Lewis Goodall

Let's talk about where we are with the elections.

We're recording this at 20 past two.

I was up all night doing the election result program for LBC.

So if I'm incoherent, more incoherent than usual, we can blame it on that.

Yeah, quite.

Reform are basically, if we're looking at the English councils now, and we're about halfway through at the time of recording.

There's just no doubt reform are the big winners from this election and they will continue to win.

At the time of recording, there are nearly 600 gains, pretty much from a standing start.

Labour are losing support in every direction, particularly in the north of England, to reform.

They're now down 400.

They're losing about 50% of all of the seats, all of the council seats that they are defending.

That is their attrition rate.

There are midterm blues, but this is of a different order of magnitude for a governing party.

Not least because what we are seeing is not just traditionally what one might see with an unpopular government.

in the sense that they are losing votes and seats and councils and support to the main opposition party.

That is not happening.

The Conservatives are losing council seats for the fifth consecutive year on the bounce, down 264 seats.

There are some seats in some areas where they've got a little bit of sign of revival, but generally speaking, they too are losing ground to reform.

Labour, the thing that makes this different for Labour is that they are losing ground and support in some cases to an existential extent, i.e.

being wiped out in councils in the north of England, in particular in the Midlands, that they have controlled government.