London key as Brown's Labour faces elections test

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Gordon Brown faces his first major electoral test as prime minister this week, battered by negative opinion polls, industrial unrest and simmering rebellion within his Labour Party.

The contest to become London's mayor is the key battleground on Thursday when local elections take place in England and Wales.

Opinion polls on Sunday showed Labour would be forced out of office by the Conservatives if a national election were held now. The next election is due in 2010 at the latest.

"It is an indication of just how dire Labour's position has become that a poll showing a 10-point Conservative lead may well be regarded as something of a relief for the party," political analyst John Curtice wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

Lord Levy, a former Labour party fundraiser and close ally of Brown's predecessor Tony Blair, said he deplored the party's infighting and lack of leadership after 11 years in power.

"I am saddened to see all of the bickering and I am saddened to see that somehow there does not appear to be that strong leadership that the Labour Party so desperately needs," he wrote in memoirs being serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

Levy said Blair had told him Brown could not win a general election, a statement rejected by Blair's office.

Teachers and civil servants went on strike last week over pay and a North Sea pipeline carrying up to half the country's oil has been forced to close by a strike over pensions at a neighbouring refinery, boosting already high fuel prices.