UK: The Tories are bracing themselves for disaster - for they may not fare as badly in tomorrow's local and devolved elections in England, Scotland and Wales as many of them privately hope.
Certainly Mr Iain Duncan Smith seems set to do well enough to survive as Conservative Party leader.
And that is very bad news for Tory MPs who consider him an even worse general election prospect than William Hague proved on a spectacularly bad day in June 2001.
With 10,427 of 19,721 English council seats up for grabs, these local elections are the biggest since 1999. With voters also electing 129 members to the Scottish Parliament and 60 members to the Welsh Assembly, tomorrow's contests - coming at mid-term in the life of the second Blair government - might also be thought likely to tell something significant about the mood and temper of the British public some two years ahead of the next likely general election date.
However, it is the near-resignation of so many Conservative MPs to no change at the top of their party which already provides the most eloquent pointer to a historic third term for Mr Blair.
The fact that there are no elections in Greater London will obscure any emergent "national" picture. As will an expected low poll, even if up on the 35 per cent turnout in last year's local contests. The Conservatives and Labour have already started blaming each other in dread of any significant advance by the British National Party, fielding a record 221 candidates and hoping to ride a popular wave of concern about asylum. Local elections also invite a predominance of "local" issues, with more than 2,000 independent candidates entering the fray. Labour will be hoping for a "Baghdad Bounce" - akin to Margaret Thatcher's Falkland's Factor - which seems to have pushed the party back ahead of the SNP in Scotland, and which may increase the overall turnout. Against that the Liberal Democrats will be hoping for a "Baghdad Backlash" which would see ethnic minority voters desert a Labour Party, also reportedly hit by a failure to enthuse activists who opposed the war against Iraq.
With the Conservatives defending a relatively high performance in the same contests last time, some Labour strategists even suggest they could trail third in the overall share of the vote behind the Lib Dems.
In now time-honoured fashion Labour is certainly playing down its expectations. By all previous rules of the political game the governing party might anyway expect a dollop of mid-term blues. And for obvious reasons.
Increased national insurance contributions have registered in this month's pay packets - the first overt tax rise by a government grown notorious for stealth taxation. Council taxes likewise have soared, yet there is little sense of delivery of New Labour's oft-repeated promise of world class public services. Just this week Mr Blair faced the embarrassment of a Downing Street adviser - Fiona Millar, partner of his communications director, Alastair Campbell - blaming the government for spending cuts at her child's school. And while Mr Blair insisted every waiting list and waiting time indicator in the National Health Service was more positive than in 1997, the Royal College of Nursing was warning of nurse shortages in the NHS approaching crisis point.
The expenditure of more and more public money with as yet little convincing evidence of radical improvement in the public services is certainly fuelling the unease of middle-class voters as they contemplate the rising costs of higher education and the erosion of their capital assets as the property market begins to fall.
Fresh from war, Mr Blair at his press conference on Monday tried to exhibit some enthusiasm for the returning spotlight on the domestic political agenda, promising no compromise in face of trade union opposition to reforms opening the door to greater private-sector involvement in the key public services.
Yet if that agenda suggests potential rich pickings for the official opposition you might not guess it from Mr Duncan Smith's demeanour. For the Conservative leader is likewise playing down his expectations of tomorrow's elections.
Mr Duncan Smith's forecast of a modest 30 or so gains (against the hundreds privately hoped for) is explained by the fact that in the same 1999 contests the Conservatives gained more than 1300 seats.
However, that was from a very low base. Moreover, William Hague's 1999 "high point", with a 33 per cent share of the poll, came just two years before he led his party to a second landslide defeat in 2001. To prove that he is a credible contender for Number 10, therefore, Mr Duncan Smith needs to do significantly better.