Health became the main issue of the local election campaigns yesterday, when Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith attacked the government for attempts to centralise the NHS.

Problems such as crime, education and transport were ultimately of local concern and should be tackled by local authorities, he said.

However, in response to the Tories' report into healthcare systems throughout Europe, health secretary Alan Milburn claimed that Labour had conducted a similar study which found the systems to be equally wanting as that in Britain.

It comes as figures show that the NHS misses a third of the targets set by the Treasury in 1998.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said that Labour supporters who are disillusioned by the chancellor's Budget on Wednesday would vote Lib Dem on May 2.