JOHN HUMPHRYS:                     The Tories are feeling 
relatively pleased with themselves this weekend.   They reckon they've 
got the government on the run over a number of different issues and they've 
just scored their first by-election victory in Scotland for more than thirty 
years.  The next big test for all the parties is the local government elections 
in England and Wales in the first week in May.  Labour's worry is that 
many of their traditional supporters will stay at home and the Liberal 
Democrats are afraid they may continue to lose voters in the south. All 
of which would be good news for the Tories and people may start saying 
that Tony Blair cannot take the General Election for granted. Terry Dignan 
has been taking some soundings of his own. 

TERRY DIGNAN:                For nearly twenty years the 
high tide of Conservatism dashed Labour's attempts to capture the towns 
of the Medway. Then, in 1997, the Conservatives were swept away. Now they 
hope to show they're on course to winning back the Medway towns by taking 
the council from Labour in May's local elections. What the Tories are counting 
on is a little help from Labour's core supporters.  If Labour's traditional 
core vote fails to turn out here in the Medway towns and the rest of England, 
the Conservatives could be heading for their best election result since 
1992. Like Labour, the Liberal Democrats are also worried. Although they 
expect to make gains at Labour's expense in the urban North of England, 
they fear losing to the Tories in their Southern strongholds. The big question 
mark hanging over the Conservatives is whether they do well enough in these 
local elections to suggest they pose a serious threat to Labour at the 
General Election.  Hoo St Werburgh is a microcosm of England's electoral 
battleground and, says Medway's Labour leader, could provide clues for 
the General Election.
      
PAUL GODWIN:                Well, this is an ex-council 
housing estate which has been taken over by a local housing society. A 
lot of core Labour voters here who would have voted for us in '97 in a 
marginal ward and obviously we need to ensure they come out again and vote 
for us on May the Fourth. We currently have one Labour councillor and one 
Conservative councillor representing this ward so it's extremely important. 
 We  returned three Labour MPs in Medway at the '97 General Election and, 
of course, this is a testing time for us in terms of the vote at the local 
elections, probably a year, eighteen months in advance of the next General 
Election. I know the three local MPs are working very hard to help us get 
the Labour vote out in the local elections for that reason. So it is going 
to be a clear indicator and pointer to what might happen in the General 
Election.

PROFESSOR COLIN RALLINGS:        Labour core supporters exist 
everywhere - there are of course many more of them in the North of England 
and in parts of urban Scotland, but even in the South there are pockets 
of strong Labour support and if Labour supporters there are taking the 
same attitude to the party and to the Government as Labour supporters in 
the North and in Scotland, then it can have a similarly damaging effect.

DIGNAN:                    So worried is Medway Council 
about future turnouts, it's hired a drama group to persuade these bemused 
sixth formers that voting is cool. Low turnouts don't hurt every party. 
It's being predicted that if Labour voters stay at home in May, the Conservatives 
can feel optimistic about regaining Medway's Parliamentary seats at the 
General Election.
       
RODNEY CHAMBERS:            If the traditional Labour core 
vote stays at home, then it is my belief - and I think it will stay at 
home - that the three Members of Parliament, Labour Members of Parliament, 
that are representing the Medway towns at the moment, must be very seriously 
worried people.

DIGNAN:                    When the parties cast off 
and set sail for polling day, how many of their supporters will climb aboard? 
In local by-elections Labour has only been able to retain sixty-eight per 
cent of the votes it received at a previous council contest. The Conservatives, 
though, have kept ninety-four per cent of their vote; the Liberal Democrats 
ninety per cent. So low turn-outs in council elections have been hitting 
Labour hardest.
  
RALLINGS:                    In London and in other 
places, councils for example like Medway, there are pockets of very strong 
Labour support; and if those Labour supporters sit at home then it means, 
at the elections in May in Medway, that it could have the effect of Labour 
losing effective control of the council. And of course if they sat at home 
again come the General Election, then it would mean a seat like Gillingham, 
part of the Medway Towns, would be taken back by the Conservatives from 
Labour with almost no votes actually changing hands.

DIGNAN:                    The early signs of Spring 
in Kent. Yet Labour fears many of its core supporters feel their lives 
show little sign of changing for the better under Tony Blair's Government.

GODWIN:                    I think it is of concern. 
I mean, obviously, the national opinion polls are still very favourable 
to the Labour Party but I think it is a problem for us.  I think any party 
in power when they're governing clearly has to get across what it's achieved. 
And the Labour Government's no different from anybody else.

DIGNAN:                    Nowadays local politics 
generate little excitement.  But that doesn't put off Liberal Democrats 
like Maureen Ruparel. At the last Medway elections her party won as many 
seats as the Conservatives. To improve the Tories chances of winning the 
council - and then the Parliamentary constituencies - they need to take 
votes off the Liberal Democrats. It's conceded that may happen albeit on 
a limited scale.

MAUREEN RUPERAL:            Apart from people switching to 
the Liberal Democrats, I think an awful lot switched to Labour at the last 
election. Some may go back to the Conservatives if that's their natural 
home, but basic core Liberal Democrat support doesn't alter. 

DIGNAN:                    During the nineties that 
support rose steeply in Torbay. So much so that the Liberal Democrats won 
control of the Devon resort from the Tories on the back of the Poll Tax 
revolt. Since then they've also won the area's Parliamentary seat.  The 
recent history of voting behaviour here in Torbay will be familiar to many 
parts of Southern England. First, the Liberal Democrats win control of 
the council. Then, they oust the sitting Conservative MP. To show they're 
well on the way to reversing this process, the Conservatives in places 
like Torbay will have to be able to inflict heavy losses on the Liberal 
Democrats in these elections.  Glassblowing - a craft practised at Cockington 
Court with funding from Torbay Council, whose leader is visiting. She's 
up against Conservatives who - no longer associated with an unpopular Tory 
Government - find it easier to exploit local discontents. 
 
ANN WIILIAMS:                There are difficult decisions 
that we have to take locally, not just here in Torbay, nationally. Government 
legislation has to be adhered to, and our local Conservatives here are 
in an extremely comfortable position.  How wonderful to be able to criticise 
the Labour government. How wonderful to be able to criticise the Liberal 
Democrat administration.

DIGNAN:                    In areas like Torbay the 
Liberal Democrats believe they've benefited from tactical voting. It's 
meant Labour supporters backing them to defeat the Conservatives. But now 
the Conservatives are out of office, is tactical voting  much in evidence?

WILLIAMS:                    I don't think the Labour 
supporters here in Torbay would like to see a Conservative MP, or a Conservative 
council.  A lot of people that I speak to on a regular basis, they don't 
forget the Tory days here in Torbay.  It's commonly known, many, for many, 
many years as Tory Bay."

RALLINGS:                    I think the case has 
now rather changed, and the Government isn't hugely unpopular and neither 
any longer are the Conservatives.  At the next time if people revert to 
their normal party pattern, then that may allow, in several of the constituencies, 
the Conservatives to slip through the middle without actually polling many 
more votes than they did last time.

DIGNAN:                    These are the Conservative 
activists who stayed loyal during the years of unpopular Tory rule. Driven 
from power throughout the South West, they're planning a comeback. Today 
they're delivering newsletters denouncing their arch enemies in the region, 
the Liberal Democrats. 

RICHARD CUMING:            I think the tide is turning against 
them, I think if you have a look at the European election results twelve 
months ago, the Conservatives in the Bay polled over nine thousand votes, 
the Liberal Democrats just over three thousands votes. The message is clear 
that people aren't prepared to support the Liberal Democrat policies either 
locally or of course nationally.

DIGNAN:                    Yet even if the Liberals 
Democrats do  lose seats in the South, that won't tell the whole story. 
Because they could be making gains at Labour's expense in the urban North.

RALLINGS:                    During the 1990s when 
the Conservatives were so unpopular the Liberal Democrats took many seats 
and indeed Councils, from the Conservatives, especially in south and south-west 
England, places like here in Torbay.  And they've found their success now 
over the last couple of years more in traditional Labour areas where they 
can compete effectively against Labour Councils and represent a protest 
vote against the Labour government.

DIGNAN:                    Having once looked as if 
they might sink without trace in local elections, the Conservatives are 
back afloat and charting a course to possible victory. In council by-elections 
their share of the vote is running at thirty-six per cent, ahead of Labour 
at thirty-five per cent. Lying astern are the Liberal Democrats - their 
vote share is currently twenty-four per cent. Projecting these figures 
to May gives the Conservatives about three hundred gains. Labour would 
make roughly two hundred and eighty losses with the Liberal Democrats showing 
little or no change - suggesting they'll do well in Labour's Northern heartlands 
but badly at the hands of the Conservatives in the South of England.  So 
what do these calculations tell us about Liberal Democrat prospects at 
the General Election? Winning in the  North may not be of much comfort 
to them because there are few marginal Parliamentary seats they can gain 
there. It's the South which will determine their immediate future.

RALLINGS:                    Almost half the Liberal 
Democrat seats currently in Parliament are at risk to a five per cent swing 
from them to the Conservatives at the next General Election; and their 
performance in parts of the south suggest that they are now suffering that 
level of swing to the Conservatives - that must put some twenty of their 
MPs under serious threat.

DIGNAN:                    But does the scale of the 
Conservatives' predicted gains - three hundred extra council seats - mean 
William Hague could defeat Labour at the General Election?  

RALLINGS:                    I think in reality these 
elections in the coming May, the Conservatives need to register something 
in excess of four hundred gains to suggest they have the kind of lead over 
Labour at this stage in the Parliament which they could use to build on 
to threaten the Labour majority at the coming General Election.        
       

DIGNAN:                    May will see the start 
of Torbay's summer season. By then we might only be a year away from Tony 
Blair calling a General Election. Much could depend on Labour avoiding 
a poor performance in the local elections. That means persuading core supporters 
it's worth joining the one in three people who now bother to turn out.