UK:A night of predicted Labour defeats saw Britain's ruling party battling to avoid its exclusion from power in Scotland and Wales for the first time since the devolution settlement.
With expected losses of anything between 400 and 700 English council seats as well, yesterday's "Super Thursday" poll seemed certain to provide a bleak backdrop to the Labour leadership contest to be triggered by Prime Minister Tony Blair's resignation statement next week.
The man expected to succeed him, Chancellor Gordon Brown, will be anxiously awaiting the final outcome and assessment later today to see whether it makes a heavyweight "Blairite" challenge more or less likely.
Friends of former home secretary Charles Clarke claimed yesterday to have the backing of the 44 MPs necessary to put his name on the ballot paper.
The man who expects to contest the next general election against Mr Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron, was waiting equally nervously to see whether his party has extended its revival beyond the southeast of England and is capable of winning the 40 per cent-plus share of the national vote necessary to show him on course for Downing Street.
At the conclusion of a hard-fought campaign, the final opinion poll yesterday gave the Scottish National Party (SNP) a clear lead over Labour in the battle for Holyrood, pointing to the likelihood of early coalition talks with the Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen.
SNP leader Alex Salmond has warned of a furious public backlash should the unionist parties seek to exclude his party from government in the event of it winning the largest number of seats in the new parliament. However, Mr Brown remained in Scotland as voting got under way, buoyed by two earlier polls suggesting that Labour was narrowing the gap and might actually avert its first defeat in Scotland in over 50 years.
Labour was also struggling to regain control of the 60-member Welsh Assembly, which it lost in 2005. While Labour appeared confident it would remain the largest party, the bizarre possibility was being canvassed that a coalition of nationalists, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Independents could force it from office.
Some 32 million people were entitled to vote in the biggest local election cycle in England, with about 10,500 council seats involved in the last elections of Mr Blair's premiership, providing what some senior Labour figures fear could be a first judgment by the electorate on his likely successor Mr Brown.
The Sun newspaper yesterday reported that Mr Clarke was determined to launch a "kamikaze" leadership bid to prevent Mr Brown's threatened "coronation" as Labour leader, if current Home Secretary John Reid finally decides not to put his own name forward.
Mr Reid has said he will give no indication either way until after Mr Blair's statement.
Downing Street has denied reports that Mr Blair will also use next week's resignation statement to confirm that he is resigning as an MP. Mr Blair's spokesman said: "The statement next week will be solely about the PM being leader of the Labour Party." Predictions are that Labour could haemorrhage as many as 750 of the 2,385 seats it is defending.
After a string of poor performances in local elections, Labour holds just 28 per cent of Britain's 21,892 council seats - its weakest position since 1973 - against the Conservatives' 39 per cent.
Previous Tory general election victories in 1979 and 1992 were preceded by local authority ballots in which they secured about 45 per cent of the vote, and Mr Cameron will be looking for a similar score. The Lib Dems' current 22 per cent proportion of council seats is at an all-time high and party insiders concede it is unlikely to be increased by much.
Another key indicator will be the performance of the far-right British National Party, which has about 900 candidates standing in the various elections and hopes to add to its tally of 32 councillors in England. - (Additional reporting: PA)