The Labour group only just managed to maintain control of Wakefield Council after a series of blows thinned their ranks.

And there was a Tory claim that three local Labour MPs had been looking "absolutely worried".

Labour started the day with 40 seats but finished up with just 32, while the Tories saw their numbers swell from 16 to 23.

Labour now has a majority over the other parties of just one seat.

The Liberal Democrats lost one seat; Independents gained two.

Labour stalwarts who fell included mayor Allan Garbutt, who lost by 187 votes to the Tory candidate.

And Trevor Izon, cabinet member for children and young people, lost his Pontefract South seat to a Conservative.

Albert Manifield, deputy cabinet member for regeneration, also lost to a Conservative, Susan Lodge, who took the Crofton, Ryhill and Walton ward with 1,783 votes, a majority of only 53.

The Tories took both Pontefract wards, North and South, from Labour, as well as wards including Stanley, and Ackworth, North Elmsall and Upton. They also took Ossett from the Liberal Democrats.

The leader of the Tory group on the council, Bryan Denson, hailed it as a "fantastic result".

He said: "I would guess that if that had been a general election we would have had a Conservative MP now. We gained votes in every district. I saw (Labour MPs) Ed Balls, Jon Trickett and Yvette Cooper and they looked absolutely worried."

He said Wakefield Council had as few as three Tory councillors as recently as 1999.

Coun Denson said he now expected the Labour group to offer his own group more say in the running of the authority.

Coun David Hopkins, who retained his Wakefield South ward for the Conservatives, said: "Clearly we have benefited from the unpopularity of central Government and Gordon Brown but the Labour council has not been good over the years.

"If it wasn't for 20-odd votes in one ward Labour could have lost control of the council. We can now sit down and hold the council to account.

"The council would have been 'no overall control' if we had won Wakefield North."

Labour held on to that seat, beating a Tory by only 37 votes.

Coun Hopkins added: "We have gained 20 extra seats in Wakefield in eight years. That is down to Labour's arrogant app-roach in running the council."

Would-be Tory MP for Wakefield Alex Story said: "Many people said the day Wakefield's Labour council fell would be the day the Labour Government would fall. Today we have come very close to that end.

"We have dramatically in-creased our vote across the district, across economic and social divides. People have heard our message of change and voted in huge numbers to demand that change in Wakefield.

"In the coming months we will be campaigning hard to hold Wakefield's failing Labour council and MP to account and come the general election I am confident our support will see Wakefield return a Conservative Member of Parliament."

Labour losers were putting a brave face on their problems.

Mr Garbutt, who lost the Ackworth, North Elmsall and Upton seat, said: "The 10p tax issue and immigration and other national issues have affected us all. I am disappointed.

"Our beliefs as a Socialist party are that we don't tax the poor and people have been ringing me and I can't defend it or influence it. Times are changing. Everything that goes around comes around."