The Conservative Party are on track to lose 800 council seats at Thursday’s local elections, a polling guru has predicted.
Lord Robert Hayward told HuffPost UK that he expects both Labour and the Lib Dems to make major gains as Brits in certain boroughs go to the polls today.
He says Sir Keir Starmer’s party is on track to increase the number of councillors by 550, while Ed Davey’s Lib Dems will gain 250.
But it is unclear whether the scale of Labour’s success will be enough to indicate the party is on course for power at the general election.
Hayward said it could actually be Lib Dem leader Davey who ends up the happiest of the three main party leaders.
“As the third party in local government the Lib Dems will probably increase their share of council seats by more than Labour,” Hayward told HuffPost UK.
More than 8,000 seats and 230 councils in England are up for grabs on May 4.
The Tories currently hold 3,290, with Labour on 2,062 and the Lib Dems on 1,205.
Independents and others make up the remaining 1,600 seats.
The elections are the first big electoral test for Sunak since he took over as prime minister six months ago.
According to Daily Telegraph reports, Sunak told an Onward think tank event on Wednesday evening his administration had worked to improve the economy and move away from the “box set drama” of what went before his premiership, in what appeared to be a reference to predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Sunak became Prime Minister in October after Ms Truss’s fiscal measures spooked the markets and led to her downfall.
She had been in Downing Street only 44 days, having taken over from Mr Johnson, who had been ousted following the partygate scandal and complaints over his handling of assault allegations against former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.
The Prime Minister, speaking on the eve of polls opening, reportedly said: “We should be prepared that tomorrow night is going to be hard for us.
“Good councillors will lose their seats because of all that has happened over the past year.”
Related: Tory chairman repeats 1,000 council seat losses claim and denies he will quit