Brown's darkest days

Despite the hasty reshuffle of the cabinet to restore his credibility, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown seems to have suffered a huge blow as the ruling Labour Party fared miserably in the local elections.

A day after reshuffling his cabinet in a desperate bid to reassert his authority, the embattled premier insisted that he had no intention of standing down despite the scandal over lawmakers' expenses, a string of top-level resignations and catastrophic results in Local Elections.

"I think it's important to recognise that in these unprecedented times, we are bound to have ups and downs in politics," Brown told reporters as he promised to "clean up politics" in the wake of a blistering expenses scandal.

Labour Party has lost more than 300 councillors and was at risk of disappearing entirely in some Southern counties.

On the other hand, the opposition Conservative Party were delighted by their strong performance in Labour strong-holds and by seeing off the Liberal Democrats in the South West.

According to the latest figures available, the Conservative has a total of 1,422 Council seats, followed by Liberal Democrats with 462 and Labour with 169, while other groups accounted for 159 seats.