The Mole’s handy guide to Brown Thursday

To cut through the psephology babble, this is all you need to know about today's local elections...

David Cameron will be cooing if he wins 200 seats and crowing if Boris wins the race for London Mayor. The Conservative target is around 43 per cent share of the vote. Cameron particularly wants to take Bury to prove he can win in the north.

Gordon Brown will be satisfied with losing 100 seats and positively smug if Labour keep above the Lib Dems in the share of the vote. But he will be suicidal if Labour loses 200 seats and finishes in a humiliating third place behind the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems are confident about regaining control of Sheffield in leader Nick Clegg's Parliamentary backyard. They will be pleased to get 25 per cent of the vote to show Clegg can poll higher in elections than in the opinion polls. They really are hoping to push Labour into third place in the share of the poll.

There are 4,023 seats up for election in England and Wales this year - far fewer than the 10,475 seats up for grabs last year. But the big prize is London where a win for the Tories' Boris Johnson over Labour's Ken Livingstone could trigger civil war in the Labour ranks.

Latest predictions suggest that the London result may not be announced until between 7pm and 9pm on Friday night. Brown's fingernails will be more bitten than ever.

THE MOLE: LOCAL ELECTIONS

FIRST POSTED MAY 1, 2008