Iain Duncan Smith has pre-empted a summer leadership challenge with a plea not to be judged on the results of May's local election.

As polling evidence showed a rise in Labour's lead, the Conservative leader said the time to assess him would be at the next general election and not now.

"I am not going to be judged on anything other than I'm taking this party into the next general election and I will be judged on the next general election quite rightly," he said while campaigning in Wales.

However, according to today's Times, Duncan Smith has secretly raised the number of seats he expects to gain in next week's local elections from 30 to 300.

Party strategists are said to have told him that he should expect between 200 and 300 more seats after the elections.