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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Global Player original podcast.
It does strike me that this wasn't an election in the traditional sense of the word. It was more of an arson attack.
Keir Starmer, for whatever reason, is despised by the public of this country, by much of the population. He is despised.
Chapter 2: What were the immediate reactions to Labour's election results?
And that is a really terrible place for a sitting prime minister to be. Farage has been around for a long time. He's had lots of different political outfits, lots of different political incarnations.
We are now a country that believes it's better the devil you don't know. He is well and truly fucked.
Because the results are tough. They are very tough. And there is no sugarcoating this. We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country. These are people who put so much into their communities, so much into our party and our movement. And that hurts. And it should hurt. And I take responsibility.
Chapter 3: How does Keir Starmer view the message from voters?
When voters send a message like this, we must reflect and we must respond.
What does that mean, to reflect and respond? Starmer is pretty brutal about the state of Labour after last night. But has his own position, weirdly, just become firmer?
And taking responsibility is one thing. But there are an awful lot of Labour councillors who want some change as a result of this. And is Keir Starmer navigating a path out or... Or does the problem just get worse and become existential for Labour? Welcome to the Newsagents.
The Newsagents.
It's John. It's Maitlis.
It's Little Lewis. Little Louie.
Little Louie.
Little Louie. No, I'm sorry. Much like Emily, I get to decide what I'm called.
Exactly right.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Labour face in the wake of the election?
I thought his name was Nelson Mandela. Yes, yes, yes. Time will tell on that one. Everyone can identify as they prefer.
Let's not get bogged down with Nelson. 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.
Sorry, I don't understand that. What did you say?
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. for 50 years or longer ever since these councils were created. And it is unusual because they are bleeding support in two directions to two basically new forces on the political scene, Reform and the Greens. And we haven't even talked yet.
about what is going on in Scotland and Wales. Scotland looks like Labour might not do too badly by comparison to some of the predictions. But in Wales, it is nothing short of catastrophic, with two things at the time of recording that we're hearing. One is that the Welsh First Minister, Eluned Morgan, is very likely to lose her seat.
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Chapter 5: How is the two-party system evolving in the UK?
The worst thing you can be right now is part of the establishment, right? And so everyone who has got a history of political experience, be that Labour, be that Conservatives, be that Starmer, who, you know, as Director of Public Prosecutions has been in the system for decades, they are now tarnished. And even though Farage, you know, we all know Farage has been around the block for
in many incarnations, many iterations, many name changes.
He's actually been in politics for longer, pretty much, than any of the party leaders.
He's managed to convince people with the sort of streak of an evangelist that he is the newcomer. And I guess the question really for reform, and there's some quite interesting numbers beneath the service, and one of the places that... Peter Kellner, formerly of YouGov, has been looking at is that reform look as if they've absolutely dominated the country, certainly in England. They have.
But he thinks they'll be worried that this time last year they had a 41 percent share of the English vote. Now it's more like 33 percent. You can't see that because you just see huge swathes of their success there. But possibly they're coming off. And there is a question of how long Farage can carry on being the neophyte, carry on being the outsider.
As soon as he gets portrayed as part of the establishment, then maybe it's all over for him. And I would just argue that is a bigger problem than a problem for Keir Starmer or a problem for Labour, because it basically means we hate political experience of any colour, any shape. Right. We're done.
Yeah, I think there's a lot in that analysis. I think that the point about Britain having turned into arsonists, I think that was ever thus at local council elections. You know, you hate the government in power. So you voted Liberal Democrat. That was the traditional way of showing your displeasure. And people would make these extraordinary predictions about arson.
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Chapter 6: What impact is Nigel Farage having on the political landscape?
How this was going to be the year when the Liberal Democrats were going to break through and suddenly become the next government. I mean, what we've got is essentially at Westminster, a system that is designed for two parties. And we've now got five or six. Or seven. And there is kind of no way of knowing where this is all going to break. It was a terrific night for reform and for Nigel Farage.
And I think that I think that what we've seen actually during the campaign is the cleverness of Farage and the problems that still exist for reform. The cleverness when he's talking about immigration. And I want to follow another American president who's been so successful. And doesn't go to Donald Trump.
He raises Barack Obama, understanding that the British public are not that fond of Donald Trump. But him trousering five million quid as a personal donation. I mean, if you're trying to be the guy who says we are draining the swamp. That looks pretty swamp like to be taking five million quid in a personal donation from some crypto guy who's got more money maybe than cents.
So I think that there are problems of Farage in that as well. But look, let's not lose sight of this. The big list problems are for Labour. They are for Keir Starmer, who has had a shocking night coming after a shocking couple of years in which he hasn't been able to articulate a clear vision of what it is that this government is about, wants to do.
And we heard in there kind of in the introductory clip, they're talking about, oh, I take responsibility. Yeah, but what are you going to do about it? And a lot of Labour MPs, a lot of ministers, a lot of foot soldiers who've been out knocking on doors think it's time for Keir Starmer to go. And inevitably, that was the question that was put to him when Beth Rigby from Sky caught up with him.
I'm not going to walk away from that and to plunge the country into chaos.
Did you contemplate that the problem might be you, that you might need to go to help Labour win these seats back? Did you even contemplate it? Do you acknowledge it as a conversation even?
I think it's absolutely clear that the electorate are fed up with the fact that their lives aren't changing quickly enough. This has been going on for a very, very long time. I think that We were right to emphasise to the country the difficult inheritance we had, the challenges we face, but we haven't done enough to convince people that things can improve, their lives can get better, the hope.
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Chapter 7: How are Labour and Reform parties performing in local elections?
And I'm not going to walk away from that challenge. We made a number of calls which were the right calls in terms of stabilising the economy, investing in our public services, and not getting dragged into the Iran war. But we also made unnecessary mistakes. And my job now is to set out the steps that we will take to bring about the change that people want and deserve.
I think the Labour Party has got a decision to make on the basis of these results. And it's not just these results. We've seen it over the past 24 months now. Everyone you actually speak to in the Labour Party believes that Keir Starmer is a disaster for the Labour Party and is proving himself a disaster for the Labour Party.
The question is, is whether the Labour Party for once has got enough guts, enough bottle to do something about it. Why do I say that? Look, lots of things can be true at once, right? There are complexities with these election results and with politics at the moment. We know that Labour is losing ground in every direction. They're losing to reform. They're losing to the Greens.
And very often it is the Green vote which is costing Labour individual seats. Absolutely. So it's not just all in one direction to the right. Reform are often winning on small percentage of the vote for the reason you say, John, which is that we've got a fragmented party system being funneled into this absurd anachronism, really, of first past the post.
But none of that takes away from the fact that that if you look around the country in places as different geographically and in tenor as Hartlepool, Tamworth, Tameside, Redditch, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Wigan, Bolton, Salford, Southampton, what we're seeing in Wales, what we're seeing in Scotland, reform...
are taking their place, arguably, as the most national party of any of the parties which are contesting these elections. A party that can genuinely say it is representing Great Britain from North, South, East and West. And the truth is, is that what makes these election results different for reform by comparison, you're right, Emily, Farage has been around for a long time.
He's had lots of different political outfits, lots of different political incarnations. None of them ever before have made the sort of inroads into local government and different governing bases around the country as he is now doing. UKIP never managed it. He never managed serious inroads in Scotland, a bit in Wales, but not really.
If you go back further than that as well, the SDP never managing to achieve anything like this. As a breakthrough force, we haven't seen anything like this before.
And I'm sorry. Well, we have in the sense that Brexit broke everything. Right. So he did it in a sense in 2016. He did it a decade ago, which opened the way for... And we've seen reform overnight and today perform much better still in Brexit voting areas. Sure.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the Green Party's rise?
Or are they going to confront the fact that, as I say, fairly or unfairly, Much of this country, much of the historic Labour base does not want him to remain as prime minister.
Look, it would be great if Keir Starmer found a new narrative. It would be great if he had the guts to say we need to do more Europe or we need to do more alignment or we need to work out actually where we're going to get the growth from. I don't doubt that. But I'm going to turn this on its head and put another proposition to you, which is if you go back to...
kind of my original thesis, which is this is an arson attack. This is everyone feeling unhappy and blaming the people who are in government. There is a world in which the smartest thing for Labour to do right now is to say, come on in, reform. Yeah, come on in. Let's everyone get to know you. See what you're like in local government. See how you do the council. See what you...
do with your tax rises, with the council bills, all the rest of it. Because these figures, and I'm encouraging people to look below the headlines now, if you go back to Kelner, they were winning 41%. This year, they're on 33%. In other words, reform have peaked, right? I mean, we still have places to go. Reform have, in actual numbers, come off their top.
So if people get to know this party better, if they become the party of establishment, if they become not the neophyte, not the kind of evangelist who's just walked into town, not the guys on the stag do who say, burn it down, rip it up, come on, tie yourself to a lamppost.
If they have to become the people that are part of the structure of local government, let's see what happens in two years' time.
I think we had this discussion this time last year. And I said then, I thought that... Look, I know that we'd like to think that, you know, there's going to be all this scrutiny of reform in local government and that that's going to somehow reveal to the public that they won't like them after all. And they'll go back to the mainstream parties. I think it's fantastical. Honestly, I really do.
I think what this country is clear for 10 years now, at least, it has been crying out basically for economic change. It has been crying out. And it's no surprise that some of the most deprived parts of the country are going, are swinging to reform hardest because they have nothing to lose.
They are rolling the dice. The economic change that they cried out for was Brexit, which has actually made us hugely, hugely worse off. Right. So exactly the same people.
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