Charles Kennedy has blasted Labour and the Conservatives for focusing on racism in the local election campaigns.

In his last election press call, the Liberal Democrat leader accused his political rivals of responding disproportionately to the challenge of the BNP following the electoral success of the National Front in France.

"Quite frankly I'm very disappointed," said Kennedy. "It is not what people are going to be recording their vote for."

He said his rivals saying had talked up the threat from the BNP.

"This is not a political party; it's a sect which is malign and it is quite frankly at the margins of British politics in the most extreme sense. We're talking about 68 out of 6000 seats," he said. "Let's keep this in perspective."

Kennedy laid the blame squarely with Labour and the Conservatives saying the campaign had not been about crime or local public services.

"It was David Blunkett who set this particular hare running, it was followed up by Tony Blair and the Conservatives rowed in as well for reasons best known to them. If you look at the coverage, the bulk of it has been about things that people have not been talking about. I don't blame the media; they've been following the parties agendas," he said.

The party was upbeat about its prospects in tomorrow's poll and is hoping to seize control in councils such as Norwich, where it has seen support grow in local elections in recent years.

Kennedy believed his party was looking at "significant advances" at Labour's expense.

The Conservatives, he said, were "off the radar screen".

The party's election strategist Lord Reynard said the Conservatives were "fearful" of the result as they had to do massively better than William Hague had achieved.

In London, the Liberal Democrats believe Labour will be hit by the fallout from the government's row over the Tube.

Party strategists believe there is unease about the PPP deals and the fact that improvements will only be seen after many of the capital's current workers have retired.

Kennedy said that voter disillusionment with local Labour councils would benefit the Lib Dems. "On the doorstep people have raised the same concerns for their local communities with me - the rise in street crime, the poor provision of care services, the indifferent and inefficient Labour councils," he said.

He urged voters to go to the polling stations, mindful that the Liberal Democrat result would be hit by a poor turnout.

"The largest concern has to be this: people must not be apathetic about these local elections. What is decided is as important, if not more important, on a day-to-day basis, than what is decided in the division lobbies of the House of Commons."

Kennedy admitted that the public's awareness about polling day had been patchy across the country.

"I was in a ward in Oxford where its almost hand-to-hand combat between the Lib Dems and Labour. There's posters in every window - you'd think there was a general election going on," he said.

"But I've been to other parts of the country where people didn't even know an election was going on. How you even that out I don't know."