Brown facing polls test in English local elections

Published on Thursday 1 May 2008 10:17

GORDON BROWN leaves a polling station with his wife Sarah today after voting in the London mayoral election.

The Prime Minister faces his first major electoral test as voters go to the polls in local elections across England. Labour is braced for a backlash amid anger at the abolition of the 10p tax rate, which could cost them up to 200 council seats.

But a bigger blow would be the loss of the London mayoralty, should Ken Livingstone go down to his Tory rival Boris Johnson. The race for City Hall has so far been too close to call.

Ministers have sought to quell anger over the 10p tax row this week by apologising for failing to realise millions of low earners would lose out. Mr Brown said: "We made two mistakes – we didn't cover as well as we should have that group of low-paid workers and low-income people who don't get the working tax credit and we weren't able to help the 60 to 64-year-olds who don't get pensioners' tax allowance."