The World - News from May 6, 1988

Britain’s socialist Labor Party surged into the lead in nationwide municipal elections, taking seats across the country in the first electoral test of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s reform policies. With results in from most of the 211 councils being contested in England, Wales and Scotland, Labor had a net gain of 109 seats, compared to a three-seat net loss for the Conservatives, the British Press Assn. calculated. The biggest loser was the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, formed in March after an acrimonious merger of the two centrist parties, which dropped about 70 seats.