C (1:40)

Newscast from the BBC.

A (1:46)

Hello, it's Adam in the Election Cast studio, which is actually the newscast studio with no change whatsoever.

B (1:51)

And it's Chris at electioncast Westminster Nerve Centre hq.

C (1:56)

And it's Alex in the makeshift Election Cast home studio.

A (1:59)

Great. Which is your regular home. Haven't hired a second property just to make it. I don't know why I'm getting so obsessed about whether Election Cast is actually that different from Newscast. Anyway, Chris, let's Get back to work. And you've been working. Well, you work a lot, every day. But you've been pounding the streets of Britain this week.

B (2:17)

Yeah, I've been on a little bit of a tour in England, Scotland and Wales. We reckon we did about 900 miles by train, which was fun. And the weather was pretty kind to us, which was. Which was good. Trying to sort of pull, to pull away at and tease away at some of. Well, two themes that in their own way tie together. The English local contests where they're happening in England, and then the devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. And obviously there's loads of variety, loads of variation, loads of things that are different both between and within contests in England, between and within contests in Scotland and the same in Wales, let alone the differences between them. But the two themes we sort of alighted upon was one, the nature of the challenge for Labour, which is significant in multiple geographic and party political directions. And yes, that is often the case for the party that is in government at Westminster when there were elections between German elections. But I think there's a particular sort of assembly of headaches potentially for Labour and then. And this overlaps with that first theme, the rise of multi party politics through whichever nation you look at it from. So that's kind of what I've been trying to tease away at with some pieces that are gonna be on the television this weekend and on the radio and online too.

A (3:39)

I look forward to watching them or clicking the play button on online platforms to view them. And I think in this episode of electioncast, we might zoom in on England a bit because we've done quite a lot of chat about Scotland and about Wales and we don't wanna neglect England. Ale, in terms of the geography of this week, what. Where have you been?

C (3:55)

Yeah, so, well, I've been in the last kind of seven days, I've been to Cheshire, I've been to the West Midlands, Walsall in particular, Westminster, little jot there in between. And then North Yorkshire. So, yeah, a couple. Maybe not as many miles as Chris, but getting a few miles in.

A (4:09)

And so Chris, if we do then just kind of zoom out and look at the map of England. So the numbers are There were about 5,000 seats up for grabs at about 136 local authorities. There were also the six mayors as well. Have you managed to get your head around kind of what it looks like on the map? Because that's the thing I always struggle with because to me it ends up just being a lot of place names.

B (4:32)

It is a lot of place names. And when you look at the maps, and we've been using some maps in the TV pieces we're editing right now, so I've been staring at them, you obviously get a sea of colour in Scotland and Wales, because there's elections everywhere and it's clearly more piecemeal in England. And I'm conscious there'll be newscasters listening who will have heard a swirl of conversation about elections and not an reasonably think, well, hang on, there aren't any around here, because that is the case clearly in some places. I think there's a real, not exclusively, but a very much an urban focus in England, which to an extent sharpens the challenge for Labour, because that tends to be spots where, again, broad sweep here, but where they are traditionally pretty strong. In other words, the capacity to lose seats is quite significant. The other thing that we should always say, it's a kind of golden rule of these conversations, isn't it, when we're looking at any kind of election, but particularly through the prism of English local elections, when were seats last contested? Because that's the baseline against which each individual party's performance will be measured. So it's a snapshot in time back to which we pivot when we're then comparing, well, how many seats has a party gained or lost. Clearly there is variation between elections because people can switch sides or there might be by elections or whatever at a local authority minority level. But we tend to do a comparison from one set of elections to the next. So making sure that that is done in our crunching of where parties were last time versus where they end up this time is key too.

A (6:11)

And also, Alex, just remind us of the rule of thirds that is in action in lots of places in England.

C (6:16)

Just another layer of complexity to some quite already complicated systems of local government in England means that there are different election cycles for different councils. And it means that some councils will elect just a third third of the seats that are up, and they do that kind of every year. That's what election by thirds means. So not the whole council, just a third of them. There are other councils this year where every seat is up for election and they are called all out councils. And just on the point that Chris was making about the sort of baseline for comparison, most, but not all of the councils that are up this time in England were last contested in 2022. And in terms of the sort of political landscape then, if you remember, we were sort of in the heart of Partygate, which is important context to remember how things have shifted now, you know, different party in Westminster than there is now and the political landscape has changed quite considerably. And it is every possibility that I think, if you believe the polls, if you've been out there talking to people and if you just look at some of the kind of individual political battles that are going on council by council, that it will end up like quite a patchwork of control across different local authorities this time round. And I think what's quite interesting about it, even though not every council is up in England and they are concentrated in the urban areas, there are also some quite big rural councils. So in East Anglia or South coast, like Hampshire, which are up this time around as well. I think the old kind of political map of England, you used to have areas that you would count as sort of true blue Tory, or what became known as that famous Red Wall Labour heartland territory in the West Midlands and the north of England. It just feels like this set elections may, and we don't know, but it may well just add to that notion of this huge shift in the political geography of the country, where there are no sort of guaranteed areas, where a party's just going to storm home anymore.

B (8:14)

I think it's exactly that. And I think just teasing away, Alex, at one of your observations there, which I think is key for newscasters understanding how the results play out. And then some of the stories, if you like, that will emerge from the results, which is that if you are in a council where it's a third of seats that are up just mathematically, irrespective of the numbers, the balance of power going in mathematically, the scope for significant electoral or political change is clearly limited, isn't it? Because only a third of seats can possibly change hands if they were to all change hands, whereas where you're in places where they are all up. So, for instance London, then the scope for change, should the electorate choose to go for that, is much more significant. And certainly in terms of the stuff that I've been working on these last few days, looking at London, there's sometimes a journalistic instinct, an admirable, wholesome journalistic instinct, in fact, is a key part of your job, isn't it, Alex, to ensure that national media organizations are not too London centric, not too London focused, given the proportion of national journalists who live and work in London. The counter to that, particularly in the context of these elections, is that London is going to be really important in particular for Labour. There's a big concentration of Labour's members in London. Labour going into the elections control the vast Majority of London councils. And then they face challenges, political challenges. Labour in London from kind of every conceivable direction. You know, the Greens in places like Hackney in East London, Reform from places like Bexley in the southeast, Conservatives in places like Wandsworth, Liberal Democrats in places like Merton in the southwest. So it's one of those things where, keeping an eye, clearly not just on London, there's loads of fascinating contests, Birmingham and elsewhere around England, but where London in particular, in terms of the psychology in particular of the Labour Party afterwards, we should keep an eye on.

A (10:11)

Two observations about that. One about London is like back to what Alex was saying about the rule of thirds. Actually, London is one of the places where all the seats are up for election. So all the elections are kind of up for grabs. So it's a place where you could see a lot of change that is very visible. So rather than in some areas of the country where it'll be just some nibbling, the change will be nibbling around the edges, potentially. And then the second point about our multi party politics era, whether it's five parties or six parties, we've been living in this multi party era for a little while now. But if the main focus of your national politics is the House of Commons, well, that's still basically set up mainly for two parties, the government and, and the opposition. And so this is going to be an amazing moment where the five or six party politics actually exists for real, as opposed to the slightly curtailed version that we get at Westminster every day. Alex.

C (11:04)

Yeah, and I think there are two really interesting points about that. So the first thing is, if you remember after the 2024 general election, when people compared the kind of number of votes cast to the seats won, there became a bit of a conversation about whether the voting system that we currently have in England is suitable for what seems to be, you know, a kind of different mood in the electorate. And I just wonder if there might be a renewed conversation now. Some people are totally in favour of the voting system as it works, other people really, really aren't. But if you. There might be a renewed conversation about whether the voting system is suitable for an era of multi party politics, if that's what we end up being in for some time to come. And the other really interesting aspect about this is that it's entirely possible because now there are lots of different parties vying for votes, that you might end up with some councils, including the councils, where only a third of the seats are up for section, where they slip into no overall control, which is the Technical term, meaning there isn't one party that wins enough of the Sikhs to take outright control of the local authority. So you could end up in a situation where there are different parties in a local area trying to figure out how they're going to work together to run local authorities. Now, that is absolutely not entirely unheard of. That happens, actually, at a lot of local authorities across England. But I think if that becomes, you know, even on a much bigger scale after these elections, it will be interesting to see how that works. And it will also be really interesting to see which parties at local level decide they want to work alongside other parties and which ones don't. So that's a sort of another potential kind of factor of where we might find ourselves after this set of elections.

B (12:41)

Quick couple of numbers, Adam. Just chipping in on our conversation about London a second ago. So all 32 councils up for election going into it, two thirds are run by Labor. So, you know, let's see how that shakes out. And it may be that they go backwards significantly in some councils but still maintain control because they were just so, so, so far ahead beforehand. But, yeah, just a little. A little stat to throw into the London pot there.

A (13:06)

Although there's an interesting point here, Alex, and I'm thinking about Kent, because reform seized control of Kent, a previous set of local elections, and everyone was like, right, this is a chance to see what reform are like in power. It's not like we're focusing on what happens in Kent every day. So it's not like a real time 247 experiment, is it? We, at a national level, sort of only hear about it at kind of certain points.

C (13:29)

Yeah, I think that's completely right, because actually it was in the last year's set of local elections, where reform, immediately after that set of elections, won outright control of 10 county councils and then actually ended up governing a couple more for various reasons. But, yeah, I mean, that was widely seen as a kind of test of the party in power, quite simply because of the fact they haven't governed anything before. And this is a party that was sort of pitching itself as the big nucleus on the block and this insurgent party and they had their eyes fixed on Downing Street. And so there was and has been a lot of scrutiny, arguably more than other local authorities have had, about what reform has done with the power that it's had at local authority level. And Kent, by the party's own admission, has been their sort of flagship council, you know, the window of what reform might look like in local government. So there has been a lot of attention on Kent County Council and, you know, the moments that capture the national attention are the moments when we have seen, you know, internal arguments within the Reform Party kind of burst out into the open. There are other local authorities that Reform is running and, you know, again, they have had some scrutiny. We've done a series of pieces about Lancashire County Council, which has been under reform control. What will be interesting, and I think it's almost impossible to measure really, as to whether or not the performance, whether people think it's been good or not, of reform in local government actually plays into this set of elections. You know, I don't know if people are sort of looking at other local authorities that reform has won and judging the party on it for their area, because I wonder if they do that for other parties. You know, I don't know if people look to the Conservative council down the road and say, oh, I like or don't like the sound of that, or the same with a Liberal Democrat council somewhere and say, I like or don't like the sound of that. It sort of feeds into this really crucial question about how much people are voting on local issues, because this is about local authorities that control social care and lots of services. People rely on and, you know, have a hugely important role to play with roads and high streets and all the rest of it, and how much people are sort of sensing the national political mood. And I think that's always a kind of difficult gauge in a set of local elections like this. I'd argue that probably both come into play in most places.

A (15:40)

And also, Chris, it means you get well known political figures being asked things that they don't really have an answer for yet. For example, Nigel Farage on BBC Essex the other day being asked about how someone with ADHD who was struggling in a mainstream school, would be educated in alternative provision, because that is the sort of thing that local authorities are in charge of. And he said, I don't have the answer to that.

B (16:03)

Yeah, I've bumped into a couple of the party leaders in the last week or so who have been heading into our newsroom here at Westminster in order to do a round of interviews with our BBC local and regional colleagues, where they sit, in fact, in the very chair I am perched upon right now and face a couple of hours of interrogation from BBC local radio colleagues and regional tally, where, perfectly reasonably, they're asked about things like the question that was put to Mr. Farage by BBC Essex. And my goodness, you know, that's quite a test, isn't it for a political leader, particularly on the specifics of something that potentially, you know, his party or whoever the leader is, could be in charge of in a matter of a week or so's time, and seeing a few of them emerge out of those rounds, and I can relate to it because I've done it as a reporter and you're not being held to account as a reporter as they are, obviously, that's quite the thing. And the potential banana skins around that are huge.

A (17:04)

And also, just Alex, a reminder about the Greens, like the Greens have been in charge in Brighton, for example, in local government. And actually the Scottish Greens, which is a separate party from the Greens of England and Wales, were in the Scottish government for a while.

C (17:17)

Yeah. I mean, just sticking on the sort of local election England theme, you're completely right about the Scottish Greens. But, you know, when the Greens won their first outright majority on a council in England, I think I'm right in saying it was 20, 23 with Mid Suffolk Council, and that was the first time they've run an outright majority to run a local authority. Now they have been as part of sort of rainbow coalitions or sharing power with other parties or running as minority administration, other local authorities. And as you say, Brighton for a long time was a real stronghold of Green support, not least because they had Caroline Lucas, the former party leader, there as an MP for a long time. But, yeah, I do think there is this thing about, you know, parties. It is, I guess, for these parties it's a sort of dual challenge because these are the parties which, according to the polls, and obviously we always treat the polls with a pinch of salt. But even if you look at recent election results, these are the parties that are sort of, you know, on the rise, that have got momentum behind them. And a lot of the messaging of these parties is about doing things differently to the parties that have come before, so proposing in their minds policies that would affect the change that they think that voters want, because the voters are disillusioned with what have traditionally been the more dominant parties in Westminster at least. And I think the sort of thing for these parties is how you then land that message alongside the sort of realities of governing when at local authority level, whatever party takes control of a local council is going to face a very similar set of challenges to parties that have gone before, because councils have statutory obligations to provide certain services, including things like children's services, support for children with send, special educational needs and disabilities and social care. They're things they have to do by law, and they eat up a lot of council budgets. So the sort of flexibility at local authority level is to some degree limited by the financial constraints that places on councils. And so it is an interesting challenge for these parties who are coming to government at local authority level or may well be coming to government at local authority level after this set of elections.

A (19:20)

And Chris, just in terms of the Conservatives and Lib Dems, I suppose this is going to be a test of two things that have become truisms at different sort of time periods. One, that Lib Dems are very strong locally and okay, they might not have the profile they think they deserve nationally, but they are do incredibly well when it comes to local government. And then with the Conservatives, that there's a sort of chemo based renaissance going on.

B (19:43)

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting when you look at the Conservatives in the Lib Dems, do you think here we are talking about the second and third biggest parties in Westminster? I think there's a reasonable likelihood when we're reporting the results of these elections around Britain, that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will feature quite a long way down the list, if you like, even though clearly it'll bear scrutiny how well or not they do. So the expectation from the Conservatives is that they won't do particularly well, that some of these seats were less contested in 2021 when they were on something of a bounce from the COVID vaccine. They still feel that an element of the kind of wash through of their calamitous general election defeat still has to wash through in various places. But Kemi Badenoku has had it certainly in confidence terms and in prominence terms in many senses, and if you like, Westminster victory terms, a good six or seven months leading the kind of political charge and all of the Lord Mandelson stuff, for instance, and the so called humble address and all of those documents that are coming, etc. Etc. They still expect to do pretty badly. The difference being, or the political context being that Labour will likely do much, much worse. And obviously the party of government is more likely to be a bigger headline generator than the party of opposition. As for the Lib Dems, they're confident of making some gains. It's almost like a mirror image really of the Conservatives. They're hoping to make gains in places, particularly in the rural south of England where they made gains at the Conservatives expense two years ago at the general election. And they think they've got the potential to do the same in similar places, Surrey, Hampshire for instance, as they did a couple of years back. But their likely gains and the Conservatives likely losses, as I say, will Pullby beyond the local context, where of course it matters if that's a significant story where you are. Pulby will generate fewer headlines than Labour, Reform, Plyde, Cymru and the Scottish National Party across the whole British context.

A (21:51)

And Chris, introduce us to somebody who's very important in insider circles at these times. Lord Hayward, a Conservative peer.

B (22:00)

Yeah, so Lord Hayward is a Conservative peer. He is also a cephologist, an elections expert. He kind of tries to take off any kind of partisan hat and have a good crunch of the numbers. He loves a number crunch and looking at the. The kind of cephalogical picture around the country. So he has done some predictions. So for what they're worth, because you'll get predictions from all sorts of folk, it's quite good for someone like me, in fact all three of us to read out somebody else's predictions rather than make our own. So it's the cowardly way out. But here we go. Lord Heywood, sort of widely respected. So he reckons that the S and P will win in Scotland but be short of a majority, that Plyda will be the largest party in terms of both votes and seats in Wales. Let's see. Because wouldn't it be fascinating if one party had the most seats and another party had the most votes? And it's unlikely a party will win outright in Wales, so how does a government be formed there? So the story there, as possibly in Scotland will rumble on beyond the results and then in England, I'll just counter through his numbers. He reckons Labour will lose about 1,850 seats. He reckons reform will gain about 1550, gaining big from Labour and the Conservatives, primarily outside of London. The conservatives will lose 600 seats. The Greens will gain. The Greens will gain 500, Lib Dems will gain 150 and independents will gain 250. It's worth just underlining that point about independence. I'm straying into Alex's territory here, but when we think of British politics, we tend to think of the, well, either established or insurgent political brands operating under a kind of either either Great Britain wide or nations within Great Britain wide badge like Labour Conservatives plied Scottish National Party independence in English. Local contests are depending on where you are, can be very significant with all sorts of outlooks and perspectives and all the rest of it. But they are some. They are a collective that shouldn't be discounted. And a suggestion from Lord Hayward. Of 250 seat gains for independence, many in East London Birmingham and Lancashire.

A (24:19)

Now, Alex, as you've been out and about on the roads, sounds like I'm about to do the local radio traffic and travel. Have you hit any potholes this week?

C (24:26)

I've dodged some potholes. I haven't hit any potholes, which is the right result for the sake of my car, but I've certainly seen a few.

A (24:33)

Well, it came up last week, didn't it, when we were talking about what's the number one issue in England. It keeps on coming up when you listen to local radio and it is pothole holes. Well, newscaster Kyle got in touch and he's here now. Hello, Kyle.

D (24:45)

Hi, Chris. Hi, Adam. Thanks for having me on.

B (24:47)

Hi.

A (24:47)

And Alex. And Alex.

D (24:50)

Sorry, apologies.

A (24:54)

Kyle, what is your pothole and credentials?

D (24:56)

So I work in the highway industry, so what we do is we try to stop the potholes forming. So if you can think of it as sort of the potholes of a symptom of a road that's gone too far for lots of our other more cost effective treatments. So when we get to the stage of a pothole forming, the battle's already lost. The battle is already lost. That's, that's the problem. And this focus on the amount of potholes we filled often can mean that we're, we're taking our eye off. Why do those potholes form in the first place?

B (25:34)

Ah, so we're treating the symptoms, not the cure. How do you prevent potholes from forming?

D (25:41)

Well, we have. So the way to think about it is like your decking or with your wooden fence.

B (25:48)

Don't tell me about decking, that's a nightmare as well.

D (25:52)

You'll paint it or you'll varnish it to stop the elements getting to that wood and deteriorating it to a stage where you'd have to replace that decking, which could be very costly. And it's just, just a hassle, isn't it? It costs more, it's more resource intensive. So what we do on the roads is we use a variety of treatment to basically do the same thing. Seal them in, stop the elements getting to them, stop the water getting to them and give them a longer, a longer life. That's better. And stop those potholes forming in the first place.

B (26:21)

So this is like potholes are like a symptom of the human nature of just procrastination, aren't they? Because, well, do we really need to do it Costs a bit of money. Let's put it off for another year and then before you know it, you've got an epidemic of Them.

D (26:34)

It's almost a vicious circle, Chris. Because the problem is because there has been a decline in the amount of preventative maintenance we've done that's increased the number of potholes. The thing is more money or we have to fill those potholes because often they are a safety issue, as I'm sure you come across a lot on roads across the country. We have to address that immediate issue. The problem is by, by spending resources on filling that pothole means we can't then spend or we can't put resources into preventing future potholes. And it's a, it's an almost vicious circle there. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a difficult challenge. But highway authorities and people in the highway industry across the country face.

A (27:17)

And in terms of like design and technology are. We have, has anyone anywhere designed a road that's going to be pothole free forever?

D (27:27)

So you have different materials on different roads, but ultimately they're all subject to the elements, aren't they? Everything has an end. But some, some materials are more suited to different locations. We have harder tarmacs that we might use in a location that we know gets heavily trafficked by lorries. We have concrete roads which we know are more durable, but they have their own issues. So it's about using the right material in the right place. You'll never get, get a material lasts for infinity. There will always have to be that regular maintenance which comes back to that. Preventative maintenance.

C (28:02)

Yeah.

D (28:03)

That we want to achieve.

A (28:04)

Well, Kyle, thank you very much for listening to newscast.

D (28:07)

No worries. Have a good rest of the day.

A (28:09)

Thank you.

B (28:10)

Cheers, Kyle.

D (28:11)

Right.

A (28:11)

I'm just wondering. Well, I mean, beat that. I can't think of anything else that could top that.

C (28:15)

I'll give you a final pothole thought Just, just to keep the theme. There is actually now a lot of work being done with AI to try and sort out the pothole problem. So lots of like AI trackers that go out there. Yeah, this is a big new thing. AI trackers go out there to like log potholes, work out where they are, work out the size of them. And apparently it's.

B (28:36)

What's an AI tracker? What is that something that's attached to a car?

C (28:39)

Yeah, yeah. Attached to vehicles that go out there and kind of spot all the potholes to try and get them fixed.

B (28:45)

Pothole mapper.

C (28:47)

Don't underestimate the power of the pothole in politics.

B (28:50)

No, no, absolutely not.

A (28:52)

I'm racking my brains for what would be a good AI. Pun for that pothole filling tool, but

B (28:58)

I can't think

A (29:01)

it's like, it's got to be like a pun on Chat GPT.

B (29:03)

Yeah, I was just riffing.

A (29:07)

But anyway, nothing springs to my mind because. Which makes me think we've exhausted all our journalistic energy explaining what's going on in England on this episode of Election Cast. So thank you, Alex. Pleasure as ever and thank you, Chris chatgpt. Good try, but I can't see that being emblazoned on.

B (29:26)

She only required one additional letter, but it still doesn't work.

A (29:29)

Right. Laura and Paddy will be picking up the Election Cast baton this weekend because I think we're gonna do even more episodes of Newscast, which we've rebranded to something else because of the times we're living in. And then on Monday, because it's a bank holiday, we've got a real treat for you. It will be an episode of Shout out to My my I thought short lived attempt to relive the Brexit referendum in real time because it was exactly 10 years ago this year. Chris and I resurrected the idea when we were at Cast Fest a couple of days ago where we had lots of newscast fans joining us at the BBC Meida Vale Studios and we did an episode looking back at the campaign that was in 2016. So that's what you'll hear on Monday. But that's all you'll hear from me for now. Bye bye.

C (30:12)

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC. From one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on plus or 403-301-239480 be assured, I promise we listen to.