LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced electoral humiliation as interim results from local and European polls showed voters deserting the Labour party in droves.
With just over half the votes counted for Thursday's council elections -- held in England and Wales in tandem with polls for the European Parliament -- Labour looked set to take a near-unprecedented third place.
According to a BBC extrapolation of the vote, using a representative sample of more than 400,000 votes, Labour won just 26 percent support, behind both the main opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.
The government had received "a kicking" in its first electoral test since Blair's unpopular decision to support the US-led war in Iraq Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott admitted.
"Iraq was a cloud, or indeed a shadow, over these elections. I am not saying we haven't had a kicking. It's not a great day for Labour," Prescott told BBC radio.
Another senior minister, Home Secretary David Blunkett, conceded that he was "mortified" by the figures, and also blamed Iraq for the reverse.
"Some people felt it was the wrong policy. It split families, it split the Labour Party, it split friends," he told BBC radio.
Blair himself, who sat out most the campaign, prompting accusations that he now is seen as an electoral liability, was leaving the Group of Eight summit in Georgia on Friday to attend the funeral of former US president Ronald Reagan.
Incumbent governments in Britain are traditionally punished during such mid-term polls, but the figures made grim reading for a prime minister already under considerable pressure on a number of fronts.
With votes counted in 99 of 166 councils being re-elected around England and Wales, Labour had lost 261 seats while the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties picked up 216 seats between them.
Opponents described the figures as the worst for Labour in living memory.
Among notable reverses was the Liberal Democrats' capture of the council in Newcastle, a northeastern English city which has long been one of Labour's strongest heartlands and was ruled by the party for 30 years.
British newspapers have been awash with stories over recent months predicting the Blair's demise, with some tipping Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to stage a coup.
But despite the scale of the latest rebuff, pundits stress that the prime minister may yet bounce back and win a third term in office in a general election expected to be called in the middle of next year.
It remains to be seen if the Conservatives can translate what is partly a protest vote into more solid support, as well as see off a threat posed by the UK Independence Party (UKIP), tipped to steal votes with demands for a British pullout from the EU.
Thursday's election also saw voters in Britain and Northern Ireland pick 78 deputies to the European Parliament, although these results will not be declared until Sunday, after the rest of the EU has finished voting.
In London, a separate election was additionally held deciding whether maverick mayor Ken Livingstone -- an opponent of the Iraq war but running on a Labour ticket -- would be re-elected. A verdict is due later Friday.
===== " How come people always flip and think they're Jesus? Why not Buddha? Particularly in America, where more people resemble Buddha than Jesus. 'Ah'm BUDDHA!' 'You're Bubba!' 'Ah'm Buddha now..All I gotta do is change 3 letters on ma belt...' " - Bill Hicks