Analysts forecast that Labour will gain more than 1,000 seats and take outright control of several councils.
According to Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University?s elections centre, Labour faces ?an open goal? in the local elections because it did so badly in the same seats when they were last contested in 2007.
With local by-elections suggesting a swing of up to 9 per cent from the Conservatives since 2007, Labour is ?better placed than at any time for a decade?, the academics wrote in a recent analysis paper. ?The Conservatives, by contrast, must brace themselves for heavy losses.?
In his speech, Mr Cameron highlighted examples of what he said was wasteful spending by Labour councils, at a time when other parts of the public sector were cutting back on their spending.
The Prime Minister pointed to councils in Manchester and Islington, north London, which are making heavy cuts in front-line services while paying their chief executives up to �220,000 a year. Newham council, in east London, spent �111?million on its new headquarters, and Sunderland spent more than �25,000 on ?junkets? to Washington DC, he said.
Mr Cameron said: ?How can any of these people claim there is no waste to be cut, no efficiencies to be had, no money to be saved, when clearly, as Conservative councils all over the country are showing, there are clever ways to cut spending without slashing through frontline services??
While Mr Cameron?s party is expected to sustain heavy losses, the Liberal Democrats may suffer even more.
The party is running only around 5,500 candidates, its lowest number since 1999. Party officials admit the Lib Dems are set for a poor performance, following dismal national poll ratings.
Adrian Sanders, a Lib Dem backbencher, said that the May elections ?might not be the Armageddon some have predicted? but added that the polls will still reveal serious long-term damage to the party from being in the Coalition.
?We now face the brutal realisation that we have fractured our core vote, lost a generation of young voters, and alienated thousands of tactical voters in seats where it makes the difference between electoral success or failure,? he wrote in a party magazine.
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