labour is concerned, this is a disaster from start to finish, and a worrying indication of what the electorate thinks of Brown's government. As a Labour supporter, I share the public's disappointment. Gordon is not behaving like a Labour Prime Minister.

If the Labour party don't take on board this savage message from the electorate, then this government will fall come the next general election.

Gordon is sleep walking towards disaster. That's now official.

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Tags: Gordon Brown, Labour party, Tories, David Cameron, UK elections, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnston