Tony Blair faces a haemorrhaging of votes in the South as Labour heads for its worst local election results for 30 years on May 3, shortly before he resigns.

On “Super Duper Thursday”, more than 10,450 town hall seats will be contested in England and a further 1,212 in Scotland, the biggest set of council elections for four years. On the same day elections will be held for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

Gordon Brown, who will accompany Mr Blair to twin campaign launches today in Glasgow and Nottingham, faces a grim handover: defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections; the loss of most of Labour’s councils in Scotland, made worse by a new voting system; and the loss of hundreds of town hall seats in England.

Local government pundits predict that Labour will lose a net 600 seats and the Tories will make net gains of 600 or 700 in England, based on recent by-election results.

Experts are divided on the Liberal Democrats. Some are forecasting they will suffer a net loss of up to 150 seats, but others predict net gains.

The BNP, which did well in London last year, is also expected to make gains in Yorkshire, the North East and the West Midlands.

The North-South divide is expected to be even more sharply drawn after Labour’s presence in the South is reduced to a handful of councils. Despite huge gains in the affluent South East under Mr Blair’s new Labour banner in the 1990s, many councils there now have no Labour councillors at all.

Labour could make a couple of gains, such as Thurrock and Hyndburn, but it will mostly be defending existing seats. The party, which promises to campaign on local issues and local pledges, is at a very low base but could still lose five to ten councils. Happy to play down its chances, its only upbeat message is that it hopes to use some hi-tech internet wizardry to attract young voters.

David Cameron will struggle to get a foothold in the North but his party is expected to gain in the middle belt of England, around the M42 corridor from Solihull to Nottingham. All eyes will be on whether the Tory leader can obtain a 40 per cent share of the vote, the magic number he needs to have any hope of victory at the next general election.

Mr Cameron, who will forgo a national launch in favour of local campaigns, hopes to capitalise on gains last year and win a further 15 to 20 councils. While the Tories will be campaigning hard in Birmingham to become the biggest party, Mr Cameron has his sights on taking control of Bury; Barrow in Furness; Charnwood, Leicestershire; Crewe & Nantwich; the East Riding of Yorkshire; Gravesham, Kent; Waverley, Surrey; and Wyre Forest and Plymouth, among others. All are under no overall control at the moment apart from Gravesham, which is led by Labour. Other possible gains include Warwick, Rugby, North Warwickshire, Dover, Maidstone and Dartford.

The party will campaign on the Vote Blue, Go Green theme that it adopted last year, pushing environmental and crime issues. Mr Cameron and the Shadow Cabinet team, who will all be deployed during the next four weeks, will also be campaigning on the NHS and against identity cards. The focus will be on local rather than national issues.

The Liberal Democrats, who did worse than expected last year, also begin their campaign today. They argue that they are fighting from a high base and are unlikely to make many gains.

Targets include Woking, Northampton, Hull and South Shropshire. They also hope to hold West Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, and Rochdale. Other possible gains include Warrington, Oldham, North Somerset and North Wiltshire.

The local elections will also be affected by new laws to tackle election fraud, including the need to provide a signature and date of birth for postal vote applications. This could substantially lower the number of postal votes as people will be forced to reregister this year under the new rules.

One side-effect of the new rules is that as many as half of the local election results may not be announced until the following day, making overnight predictions difficult.

The pool of candidates will be younger because 18-year-olds can stand for the first time, and internet, texting and telephone pilots will be held in some councils.

The local elections are being held throughout the country in all types of councils except London boroughs and shire counties. Elections are being held in nearly all shire districts, where contests will mainly be fought in rural areas between the Lib Dems and the Tories. Contests in the 36 English metropolitan councils will mainly be tussles between Labour and the Tories with some three-way fights.

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