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1:03

hi there, it's Helen Pitt here. I'm a

1:05

journalist from The Guardian. I'm doing a

1:07

story about the Heinberg local elections. Oh,

1:09

right, OK. Heinberg

1:13

is a collection of former mill towns

1:16

in East Lancashire. It's

1:18

on a knife edge, politically, and is

1:20

exactly the sort of place that Labour

1:22

should be winning back. And

1:25

I've been struggling to get anybody in

1:27

the Labour Party. And Helen, one of

1:29

the world's top few details on this

1:31

was just about a... Labour and the

1:33

Conservatives currently have exactly the same number

1:35

of councillors. But the

1:38

Tories run the local authority, with

1:40

a little help from a couple of Greens.

1:42

I'm just going to ring another one of

1:44

the councillors. If

1:47

you believe the national polls, Labour ought

1:49

to be flying high in places like

1:51

Heinberg. But when I went

1:54

to visit Ackerington last week, the borough's main

1:56

town, no-one from Labour would talk to me

1:58

at all. I

2:00

decided I was just going to have to go in

2:02

and see them at their campaign headquarters in the town

2:04

centre. Right,

2:10

so I've been told that the

2:13

Labour Party has set up a sort of campaign

2:15

headquarters inside the Pynchon's old arcade.

2:19

So I should see if anybody's

2:21

there and if they're willing to talk to me.

2:26

Oh here we go, high-end Burn Labour. Inside,

2:33

with Kimberley Whitehouse, one

2:35

of the local councillors and the wife

2:37

of Graham Jones, Hindburn's former Labour MP,

2:39

who lost his seat in the Redwall

2:41

Wipeout of 2019. Just been really struggling

2:43

to get anybody from Labour to talk.

2:45

Do you know who's around? She

2:47

was friendly, but she made it

2:50

clear that she was under orders not to talk to me.

2:52

We've been told not to say

2:54

anything to people. Really,

2:56

who by? Her regional consul, is that...

2:58

Right, but who is that? She

3:01

said I should just call the press office and see if

3:03

they'd let her talk, so I did. Marina,

3:07

can you tell us how I just say I

3:09

don't think we want to do it, who knows?

3:11

Why not? I

3:13

just thought about the emergency on

3:15

the ground, focusing on the door.

3:18

Yeah, it wasn't the impression that I got necessarily that they

3:20

didn't want to see me, that they weren't allowed to. So

3:26

why didn't Labour want to talk to me? I

3:31

think it's obvious why it is. They think that you're going to ask

3:34

them about their position on Gaza and why

3:36

they saw unpopular in the Muslim community. They

3:38

don't want that sort of exposure. From

3:44

The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today

3:47

in focus, will the local

3:49

election results tell us who will run the

3:51

next government? Yes, I'll

3:53

get one. Welcome

4:00

back. You are the Guardian's Deputy Political Editor and

4:02

you've been on maternity leave for the past year.

4:04

We're really excited that you're back with us. Talk

4:07

us through the elections tomorrow. What a way

4:09

to return. Yeah, definitely. And I

4:12

think local elections in a general election

4:14

year usually are pretty exciting because it

4:16

gives us a good indication about the

4:18

places we should be spotlighting and looking

4:20

at ahead of a general election. So

4:22

there's 107 councils coming up in England.

4:25

We've got the London mayoral election and assembly.

4:27

And there are nine combined authority mayors

4:30

and two big fights for the Tories

4:32

in the West Midlands and seaside. There

4:34

are 37 police commissioners in

4:36

England and Wales coming up. And there's

4:39

also the by-election in Blackpool South, which

4:41

is the resignation of yet another disgraced

4:43

Tory MP where we expect Labour to give

4:46

the Tories a bit of a thumping. Not

4:48

everybody is going to the polls, are they,

4:51

in England? It's only selected councils. How many

4:53

seats are Labour and Tory defending? It's

4:56

about a thousand each for Labour and the Tories.

4:58

And there is a strong belief it's going to

5:00

be a very, very, very bad night for

5:02

the Tories. That's not just to do with

5:04

their current position in the polls where they're sort

5:06

of lagging about 20 points behind Keir Starmer's Labour

5:08

Party. It's also because of the stage in the

5:11

cycle we were at when these seats were last

5:13

up for grabs. It was right in the middle

5:15

of Boris Johnson's vaccine bounce. It was 2021. Good

5:19

morning. It doesn't look to have been

5:21

a super Thursday at the polls for

5:23

the Keir Starmer. The Conservatives are set

5:25

to deliver another blow to the red

5:27

wall of Labour Northern Heartland. And Labour

5:29

were really struggling at that point. It

5:31

was a time if you remember that

5:33

they lost that by-election in Hartley polls,

5:35

which almost ended Keir Starmer's leadership of

5:38

the Labour Party. I'm particularly disappointed

5:40

in the results. And,

5:43

you know, I take full

5:45

responsibility for the results and I

5:48

will take full responsibility for

5:50

fixing things. It's hard

5:52

to believe what's changed since that point.

5:54

I remember thinking we're going to have

5:56

eternal Tory rule at that point. Yeah,

5:58

absolutely. And it's extraordinary. see where we've

6:00

come now. So in three years how things

6:02

change and people often get

6:05

confused about this. What do councils

6:07

and mayors actually do? What are they

6:09

responsible for? Councils are responsible

6:11

for things like bins, potholes and planning

6:14

applications as well as adult social care,

6:16

children's services. It's not very glamorous but

6:19

it's all pretty vital stuff and often

6:21

turnout for local elections is not as

6:23

high as a general election but it

6:25

is you know setting the direction of your local area and

6:27

that is something that's pretty important. Mm-hmm

6:29

and we're going into a local election

6:32

week after a difficult weekend for Rishi

6:34

Sunak. Breaking news this

6:36

evening that a concerted MP has

6:39

defected to the Labour Party. A

6:41

lot of people were blindsided on

6:44

Saturday night when the observer broke the

6:46

exclusive that Dan Poulter, a kind of

6:48

lesser-known Tory MP who's a doctor isn't

6:50

he in his part-time job, was defecting

6:52

to Labour. Do you think this is

6:54

a bad omen for Rishi Sunak on

6:56

Thursday? I mean it certainly

6:59

is. So Dan Poulter who's the

7:01

MP for Central South African North Ipswich and

7:04

he's a bit of a loyal Tory MP

7:06

sort of working quietly in the background but

7:08

he is a former health minister and

7:10

he says that his 20 nights he's done in A&E

7:13

over the past year have been life-changing

7:15

for him and he feels the

7:18

party isn't committed to improving the

7:20

NHS and he's defecting to Labour on that

7:22

basis he says it's the only party that

7:24

is committed to it. I

7:27

can't imagine it'll be the thing that changes

7:29

anyone's vote in the local elections but on

7:31

the other hand I think the feeling that

7:33

MPs and especially ones that care about the

7:35

NHS are abandoning Rishi Sunak's Conservative

7:37

Party can never be good for the image

7:40

of the party. Mm-hmm and a

7:42

lot of people think that the Conservatives are

7:44

on for a fairly heavy loss on Thursday

7:46

like how bad could it be for them

7:48

in terms of the number of seats they

7:51

might lose and which merrelties might slip out

7:53

of their grasp. They

7:55

certainly could lose around half of their

7:57

councillors it sounds like and most of

8:00

councils. But the most symbolic

8:02

thing I think for the Tories to lose

8:04

would be to lose the two Meryl T's

8:06

West Midlands and T sides. So Andy Street

8:08

in West Midlands, Ben Houchin in T side

8:10

has both been two sort of very high

8:12

profile Tories in their area, support

8:15

basis potentially outside their party

8:17

and both of them have

8:19

run quite independent campaigns

8:22

and also I mean particularly Ben Houchin

8:24

has been someone who's been you know

8:26

a big supporter of the Rishi Sunak.

8:29

Yeah Ben Houchin he won a stonking

8:31

majority last time. It was something mad the sort

8:33

of thing you'd only normally see in like Putin's

8:35

Russia. It was 73% I think

8:37

something like that. Yes he won an

8:40

enormous majority and what most people are saying

8:42

in the Tory party privately is that they're

8:44

hopeful of being able to keep the T

8:46

side Meryl T or what's

8:48

officially called the T Valley Meryl T and

8:50

we'll see about that but they do think

8:53

that they'll lose in the West Midlands. Right

8:55

okay but it'd be dreadful for the Tories if they

8:57

lost Ben Houchin and Andy Street. In the same night

8:59

there would be you know a really really bad result

9:01

and that's the sort of thing symbolically

9:04

which could encourage you

9:06

know Tory rebels to move

9:08

against Rishi Sunak. And how's it

9:10

looking for Labour? Is it going to be a landslide?

9:12

Obviously there are more 20 points ahead in the polls.

9:15

Can we expect that to be mirrored

9:17

in the local elections? I think

9:19

Labour are expecting for a pretty

9:21

good night. They're not doing a

9:23

huge amount of expectations management which

9:26

indicates they're pretty optimistic of taking

9:28

hundreds of councillors. There's some bellwether

9:30

constituencies that you'd be looking at.

9:32

Hartleypool, Harlow's another one, Redditch, Bolton,

9:34

those are all places where if

9:36

Labour has a really good night here you'd expect them

9:38

to take those constituents into the general

9:41

election. Mares, Andy Burnham's looking pretty safe

9:43

in Greater Manchester, Tracy Braeburn in West

9:45

Yorkshire and Sadiq Khan obviously in London.

9:48

The one place that they are doing a

9:50

little bit of expectations management is in London.

9:52

Khan is way ahead in the polls. He's

9:54

about 13 points ahead and so I mean

9:56

this really would be you know an extraordinary night if

9:59

Sadiq Khan didn't get it. managed to win a

10:01

third term. But people around Sadiq Khan

10:03

are, you know, saying they are slightly

10:05

worried about two things. Firstly, kind of

10:07

stay at home vote, there isn't an enormous

10:09

amount of enthusiasm for a third Sadiq Khan

10:11

term. And that there has been a change

10:14

in the voting system here. So that used

10:16

to be where you could list in

10:18

order of priority. And now it's first pass the

10:21

post. So I think plenty of people used

10:23

to be able to sort of vote green first

10:25

and then put Sadiq Khan second, and he

10:27

would then, you know, pick up votes on

10:29

that basis. Now if they do that, then

10:31

those votes will go against Sadiq Khan. Hello,

10:41

hi, sorry a bit early. Hiya. Nice to meet

10:43

you. Would you like a drink? I've already ordered

10:45

a cup of tea actually. Yeah, you can have

10:47

one. Yes, I will have one. What do you

10:49

want? Just milk, thanks. Just a glass of milk.

10:51

No, no tea with milk. Tea with milk. Thank

10:53

you. I'm having

10:56

a brew with the Conservative leader of Heimbren

10:58

council. She's 80 years old

11:00

and is only just back at work after

11:02

suffering a stroke just before Christmas. I'm

11:05

the leader of Heimbren-Barre council.

11:07

I've been a councillor for some

11:09

16, 17 years. What

11:14

are your realistic goals in terms

11:16

of outcome in the local elections

11:18

this year? Well, the first goal is

11:20

to win. That's

11:22

number one goal. We never

11:25

just want to defend. We're always out

11:27

to win, and I

11:29

hope that we do because

11:31

I would like us

11:33

to be able to

11:35

continue the brilliant stuff

11:37

that we're in the

11:40

process of doing now. We

11:42

are in the process of building

11:44

some new affordable housing, keeping

11:47

the council tax low. But

11:49

of course, like any other

11:52

authority, we are struggling for money.

11:55

We don't get as much as we'd like

11:57

anyway, you know, we'd like millions. I

12:00

try not to think about national issues in

12:02

a local election, but we

12:05

can change here. Yeah, I guess

12:07

if you do look at the national polls,

12:09

Labour have got such a stonking lead at

12:11

the moment that one might expect

12:13

that that would play out at a local

12:15

level and that you'd be facing a wipeout.

12:18

How does it feel? I never

12:20

listen to polls for a start. I never take any notice

12:22

of them. We've booked a trend

12:25

so far and there's no reason why

12:27

we can't continue.

12:29

Again, I think

12:31

that in local elections, it's

12:34

a different kind of atmosphere.

12:36

It's a different kind of attitude

12:38

that people have when they're voting

12:40

in local elections. They vote on

12:43

local issues and

12:46

as silly as it is, people

12:48

vote for the person that knocks on

12:51

their door and how to

12:53

get on with that person. And with the

12:55

various scandals that the Tory party have been dealing

12:57

with, Mark Menzies, the MP for File, not far

12:59

from here, you'll have seen he got locked in

13:01

a room with some bad men. Has that filtered

13:03

through to your average voter? Listen,

13:07

of all the phone calls I've made, nobody

13:09

has even mentioned it. I

13:11

don't think half of the people in the

13:13

barrenoy we use. They're more bothered about

13:16

the potholes. They're more bothered about

13:18

whether the town centre will be successful, which

13:21

it will be. They're more bothered

13:23

about things that are happening within their own

13:26

town and their own

13:28

townships. What are people saying

13:30

locally about the Labour Party? Do

13:32

you think that Gaza is going to

13:34

be an ongoing issue for Labour in

13:37

these local elections? In the local

13:39

elections, I think

13:41

probably amongst the Asian

13:43

community it might be, yes. I

13:46

really wouldn't like to comment on

13:49

that. really

14:00

interesting that the Tory leader in

14:02

Heimberg seemed pretty confident and yet

14:04

the Labour Party wouldn't speak to

14:06

me at all. What do

14:09

you think they're scared of? Is it

14:11

that the Labour Party is paranoid about

14:13

councillors saying the wrong thing or is

14:16

it just a more general crackdown on dissent?

14:19

Or do you think it's just that they're

14:21

terrified that the polls are wrong and they're

14:24

not actually on course for a landslide victory?

14:27

I think that Keir Starmer's Labour Party feel,

14:29

even with this enormous polly, that they're

14:32

essentially carrying a minbars across an ice rink.

14:35

Speaking to someone in Labour HQ last week,

14:38

he said we're either going to be known

14:40

as the people who turned around one of

14:42

the biggest defeats in Labour's history in just

14:44

five years or we're going to be known

14:47

as the people who blew a 20-point lead.

14:49

I feel like I know which way it

14:52

will go but they genuinely feel like they

14:54

could end up in the latter category. Of

14:56

course that makes them incredibly

14:59

careful, therefore they

15:01

want to close rank around people as

15:03

much as possible. And who do they see in

15:05

quite a dismissive way as the people who are

15:07

most likely to be loose cannons, local

15:10

councillors? Yeah, I mean maybe that's

15:12

why they didn't want to speak to me in Echrington. But

15:15

there is also the fact that

15:17

Labour's general election candidate Graham Jones

15:19

is currently suspended because

15:21

of remarks he made about Israel. And

15:24

probably understandably I suppose the local party are

15:27

all walking on eggshells as a result. In

15:30

somewhere like Heimberg, which has got a

15:32

pretty high Muslim population, Keir Starmer's

15:35

approach to the war on Gaza continues to

15:37

be a real headache for Labour. And obviously

15:40

Gaza is thousands of miles away. Do

15:42

you think it's still going to have an

15:44

impact on these very local elections? I

15:47

think we will be very interested to see how

15:49

Labour fare in the councils where

15:52

there has been a large number of

15:54

councillors who have defected over Gaza

15:57

and over Keir Starmer's at

15:59

least initial run. refusal to back a ceasefire,

16:01

that is Labour's position now. So Oxford

16:04

is one of them, Burnley, Norwich,

16:06

where people have left the party over it.

16:09

And I think quite a

16:11

number of those who have gone independent are standing again. And

16:14

if those independent candidates hold their seats, then

16:16

I think in some places

16:18

that might be enough to tip them

16:20

over into an overall control. So it's

16:22

possible for Labour to lose councils on

16:25

this basis. And we've

16:27

talked mostly about Conservatives and Labour.

16:29

Where do the other parties feature

16:31

in this in these local election

16:34

races? So the

16:36

Lib Dems, is Labour having a good time? The

16:38

Lib Dems are generally having an all right time

16:40

as well as a kind of anti-toury vote picks

16:42

up. So probably the Lib Dems

16:44

will pick up some councils, maybe

16:47

Brentwood Council, maybe Gloucester Council. Greens

16:50

probably should pick up some more seats as well, especially

16:53

in southern areas. I

16:56

don't think they're likely to control

16:58

any more councils. But an interesting

17:00

place to watch them will be

17:02

Bristol, because in Bristol, that's where

17:04

they hope they've got a shot

17:06

of taking a Westminster

17:09

seat if they have a really good night there. Yeah,

17:11

I mean, the Greens are also positioning themselves

17:14

as a pro-Palestine, pro-Gaza party in Acreinton, in

17:16

Heimberg. It felt like they were going to

17:18

be the beneficiary of Labour's stance. And

17:21

what about Reform? Reform UK, where should we

17:23

watch out for them? I think it's difficult

17:25

with Reform because they're not standing in an

17:27

awful lot of council. Yeah,

17:30

one out of eight. Yeah, so I think it's

17:32

going to be quite difficult to judge Reform. I

17:34

think it will tell us relatively

17:36

little. Don't they quite fancy

17:38

their chances in Blackpool though, the Blackpool South

17:41

by election? Reform are

17:43

looking for a very strong showing in the

17:45

Blackpool South by election. Mark Butcher, the

17:47

candidate there. Mark

17:49

says Reform are capable of shaking the

17:52

political landscape. It's all been

17:54

out of frustration. Everything that I've done really

17:56

has been out of frustration, out of the

17:58

lack of what's going on. here and

18:00

I just feel as though that we've been

18:02

left out down in Blackpool South. And

18:05

you know, reformer in third place nationally,

18:07

I think they'll be hoping to push

18:09

the Tories into third place in Blackpool.

18:12

And what about George Galloway's workers party of

18:14

Great Britain? Could they ruffle a few feathers

18:16

in any contest? Yeah, I

18:18

mean one place is the West Midlands

18:21

where Galloway's protege, who's a lawyer called

18:23

Achmed Yacoub, is campaigning very heavily on

18:25

Gaza, again potential to take some votes

18:28

away from Labour. Should

18:33

we just sit outside here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't you know

18:35

I'm more picturesque than by that big bin?

18:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're not taking

18:40

pictures. There's some seating there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah,

18:42

we can sit. That's typical people. I

18:45

wanted to meet somebody in Acrington from the

18:47

Green Party who were the strongest challenges to

18:49

the two main parties in Heinberg. Mohammed

18:52

Shabir Fazl agreed to meet me in the

18:54

town centre and we sat outside Gregg's, as

18:56

he told me, how he'd got into politics

18:59

only very recently. Yeah, yeah, so

19:01

I'm like a retired head teacher.

19:04

I've spent all my life as a community

19:06

leader, but I was never interested in politics. So

19:08

did you join the Green Party recently or have you been a...

19:10

Yeah, yeah, so I joined back in

19:13

November, so it really was Gaza.

19:16

And the reason I joined is that I was saying to people, you

19:19

know, don't vote Labour, don't vote Tory, because these guys

19:21

have got blood on their hands. And

19:23

they're saying that's fine, uncle. Everybody's got me

19:25

uncle. Okay,

19:28

so you're telling us not to vote Labour, not to vote Tory, so

19:30

who do we vote for? And it was

19:32

like, okay, okay, I need to think about that. And

19:34

that's when I decided to join. And then when I

19:36

joined the Green Party, I decided to stand as a

19:38

candidate as well. If it wasn't for

19:40

Gaza, would you be Labour? Well,

19:42

it's all gone to the right. So Labour Party is now where

19:45

Ted Heath was. So it's not really a Labour

19:47

Party at all. It's like a centre-right party. So

19:50

there's a big gap on the left. And that's where

19:53

the Green Party is now. Obviously, it's a

19:55

local election. So if you were elected, you

19:57

can't do anything about the situation in Gaza. You'll

19:59

be... fielding calls about potholes and

20:01

bin collections. So why is Gaza, why

20:03

are we even talking about Gaza locally?

20:06

Yeah, I think look, there's times in

20:08

your life where you live through something,

20:10

which it doesn't matter

20:12

whether you're local, national, international, you can't

20:14

not talk about. And I

20:17

just don't think it's an option for decent

20:19

people to say it's not to do with

20:21

us, because it is to do

20:23

with us, because our country is providing funding,

20:25

it's providing weapons, people can't escape it. It's

20:27

the topic of conversation in the mosque, it's

20:30

a topic of conversation on the street, it's

20:32

a topic of conversation in every household. And

20:34

that's filtered through to your average voter hazard.

20:36

Yeah, all the people on the streets, the Muslim,

20:38

especially the Muslims, are, you

20:41

know, it's one of the questions they always ask. You

20:44

know, I was looking at something the other day, and I was saying to people

20:46

that a lot of the policies

20:48

that they advocate are policies that

20:50

Muslims can actually sign up to, because it's

20:52

all about social justice, you know. And we

20:54

live in that sort of society where the

20:57

equality gap has just gone massive, you

20:59

know. And you've got some government

21:01

minister who was talking about, you know, times really hard,

21:03

I'm not sure people could live on £100,000 a year,

21:06

and I think... German country. Yeah,

21:09

you're talking about being out of touch, that's like,

21:11

you know, you're on another planet. You know, he didn't understand

21:13

that people in Aclington don't even dream about

21:15

earning £100,000 a year, you know. The

21:18

average salary around here is 20K. Yeah.

21:23

He seemed pretty confident that he was going to

21:25

hoover up the Labour vote, so I

21:27

went for a wander to see if he was maybe getting

21:29

a little bit ahead of himself, and I

21:32

popped into an indoor market that was

21:34

selling food, textiles, and colourful clothes. Ladies,

21:39

hello, hi. Doing a story about

21:41

the local elections that are coming up. You

21:43

all are voting? Come here. I don't

21:45

want to get recorded. Do you mind? Who

21:48

are you going to vote for? I'm voting for the

21:50

Green Party. Right, why the Green Party? Because

21:52

Labour and the restaurant didn't cease fire

21:54

when we asked for it. They've

21:57

been the people's voice. Right. So

21:59

they've actually voiced it. goes to show you they

22:01

would listen to you. We just thought, it's humanity,

22:03

it doesn't matter what colour you are. At the

22:05

end of the day, we're all humans and it

22:08

could be going on anywhere around

22:10

the world. Not in particular, a Muslim country.

22:12

It doesn't have to be Muslim, it could

22:14

just humans. It's like loving your

22:16

kids in your home but not taking

22:19

a like to other children outside. It doesn't

22:21

make sense. Yeah. It doesn't really make

22:23

sense. It is. And it's previously

22:25

which party have you voted for? It's always

22:27

been either Labour or the other. I've never

22:29

really heard of the green party up

22:31

until I've actually seen what they've done.

22:34

But it's changed my mind with this because they

22:36

were the only one that actually outshined the

22:38

others. So it's definitely changed.

22:40

I think in Labour, it's been disappointing this

22:43

time round. We've spoken but nothing's been heard.

22:45

I think the rich are getting richer and

22:47

the poor are getting poorer. You can actually

22:49

see it in England. We can feel the

22:52

effect of it. And, you know,

22:54

we're so grateful for a good job. We're

22:57

both husband and wife, we've got a good job but

22:59

we can hold it together. But I just worry for

23:02

the others around us. I bet you saw you coming

23:04

the wrong time. No, I've come in. I'm really going

23:06

to pay the Indians, I love it. Coming

23:13

up, how bad could these

23:15

elections be for the Tories? Hey,

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I'm Ryan Reynolds at Mid Mobile. We

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24:32

was the fifth question you've asked where

24:35

you've talked about polls and politics? And

24:37

you know what? I'm not distracted. I've

24:39

asked you about politics. I've asked you

24:41

about policy. No, no, no, I'm saying,

24:43

this is just... Jess, on Sunday,

24:45

Rishi Sunak said that he doesn't

24:47

care about the polls. Yeah, right.

24:50

But if there is a Tory

24:52

wipeout, in spite of Labour's potential

24:54

woes in places like Ashwinston, what

24:56

do you think it means for Sunak? I

24:59

think that if it's a very, very

25:01

bad night for Rishi Sunak, then he

25:03

is going to have to say something

25:05

quite extraordinary to get his party back

25:07

onside. It very much feels in Westminster

25:09

like a lot of MPs have already

25:12

checked out. You could see more people

25:14

deciding to stand down. That makes things

25:16

more difficult. There's issues raising

25:18

money. There's issues campaigning. Local

25:20

activists have just demotivated by that. They

25:23

think that they're just going to get

25:25

something. And the worst case scenario for

25:28

him is that he faces an internal

25:30

challenge, which would be extraordinary. If

25:32

that happens, then you might

25:34

see Rishi Sunak decide to call a summer

25:36

election. There was a lot of

25:38

fevered speculation over the course of the weekend that he

25:40

was going to preempt that and do it this week.

25:43

Number 10, a pretty gastagorical that that's not going to

25:45

happen. And I think there is maybe

25:48

some feeling within some

25:50

members of the cabinet that that might be a

25:52

useful thing to do to go earlier. But I

25:55

think that Rishi Sunak can probably get away with

25:57

leaving it till the autumn. nobody

26:00

knows is whether

26:02

the timing is going to make things better

26:05

or worse for the Tories. I mean the

26:07

polls would suggest that they're finished. A recent

26:09

poll showed that GB news viewers are backing

26:12

Labour over the Tories and Telegraph

26:14

readers are backing Labour over the Tories.

26:16

So, you know, I

26:18

think it's pretty clear to me now

26:21

that the ship has failed and it's over.

26:23

And what about Labour? Like, is

26:25

there any worst case scenario for them on

26:27

Thursday that would see any challenge to cure

26:30

storm or make Labour change course in any

26:32

way? I think that they

26:34

will get some MPs who are nervous if,

26:36

for example, they don't pick up either of

26:38

the Meryl Tees in Teeside or

26:40

the West Midlands. Maybe if Blackpool South

26:42

isn't the huge landslide that everyone's expecting

26:45

it to be. I mean, there are

26:47

high expectations for Labour around by-elections nowadays.

26:49

I mean, I think if they didn't

26:51

take one of those

26:54

Bellwether councils into full Labour

26:56

control, then MPs who

26:58

are standing in the areas near those seats

27:00

or candidates in those seats for the general

27:02

election might start to get a bit jumpy. Yeah.

27:06

And for those people who actually like to

27:08

stay up late and wait

27:10

for results to come in, when will

27:12

we actually have them all? Well, it's

27:15

not like a general election campaign at all. And in

27:17

that you can sort of have a really good

27:19

idea by the morning about what's happening. Most, a

27:21

lot of the sort of bigger results for the

27:23

most important councils and for the Meryl Tees are

27:25

going to be reported over the course of Friday

27:27

and Saturday as well. Right. OK. So it might

27:29

be Saturday night. It might be Saturday night before

27:31

we get a clear review. And the health warning

27:33

on that is that's not going to stop

27:35

a lot of commentators and a lot of

27:38

spin trying to make a narrative of

27:40

the results from sort of Friday morning onwards

27:43

with the few results that we will have

27:45

by then. And you do have to

27:47

be in this job and anyone who

27:49

takes a good interest in this is

27:51

pretty cautious about making those snap judgments.

27:54

So it's not going to be until Saturday night when

27:56

we'll have the full national picture. But when the dust

27:58

is on, we'll have a good time. on

28:01

Sunday, how consequential do you think these

28:03

local elections are going to be and

28:05

can we extrapolate from them to

28:07

get a sense of what the general election outcome

28:09

is going to be doing? There's always a big

28:12

difference between local elections and general elections and the

28:14

main reason is turnout and the fact that not

28:16

everybody is voting across the country. So that's always

28:18

why it comes with a help warning between interpreting

28:21

too much. It doesn't tell us anything about

28:23

a very important part of the next general

28:25

election, which is going to be

28:28

Scotland because of not having elections. But

28:30

I think we'll be able to do

28:32

a reasonably good read across and there'll

28:34

be data nerds in both HQs pouring

28:36

over spreadsheets trying to work out what

28:38

in each of the individual wards means

28:41

for their constituencies that

28:44

are trying to win. So of course we can tell a lot but

28:46

the most immediate thing is the next

28:49

week is going to be the

28:51

decider for a Rishi Sunak's future. Is he going

28:53

to be the leader that takes us into the

28:55

next election? Let's see what happens. Jess, thanks so

28:57

much. Thank you. That's

29:01

all for today. You can follow

29:03

the results of the local elections on the

29:05

Guardian's live blog from early Friday morning. Today's

29:09

episode was produced by Tom Blasser and

29:11

Natalie Gattuna. It was presented by

29:13

me, Helen Pidd and the executive producer was

29:15

Homer Kalili. Sound design was by

29:17

Rudy Zagadlow. We'll be back tomorrow. This

29:27

is the Guardian. Brought

29:38

to you by Lexus. Some Things do

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