A (2:53)

What do these local elections tell us about what we could expect in the next general election? And is there any indication it could come before 2020.

B (3:03)

Well, what we have from these elections, which of course were largely urban elections, there were some shire districts, but they were London metropolitan ones mostly. So it's possible. And John Curtis, the syphologist from Strathclyde University, and Colin Rawlings and Michael Thrasher, when they come to do their calculations, adjust what's going on in the locals to make it representative of a national result. Had there been an all out election on that day. And the figures we've got so far from John Curtis and his colleagues were 35% Conservative, 35% Labour, 16, Liberal Democrat, 9 for others. If you roll that forward into a general election, it would mean another hung Parliament. And I think what that tells us is that there is, and many commentators observe this, a sort of stalemate in British politics. Both the major parties involved in versions of a civil war, the electorate still voting for these two big parties, but probably not for the traditional tribal reasons. So there's reasons why they're doing it. The sort of least worst vote that people are expressing views through these major parties. What does this tell us? I don't think it hints at a general election immediately unless something so unstable inside the Conservative Party accidentally triggered one. Other than that, it still looks as if a 2021 or more likely 2022 election is the best bet as of today.

A (4:33)

So what do we know about the leadership of the main parties and how is that likely to change in the run up to the next general election?

B (4:41)

I mean, the local elections probably helped secure Theresa May's position a little bit. If the Conservatives had done really, really badly, then she might have come under earlier pressure to move, but she didn't. She did reasonably well. And in that sense, I think her position is slightly helped now as we move forward. Of course, once the early stages of the Brexit process are concluded, or at least we've left the eu, assuming we do at the end of March next year, then I think the choice facing the Conservatives is do we want to run on with Theresa May into a 21 or 2022 general election, or come up with a new leader? And the Conservative Party has been remarkably adept over time at changing leader, moving on and signalling that it's somehow a newish renewed party to go on to win again. Labour, of course, faces the challenge that the bulk of its MPs, whatever they say publicly, and often not so publicly, privately, definitely, is that many of them are not supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. So Jeremy Corbyn and I think and his leadership colleagues want to keep Corbyn or Somebody like Jeremy Corbyn as leader right the way through to the next election to control more of the Labour machine. Whereas of course, generally political parties and certain most MPs in the Labour Party want to win the next election. Remember, if Labour doesn't win a 2022 general election and that parliament ran to 2027, Labour would be out of power for 17 years again. So there's a big pressure on the Labour Party to come up with a leader of some kind before the next election who can appeal to middle ground voters to give them a better chance of winning at that next election. Particularly if the Conservatives find a way of coming up with a new leader. As far as the Lib Dems are concerned, I mean, Vince Cable, if the Lib Dems had done badly at the local elections, Vince Cable would have been under pressure. But I think they've done just well enough to keep Vince Cable as leader for a while. Question, of course, what will happen to the locals next year and in by elections when they come up, because that's what is the meat and drink of the Liberal Democrats as they try to build up their strength again. So I think there will be leadership pressures on certainly the Conservatives in Labour, but for the time being, I think for the next year probably it'll stay with the same leaders.

A (7:14)

Were voters driven more by local or national issues in the local elections? And is the relatively low turnout compared to the last general election a concern?

B (7:23)

Let's begin with the turnout. In many places, the turnout looks as if it were definitely higher than when these elections were last fought in 2014. So I think overall the turnout may be higher, perhaps even approaching 40%. Of course, that is 30 percentage points lower than at the general elections normally. Partly a reflection of the fact that national government in Britain, which is a centralized country, has rather more power, a lot more power than local government. But in that sense, turnout is not too bad by local election standards. The question of whether people vote on national or local issues, well, these are not. I mean, these are local elections, they're not an aggrandized opinion poll. And one thing we do know is that we get very different results from one part of the country to another. So in many parts of the Midlands and the north of England, actually the Conservatives did quite well, though much less well in London, where Labour were doing better. That might of course, simply be a reflection of sort of some Brexit overhang, which would be a national issue. But in some places there's no doubt that issues like low council tax in Westminster and Wandsworth where the Conservatives held on hard not to believe that that wasn't a local factor. And people do make judgments about whether the streets are clean, social care is well run, schools even still partly local government, whether they're still well run. So I think there is a mixture here of really local things, which is what it should be. They're local elections. But inevitably, with this overhang from issues like Brexit, austerity, the Windrush debacle inside national government and Labour's struggle with anti Semitism, I mean, all of these issues will have played a role which might even have been different from place to place.

A (9:13)

Finally, what are the implications of the local election results for the ongoing Brexit process?

B (9:19)

Well, Brexit trundles on slowly, with the government finding it enormously difficult at pretty well any point to make a decision. And the reason for that is if they make any explicit decisions, it risks breaking apart the coalition that the government needs in, not only in the government, but in cabinet actually, and in Parliament, to allow it to continue to move forward at all. That's very complex, internal, within government stuff. The local elections, which as I say, are broadly a sort of stalemate, don't signal, on the one hand that the public's radically fed up with the Conservatives in government, with their particular version of Brexit, though not much has yet been decided, of course, but nor does it suggest that there's a radical desire for any particularly dramatic change. So, as with all these sort of things, unless there's a big shift in public opinion, what you have to interpret it is, I think, as a signal to national politics, that is, the local election results are a signal that the electorate remains cautious, that it isn't signaling something very radical. And I think that that has to be understood. And Theresa May is a cautious politician, so I doubt she'll need much incentive to be cautious. But I think that's what the real message from these elections is, that the electorate does not want a dramatic and radical change, albeit voting for Brexit was a signal of that kind two years ago.

A (10:54)

Thanks for joining us, Tony.

B (10:55)

Thank you.

A (11:01)

Sam.