Chapter 1: What are the upcoming elections in the UK?
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Chapter 2: How are parties preparing for the elections?
Soon we'll hit the network to Tötterö. Oh my, what a carnival. This is so much fun. So much fun.
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Hello, this is our mega live pre-elections election cast special. Were there enough words in that title? Basically, this is your last episode of Newscast before voting in the elections for local authorities in England, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senate. And we're going to touch lots and lots of bases. And this was broadcast live on the BBC News Channel and iPlayer on Thursday evening.
Chapter 3: What issues are dominating the campaign trails?
So you can imagine it's got a bit of a live vibe to it. And if you stay right to the end, there will be a bonus for you as a podcast listener, which is me and Chris catching up with our new celebrity pal, Paddy McGinnis from Radio 2 after our guest appearance on his quiz. And there's going to be a lot of news that you're going to want to get your head around in the next few days.
And if you want to make sure you never miss an episode of Newscast as we bring you all that news and the best analysis in the business, then you can subscribe to us on BBC Sounds and you will never miss an episode whatsoever. of Newscast, an episode such as this one. Hello, it is Adam in the newscast studio.
And hello, it's Laura in the newscast studio.
And Laura, in classic style, because you've got many programmes to make over the next 36 hours, you're going to be here for about 10 minutes.
I'll be here for 10 minutes. Marvellous 10 minutes that let's hope they will be.
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Chapter 4: What changes are happening in the voting system in Wales?
Yes, and that will seem very short compared to the 36 hours of broadcasting you will be doing.
Yes, we are going to be on air, not me all the time, but me much of the time for 21 hours on BBC One.
It's almost like there's a lot of results and a lot of different elections to get our heads around.
Almost like there's a big contest on.
Should we just remind everyone what we're actually looking out for? So we've got in England, lots of local authorities, but not all of them. About 136 of them, 5,000 councillors.
That's right. More than 5,000 councillors, as you said, 136 town halls up for grabs. They are dotted around the country, not everywhere.
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Chapter 5: What are the main voter concerns in the local elections?
But all the boroughs in London, some other big councils like Manchester and Birmingham have got elections, too. But also lots of smaller councils, too, in all sorts of bits of England. So, yes. So there's England, then there's Scotland and there's Wales. And there's hugely vital national contests for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament, otherwise known as the Senate.
And the good news is when Laura has to go off and do her day job, I will not be sat here on my own because we've got some other newscasters with us. Chris Mason is at Westminster. Hello, Chris. Hello, hello. Felicity Evans, host of our sister podcast Walescast is in Cardiff.
Chapter 6: How are the Scottish elections different from the English elections?
Hello, Felicity. Hello, Adam. And BBC Scotland editor James Cook is outside the Scottish Parliament. Hello, James. Hello, Adam. James, have you built your own studio for these elections? It looks very sophisticated where you're sitting. Yeah, they've built me this whole studio. It's just for newscasts. It's just nice, isn't it?
Chapter 7: What strategies are party leaders employing in their campaigns?
Are you going to send me the bill? It's definitely someone else's studio that we're squatting in. It does look good. And before we get into the issues, just like the science bit, Felicity, the big news in Wales, apart from the results and the campaigns, is the new voting system.
Yes, that's right. I'm a bit jealous that James has got a special studio and I'm making do here with the Cardiff Newsroom. Feels like we're just on a team's call with you. Yeah, absolutely. I know. I couldn't even get the newsroom camera this evening.
Chapter 8: What can we expect from the election results?
Yes, it's all up in the air in Wales. It's the first time that we've had a system like this. So we've really got very little to compare it to in terms of baselines because everything's different. We've got a new voting system, which is more proportional than first past the post, but not totally proportional. We've got new constituencies.
There are only 16 constituencies now, but they are big and they will elect six MSs each, which means we'll also have a bigger Senedd after Thursday when the new MSs are voted in. And we'll have 96 new MSs instead of the old number, which was 60. So virtually everything is different about this election.
And Chris, I'll come to you for some big picture analysis in a second. But Laura, just before you go and carry on your rehearsals, I mean, is there a big kind of overarching plot line for these elections? Or is it, as it sounds, lots of different contests?
It's both, actually. So if I can say it's both, it is both because first and foremost, local elections and elections for Holyrood and for the Senedd. are always primarily about who are the people going to be who are going to make decisions that genuinely make a difference to the quality of our lives. That's the most important thing. That's what they're all about.
However, given that there is a government with a very tricky position, given that there is a government who have been very unpopular, given that there is a leader who has long been seen by many in his party as not the right person for the job,
Without question, the second part of this story, which is probably what will develop more kind of late Friday and into Saturday and Sunday, is whether or not this could be the moment when Keir Starmer's rivals for the job actually have the bottle to do something about it. Is the Labour Party, rather than whispering in corridors,
Sending angry WhatsApps to each other, briefing journalists with only the odd MP with the bottle to go over the top and say we should change the leader. Is this going to be the moment that the party actually does that? We simply don't know the answer to that question. It's possible.
It's absolutely not inevitable, but it strikes me that the question after these results is likely to be as we go into the weekend, what is the evidence that the Labour Party has in front of it that changing the leader would improve their standing? And what is the evidence that Keir Starmer can actually change and regain anything of the party's popularity?
Because whether it's the polls, whether it's the conversations that we've all had on the road, whether it's the conversations we've had over a period of many months with Labour MPs, MSPs, Senate members, activists, members of the public, they've got a very big problem. And this weekend has long been seen as the moment that whether or not Labour is going to try and fix that problem.
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