Gordon Brown "election meltdown" prediction boosts Lib Dem by-election hopes

4.17.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 10th May 2009

Gordon Brown and the Labour Party are heading for electoral misery on 4 June according to a new analysis

Gordon Brown's Labour Party are heading for a humiliating third place in the local elections to be held on 4 June according to top independent commentators, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher. Their analysis of the opinion polls in the run-up to the local elections for the Sunday Times newspaper, predicts that Labour could lose all four of the Councils it controls and as many as half of the 500 seats it is defending.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6256702.ece

This news boosts the hopes of the Liberal Democrats in the by-election for the Birmingham City Council seat of Lozells and East Handsworth to be held on the same day. Local activist Sabirul Islam is the Lib Dem candidate in the by-election. Mr Islam fought the same ward in the Birmingham elections in May 2008 and came second to Labour with the Conservatives lagging nowhere on a miserly 4.5% of the poll.