Labour is heading for its worst results in local elections for 30 years and could be forced into third place on May 1, local government experts predicted yesterday.

The party is bracing itself for an even lower share of the vote than 2004, when it polled 26 per cent.

Then Labour was facing a backlash over Iraq and the party lost hundreds of seats in its metropolitan heartlands as voters switched to the Liberal Democrats. Today’s gloomy economic climate looks likely to do more damage to Labour’s prospects.

Party strategists fear that Mr Brown’s tax policies, including the move to abolish the 10p starting rate, will also alienate activists. Constant bickering about Mr Brown’s premiership has done little to boost grassroot enthusiasm and a low turnout could drive Labour into third place.

“It would be foolish to think that national issues – such as the debate over the 10p tax rate – are not influencing the decision of voters at the local elections,” Chris Leslie, Mr Brown’s former leadership campaign co-ordinator, said. “Many voters will use these elections as an opportunity to bash the Government,” Mr Leslie, the director of the think-tank New Local Government Network, added.

Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, predicts that Labour could fall to 25 per cent or less, with the Tories getting backing from more than 40 per cent of voters and the Liberal Democrats just above Labour on 26 or 27 per cent.

This would mirror the Tories’ dismal results in 1995 when John Major, struggling with a tiny majority, polled 25 per cent of the vote against Labour’s 47 per cent, the year after Tony Blair took over as leader. The Tories were wiped out by a Labour landslide in the 1997 general election.

“Labour is in serious danger of being third, possibly with the lowest share of the vote for at least 30 years,” Mr Travers said. “Labour councillors are being dragged down by the party’s national unpopularity, economic gloom, falling house prices and the mess over tax policy.”

Few councils are expected to change hands but if Labour does really badly the party could lose 150 seats, the Tories could gain 150, while the Liberal Democrats could win or lose about 50, he said. Labour is facing near-wipeout in the South East and could lose Reading, one of only two councils it holds in the South.

Most experts are predicting a low turnout outside London where Ken Livingstone is battling against Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick among others in the mayoral elections, and 25 seats in the London Assembly are being contested. “Labour’s disaffected will depress turnout outside London, although the neck-and-neck mayoral race could increase turnout in the capital,” Mr Travers said.

The gains and losses will be smaller than in previous years because only 4,500 seats are up for election in England and Wales, covering only 137 English councils and 22 Welsh councils. The number of councillors fighting for survival is lower than in 2004, when the same seats were up for election, because in many cases only a third of the wards are being contested.

Most elections are being held in Labour’s metropolitan strongholds where the Tories have made little headway. The Tories, who launch their local election campaign in Yorkshire tomorrow, still do not have a town hall seat in Liverpool or Newcastle upon Tyne and managed to gain only one in Manchester at a by-election last year. However, David Cameron is hoping to build on successes in last year’s local elections, where the Tories gained seats in northern suburbs and is hopeful of seizing control in Bury. The party is also hoping to gain the three seats it needs to win North Tyneside. But the Tories may lose their only seat in Sheffield, where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to gain overall control. The Lib Dems are hoping to pick up other northern seats, in particular Oldham and Warrington.

— The race to become London mayor hotted up yesterday when Mr Johnson threatened to “sock” Mr Livingstone on the “jaw”. The whispered warning, during a photocall when the Mayor tried, once again, to spruce up his Tory rival by untucking his shirt collar from where it was caught under his jacket, seemed to be in jest.

First past the post

— The number of people registered to vote at this year’s local elections on May 1 has risen to a record 46 million, with 500,000 signing up in the past 12 months

— With registration and postal voting applications closing today government figures show that an extra one million have registered in the past two years, many from the EU accession states

— Election chiefs yesterday reiterated their demands for tougher laws to clamp down on voting fraud as they started to process postal vote applications. Postal ballot papers will be sent out this week and have to be returned by May 1

— Returning officers are crossing their fingers that the technological hitches that caused chaos in last year’s elections will not recur over the next few weeks as more than two million people vote by post

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