UK coalition suffering losses in local voting

LONDON – The two parties in Britain’s coalition government are suffering widespread losses in local elections in England.

The BBC projected on Friday that the opposition Labour Party was on course to gain more than 700 seats in local councils and to form a majority on several of the local governing bodies.

Voters in Manchester, Nottingham and Coventry rejected proposals for elected mayors, which had been strongly backed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

The BBC says Labour was winning about 39 percent of the vote in elections which attracted a low turnout of about 30 percent. Conservatives were taking 31 percent of the vote, while Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats were taking 16 percent.