The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Local Elections Autopsy

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome to another one of our political chats. I'm joined by Dan, and I thought what we would do is a bit of an autopsy on the recent local elections results.

00:00:09.620 Because there are, in fact, I think, lessons in them that people aren't taking, because the numbers are quite staggering.

00:00:16.620 The swings in the seats and whatnot have been quite staggering.

00:00:20.560 But I think there's information in there that I think is worth teasing out to properly understand.

00:00:25.520 because actually i don't think this was quite the storming victory that it should have been

00:00:31.040 nor was it quite the staggering defeat that it should have been right so we'll begin with uh how

00:00:37.540 the public felt about it now this was um basically the most important thing that was talked about all

00:00:43.780 last week which is actually quite unusual for local elections local elections have usually about

00:00:48.980 30 turnout and nobody cares for some reason on a normal year the local elections get mentioned on

00:00:56.600 the news as a bit and then it's over in a day and nobody normal talks about them ever yes but this

00:01:02.760 was all last week's discussion and also it was the discussion leading up to them as well because it

00:01:08.380 was like well when may the 7th hits yes we get whacked kissed i was out so they were very present

00:01:13.560 in people's minds and the turnout was much higher than usual the turnout was somewhere north of 40

00:01:20.100 percent overall that's not far off general election territory exactly the last general election was

00:01:25.680 59 right so it's really not terribly far off which is very unusual and sometimes local elections you

00:01:31.220 get like 20 it's sometimes even lower than that oh yeah there are candidates who win on 15 you know

00:01:36.280 Like the unbelievably low turnout, an unbelievably scattered, fragmented landscape.

00:01:42.560 So some of these councillors will have been elected with literally a thousand votes in a constituency of, I don't know, 50,000 or however much it was.

00:01:53.040 So they've been treated as being very important by the political class.

00:01:57.680 so they've been in the media they've been on the minds of all the politicians because they're being

00:02:03.800 treated as indicative of a change in the wind and i think there's something to this there's you know

00:02:09.040 there's definitely it's fair for for them to see this as a kind of bellwether everybody's trying

00:02:14.940 to figure out how how politics shakes out because as we said many times you're not supposed to have

00:02:19.540 six parties in a two and a half party system six competitive parties yes and so and so we need to

00:02:25.220 know what what is going to be the shape of politics going forward quite aside from the issue of is this

00:02:31.440 going to get starmer out which would have motivated a lot of people just by itself yeah and so this

00:02:35.940 this has been um as you can see quite widely understood uh what did they hear what most

00:02:41.420 people hear about last week the local elections this has been dominating the news cycle which in

00:02:46.360 normal times it really wouldn't because it would have been insanely boring but at least there was

00:02:50.980 quite exciting going on here so these are the final local election results in england uh now

00:02:57.940 as you can see it is basically everything was going in the direction that it was predicted to

00:03:03.620 have gone for so reform we've got a thousand four hundred and fifty four councils uh up 1452 because

00:03:10.820 only had two going into this labor have got 1068 council councilors uh down 1498 councillors the

00:03:18.740 The Lib Dems are on 844, having gone up 155.

00:03:22.740 The Conservatives are on 801, having gone down 563.

00:03:27.040 The Greens are on 587, having gone up 441.

00:03:31.200 And the Independents are on 213, having gone up 35.

00:03:36.140 Can I do a bit of analysis on this?

00:03:37.920 Of course.

00:03:39.060 So, reform, absolutely solid.

00:03:42.680 Yep.

00:03:43.580 But they were expected to get about 1,600 to maybe 1,800 at the upper end.

00:03:48.580 Yeah, well, let's look at the predictions that we covered last week.

00:03:53.980 This was the aggregate predictions that Stats for Lefties has done

00:03:57.660 from eight different polling experts.

00:04:01.760 So, as you can see, if the average result is,

00:04:06.280 well, reform is supposed to be north of 1,600,

00:04:09.460 the Greens north of 600, and Labour losing 1,800,

00:04:13.540 and Conservatives losing 760,

00:04:15.400 yes well actually that this is not a great result it it's not and i tell you why it's even more

00:04:22.220 worrying because i'm sure you've got a bit of restore stuff in here that we might come to

00:04:28.240 you could understand it if restore won their seats but uh but reform where there was no restore

00:04:37.520 candidate polled back at where they were before restore launch which is to say something like

00:04:42.940 31 32 percent in the polls yeah i suspect when we dig into this i mean i haven't done the mass

00:04:48.300 myself but i suspect you have it's it's not going to come out at 31 32 percent which is really where

00:04:54.840 they should have been so it's it's more than just restore have knocked the shine off it it's that

00:05:01.780 people have fundamentally reassessed their view of reform so they're taking the tories the attacks

00:05:07.520 on rupert low they're saying you know we've got to basically transition into being a muslim nation

00:05:12.040 and we've got to get them to vote for us when the time comes.

00:05:14.680 It genuinely has had an impact. 0.75

00:05:17.300 Now, I know the boomer voter, people will get upset with that,

00:05:21.140 the median boomer voter who doesn't watch anything online

00:05:25.140 and doesn't go online is going to be unaware of this.

00:05:28.240 But that's not outright majority territory.

00:05:34.820 Well, let me pause you on that because you're completely correct,

00:05:38.820 but you're right, I have got the exact numbers.

00:05:40.560 Okay.

00:05:40.720 Okay, so I think the thing to take from this is what we can see is that from these numbers compared to these numbers,

00:05:48.760 and remember, this was just the average.

00:05:50.220 I mean, there were estimates where reform would get 1,800 seats and that Labour would lose all of their seats, basically.

00:05:57.620 Almost all of them.

00:05:58.640 Well, and they kept 1,000.

00:05:59.660 So, I mean, actually, if you go back to the one before, in terms of absolute results,

00:06:05.160 I mean, I know a lot of Labour heartlands are including this, but they've still got 1,000 seats, right?

00:06:09.680 They actually are still in contention.

00:06:13.080 There are bigger wipeouts on record.

00:06:15.220 Margaret Thatcher lost over 1,000 council seats in her elections.

00:06:18.440 John Major lost 2,000 and didn't resign.

00:06:21.580 There are much bigger wipeouts than this in British political history

00:06:25.740 within living memory.

00:06:27.280 So for everyone saying, oh, this is going to be bad,

00:06:29.520 I mean, that is bad, but it could have been worse.

00:06:33.040 And reform did well, but they could have done a lot better.

00:06:35.860 And that's what the Conservatives are trading on.

00:06:37.660 So, you know, the Conservatives, look, they had a shocking, shocking result.

00:06:41.600 They're down almost 600 seats.

00:06:44.460 They were expected to do a lot worse.

00:06:46.320 Yes.

00:06:47.000 What were they expected to do?

00:06:48.840 So the Conservatives were expected to do nearly 800.

00:06:52.200 And it was only 500.

00:06:53.660 They failed to lose 200 seats, which is a lot.

00:06:56.740 And they had some gains in other areas, actually.

00:06:59.780 Labour failed to lose 300 seats, which everyone was expecting to lose.

00:07:04.280 And reform failed to gain 200 seats.

00:07:06.480 but also the greens yes but for all of this green wave failed to gain 100 seats

00:07:13.680 so they so what we're what we can read from this i think is that actually reform and the greens

00:07:20.100 both underperformed yep and labor and the conservatives both failed to collapse in the

00:07:25.280 way that everyone expected them to yep lib dems did slightly better than average i suspect the

00:07:30.780 Lube Dems did exactly as predicted.

00:07:32.400 Oh, okay.

00:07:33.120 152 expected, 155 got.

00:07:35.620 Okay, but in a six-party environment, they held up.

00:07:39.880 Yes.

00:07:40.140 Which is actually something just by itself.

00:07:43.100 Yeah, Greens, like you say,

00:07:45.620 I mean, these were supposed to be the emergent second party.

00:07:49.080 Yeah, oh, sorry, the Greens only got 441,

00:07:51.720 so they're 200 seats down as well.

00:07:53.460 They were meant to gain 600.

00:07:55.240 So they're 200 seats down as well, not 100 seats down.

00:07:58.320 That's just 100 in total.

00:07:59.340 so even though we're framing this or that the whole discussion is framing this as a sort of

00:08:04.800 labor wipeout and a and a sort of conservative wipeout i mean yeah but not not entirely it's

00:08:12.860 put simply yeah if i was like polanska and nigel frage i wouldn't be thrilled with these results

00:08:17.920 right no not if reform had got a thousand seven hundred seats i'd be over the moon i'd be like

00:08:23.080 yep there we go we outperformed we exceeded expectations if the greens had got the 600

00:08:27.300 they were expecting i'd have been zach policy yeah we outperformed yes but the thing is the

00:08:32.520 polling has been in for quite a long time right it's baked in it's completely baked in at this

00:08:38.400 point and so actually this is more indicative of a general decline of both the green and reform

00:08:45.360 when they're meant to have the wind in their sails and they're meant to be carrying all before them

00:08:50.340 yeah i mean this we can't deny they they've both had a good election yeah they've both got momentum

00:08:56.820 but it is not the momentum that they were expected to have new and as you pointed out

00:09:03.580 um reform only won here 28 of the seats okay that's hang on that's in line with their polling

00:09:10.900 very in line with their polling actually but but but i mean just to restate my points i'm

00:09:16.420 absolutely clear on this their polling um dipped after a store came out because a lot of people

00:09:22.740 said well actually no i'll have silk rather than cotton but why did those people not lend their

00:09:28.580 vote to reform in anywhere apart from great yarmouth where they didn't have a choice a great

00:09:35.540 question i mean then that was only 10 seats well nine seats for the actual councillors and then

00:09:40.060 one for the county council the vast the vast majority of people did not have a restore candidate

00:09:44.160 to go to so you start to ask the question i'm sure we come on to this is is what is actually

00:09:49.580 restore what is restore actually doing are they taking votes from reform which is what everybody

00:09:54.420 wants to say or are they activating voters well we'll come we'll come to this right so as as you

00:10:01.260 can see this um like i said it was 28 uh of the actual uh seats available that reform won which

00:10:09.180 is not bad or anything like that obviously the biggest winners of the night yeah but but again

00:10:13.460 if i was nigel frage i thought we were going to do more than that yes i would be thinking i thought

00:10:18.320 we're going to do more than that and that's because it's down from the 2025 local election

00:10:22.620 results um you may remember oh if i can stop zooming out and just scroll down there we go

00:10:27.880 you may remember that they absolutely wiped the floor with everyone here getting 41 percent

00:10:33.300 of all of the councillors which would have been at the top end of their polling for the time

00:10:39.600 exactly when they were at 31 percent right in the polls i mean that would that would have been the

00:10:44.460 outlier polls were put in there so exactly exactly there were outlier polls that put them near 40

00:10:49.940 and so actually did it exactly so right as you can see this is uh something of a degradation

00:10:57.560 in their vote share and their position just a bit i mean from 41 to 28 i mean that yeah yeah i i like

00:11:04.020 i would be like i said if i was an angel fraud if i was in reform i'd be like okay well we did win

00:11:09.520 but this signals problems ahead and rough seas ahead right this is not the the great win we

00:11:16.860 thought it was going to be uh sky did their projection here um from okay what do these

00:11:21.460 results mean um so they've rounded up to 27 for reform so that's the national equivalent vote

00:11:27.580 which is not great uh 27 overall but uh slightly above their polling average but and those numbers

00:11:35.500 are good are they the conservatives got 20 yeah the conservatives got 20 which is uh them over

00:11:40.620 over performing i mean no wonder no wonder kemi badenox really jubilant at the moment because

00:11:46.140 for the conservatives i mean this was actually quite good for the conservatives yeah i mean they

00:11:50.480 gave it they gave us complete betrayal for 14 years i know and mass immigration and they're now

00:11:58.560 led by a euroban and i think it's your ruben but yeah okay you know like my star wars names i get 0.53

00:12:06.580 a bit i'll get mixed up but they but they still did that yeah that boomer vote is sticky it really

00:12:13.900 is and it's not just the boomer vote either um i think there's a significant ethnic minority vote

00:12:19.000 that's gone for the conservatives actually uh so yes this is this is sky's projection from these

00:12:26.880 results which is actually pretty in line with the polling that we've been covering it's a hung

00:12:30.660 parliament reform 284 seats labor 110 conservatives 96 lib dems 80 and the green party on 13 right i

00:12:39.420 can just imagine jacob reese mogg dancing around his living room to this because conservative

00:12:45.240 reform pact it's the only way forward it guarantees it basically um this this is not

00:12:53.880 a good result for reform in my opinion and also reform underperformed in london if there we go

00:13:01.140 that's a lot of conservative seats farrington at the start of the year said that reform was going

00:13:06.720 to win bexley bromley and hillingdon but the tories held bexley bromley and hillingdon

00:13:11.560 kensington and chelsea and they won westminster so no wonder kemi badenock was absolutely jubilant

00:13:18.500 this is what i mean about there's a lot more ethnic minority vote going to the conservatives

00:13:21.380 because they're sick of labour but the greens are mental yes and the the tories do have an

00:13:27.420 african woman leaving them i mean to be fair not not all of the immigrants are you know just out 0.90

00:13:32.160 for the gibbs no they're not all some of them actually if in fact if you want to hear hard 0.76

00:13:37.900 line talk on immigration ask an immigrant who's been established here for some time ask a london

00:13:43.300 taxi driver a london taxi driver somebody who's had an indian restaurant for the last 30 years 0.92

00:13:47.960 these guys would would make us blush compared to what they would say about recent immigrants oh

00:13:53.920 yeah and i guess they're not going to go to reform because they're the anti-immigrant party

00:13:59.460 ostensibly yeah and and and the media pushes the line that they're going to do remigration they're

00:14:04.540 not but that pushes the line so i suppose that naturally makes them conservatives yeah yeah so

00:14:09.340 the the tories have done better in london than expected i mean that's not very much reform in

00:14:14.340 london actually they should have had all of those blue areas should have been reform you should

00:14:19.280 been waxing them there i mean i suppose if you're living in london you are more likely than not to

00:14:23.960 be a uh an any an anywhere than a somewhere correct but i also it kind of implies that

00:14:31.060 lalia cunningham's indian parade was not the vote winner that she thought it was going to be

00:14:34.860 no um then you then you have essex now reform did well in essex that is true uh these are

00:14:42.420 these are the predictions based against the actual results but you can see 58 predicted

00:14:47.960 53 actual declared 13 on the conservatives you can see that again the conservatives have

00:14:53.460 overperformed here they were supposed to have four right they've kept 13 so the conservatives

00:14:58.800 have overperformed it's not brilliant but it's again like and reform has gained control of the

00:15:05.420 council but it's it's not the worst thing that could have happened so i mean at the last election

00:15:13.100 we were talking about zero seating the conservatives yes and one of the talking points that we had was

00:15:19.780 we're comparing it to the election of what was it 1912 something like that where we're saying that

00:15:25.160 the conservatives basically got wiped out and the liberals came in and then actually the liberals

00:15:31.040 managed to make themselves even more hated than the Tories and what actually happened was the

00:15:36.000 Tories survived and the Liberals got wiped out and replaced by the Green Party and we speculated

00:15:41.640 Labour Party yeah by the Labour Party yeah and so we speculated as hated as the Tories are

00:15:47.820 is it possible we're going to get another 1912 and actually it's Labour that wipe themselves out

00:15:53.420 and get replaced with the Greens which we'll get to soon yeah because I agree I really think

00:15:58.660 the conservative cockroach is going to crawl out of the irradiated ruins and so and live to live 0.93

00:16:06.540 to betray us another day tories what once you've got an infestation of tory bloody hard to get rid 0.82

00:16:12.360 of them in fact we've not found a way to do it but they are the 40k orcs i've got to get the

00:16:16.740 reference in there it's mad isn't it um anyway so like i said this not not not great for the

00:16:22.720 but not at all the total wiper and good for reform but not the staggering victory that

00:16:29.380 nigel france was expecting and so his view view that we've absolutely walked it i mean

00:16:34.780 well he has to say that but well yeah i guess

00:16:37.600 big time this is a celebration and what a remarkable couple of days this has been we're

00:16:48.720 so you can see the jubilance there yeah but i if i were him i would be less jubilant about this

00:16:54.960 because like he's fond of telling us oh we've led the the country in 200 polls it's like okay but

00:16:59.320 why haven't the conservatives been buried i mean back when he was polling average of about 31

00:17:05.580 you started to hear reform insiders talk about keir starmer's mingva's strategy which which is

00:17:12.120 we're cruising to victory farage's mingva's strategy well no it was starmer's oh right

00:17:16.940 it was star was originally when he was under rishi sunak and and and that's where the phrase came

00:17:21.000 from yeah and and reform started picking up on this on this terminology and so look what we got

00:17:26.280 to do is we are out in front but we got to walk across an ice rink carrying a ming vase um and

00:17:32.720 we got to make sure that we do it without dropping it what it actually looks like it's more like he's

00:17:37.020 carrying a ming vase through wading through treacle because it's getting harder and harder

00:17:41.480 and he's slowing down yes and there's there's three long years to go yes assuming assuming

00:17:49.340 that we'll be two years in and he's already slowing down already exactly uh now he he does

00:17:55.540 make some fair points uh betrayed voters have left labor for good this is probably true in the north

00:17:59.620 right uh the south obviously not really a labor voting heartland um but the the betrayed labor

00:18:05.460 voters in the in the north probably have left labor forever and i like i've said before i think

00:18:10.780 that's frange's one genuine contribution no matter what happens yes is to break the two-party

00:18:15.480 straggle hold here right so labor and it's in the name always used to be the party of the working

00:18:21.900 class and then it did this thing where we're going to be the party of the working class

00:18:26.060 and the benefits class which is of course a thing that didn't exist back in 1912 because we've

00:18:30.980 created the benefits yes um labor see well labor are now fighting with the greens for the benefit

00:18:37.300 class but yeah it does look like the working class well it's not just the benefit it's it's 0.53

00:18:41.700 the working class the chav underclass the immigrant uh underclass and the managerial elite 0.97

00:18:48.820 that labor have tried to cobble yes they are keeping the managerial elite but it's just them 0.69

00:18:53.100 left but the working class proper yeah they've gone to farage correct yes but how how long are

00:18:58.620 they going to go to farage for now farage himself thinks that these people are now die-hard reform

00:19:04.220 voters and they're going to be with him forever well that's more than boris johnson was ever able

00:19:08.620 to do and i really believe that these voters for reform are there for keeps this is a really

00:19:16.340 no you can't you can't think like that in politics that is exactly what he's mog thought well blair

00:19:22.820 thought it with the middle class voters um boris thought it with the with the red wall he said okay

00:19:27.540 these people are you know these people are tory now it it didn't last 18 months with him yeah

00:19:33.160 let alone five years literally it's the thing that boris thought yes we've won the north it's like

00:19:38.380 no yeah no they they have they have picked you for now they are using you as a cudgel against

00:19:45.240 the labour party yes that's what they're doing and this is what the focus group say so this is

00:19:49.880 luke trill from more uncommon and he said um the focus groups basically uh such is people's

00:19:55.900 frustration with the government they're willing to give it a go right and i saw him on sky news i

00:20:00.640 couldn't find the clip uh saying this and essentially the the northern voters are tentatively

00:20:05.840 voting for farage they are not dyed in the wool converts to the faragist reform party what they

00:20:12.920 are doing is saying we just need something that's not labor yeah we can't we've tried the tories

00:20:18.680 boris betrayed us which obviously the tories betrayed you uh but we still have this labor

00:20:24.400 problem where it's not even that they're just stabbing us in the back they just you know i

00:20:28.860 mean there's so many knives in the back of the northern voter at this point i don't know where

00:20:33.400 they're going to go next um but they're trying farage and so this is the disaffected working

00:20:40.540 class northerners and middle class brexteer southerners who are tentatively voting for

00:20:44.400 farage it's it's not a landslide like he was predicting um well i mean by very very definition

00:20:51.540 i mean let's go back a bit right go back to the 1950s you were kind of baked into it so if you

00:20:58.640 were a young Tory you you probably met your wife by going to a young conservatives event yeah

00:21:04.400 your friends were in it um you know your your network your work network your golf course it

00:21:10.940 go to the local conservative club yes you were baked into it and on the left the same thing you

00:21:15.280 went to your working man's club you went to your there was a whole I mean it wasn't just your

00:21:20.100 politics it was your life was built into these things and so they were genuinely difficult to

00:21:25.980 extract yourself i'm switching from one to the other it was it wasn't just oh i've changed my

00:21:30.340 mind it's i'm going to upheave my life and my social sphere and thing and that and that's why

00:21:35.540 it kind of mattered but these days i mean who relies on the conservatives labor or reform for

00:21:41.760 anything outside of what they happen to believe at the time interesting that isn't it yeah and

00:21:46.660 that's a great point because for i was just still thinking of the previous paradigm where these

00:21:51.260 changes would be unthinkable yes but clearly that paradigm no longer there's no cost there's no cost

00:21:56.680 attached to switching these days exactly and so and but moreover um the sort of leap into the

00:22:02.600 unknown means okay i might be with the conservatives i might be with reform but who knows i might just

00:22:08.980 keep going you don't you don't know and so this overconfidence on the part of farage in the face

00:22:15.060 of what was not a landslide is remarkable like he says at the end of his uh times article here

00:22:20.720 he says at the end quote the establishment thought reform uk had peaked last week the

00:22:26.140 british public said otherwise not true no that's not what happened it's literally that you have

00:22:31.700 peaked according to what the british public have said you got 41 of the local elections in 2025

00:22:37.460 now you got 28 in the local elections in 2026 that's a peak you're on the decline yeah and

00:22:43.900 it's still good enough to be the largest party in the parliament but exactly you'll you'll be

00:22:48.520 you're not storming to a win anymore exactly and moreover when people are actually speaking to

00:22:53.940 these focus groups they're saying look we're just going to give it a shot because anything's better

00:22:58.220 than labor we tried tories they betrayed us now we're going to try reform hopefully they don't

00:23:02.540 betray us the sort of you know wide-eyed northern voters say and so for us is completely misreading

00:23:08.240 the room saying oh they're there we've got them for keeps you don't know that only until you fail

00:23:13.600 them basically um so like i said wasn't the landslide they are on the decline but where was

00:23:20.480 there a landslide well great yarmouth is where there was a landslide right now this is remarkable

00:23:29.500 so in 2024 when rupert was elected he got as you can see from here uh there was a turnout of 56

00:23:38.000 uh 55.6 uh he got 35 of the votes on which was 14 000 votes now that's a significant i mean that's

00:23:47.960 basically um what farage is looking at now well it's less than what farage is looking at now

00:23:52.980 actually um but that was this is a lot this is rupert's election is it this is rupert's election

00:23:57.680 in 2024 and also i mean i mean yes some people have heard of him as as the southampton chairman

00:24:04.700 sure but but he wasn't he wasn't a big name he wasn't a name in politics at all really he wasn't

00:24:10.280 a name in norfolk politics in fact we we did we did the election thing and we had our eyes on a

00:24:15.000 few mps he wasn't one of them i saw a few mp candidates he wasn't one of them no he he came

00:24:21.240 out of tyson for us yes yeah and there was a couple of others i remember being in that green

00:24:26.560 screen thing keeping an eye on none of them won it was him and a complete unknown that

00:24:31.540 oh i forget his name now but that random chap who who got in oh what james murdoch yes that's the

00:24:37.460 one yeah he was so he kind of come i know so that result here is is a result of the reform name at

00:24:46.020 the time plus that he obviously actually knows how to run a local campaign yes and so 35 the votes

00:24:53.840 14 000 votes 55 turnout that's fine that was enough to make him an mp uh then of course farage

00:25:00.880 kicked him out of the party and tried to get him put in jail but he did better in the local elections

00:25:06.600 by quite a long shot by quite a wide margin um so he in total great yarmouth first there are

00:25:13.020 like um loads of these but i mean these these are staggering numbers right so the average in fact

00:25:19.880 i've got a graph here so the average in the in all of these nine wards where great yarmouth first

00:25:25.620 stood they got an average of 46 of the votes they got in total 15 600 votes so more than a thousand

00:25:33.980 extra votes with a 46 uh sorry a 45 or 46 average turnout so lower turnout more votes higher share

00:25:44.640 of the vote but the fascinating thing about this right look look at that look at the second and

00:25:50.640 and so on places the greens still did decently they took a dip yep the conservatives still did

00:25:57.720 decently reform still did decently yep right so yeah okay they're not so it's it's 20 as opposed

00:26:04.040 to 28 across the country as a whole but what but what this is telling me is they didn't get eight

00:26:09.260 percent of the vote yes like he didn't split the vote yes you don't know where these people came

00:26:14.900 from well clearly they weren't exist they weren't existing voters you can't make the numbers add up

00:26:21.200 any other way he's activating non-voters to come in and you can tell because reform are holding up

00:26:26.820 yeah okay they drop from from 28 to 20 yeah so some of those are reform voters yeah but a hell

00:26:33.900 of a lot of them are just people who like if we just assume there's a one-to-one turnout here

00:26:38.240 right yeah so remember in 2024 he got 14 000 votes so uh basically about uh seven and a half

00:26:46.700 thousand of those votes have gone over okay but where did the other 8 000 come from yeah

00:26:51.960 right we know that people who were not voting and like votes turn ups up it should have been

00:26:58.300 in 2021 with the last great young local elections it was uh 29 turnout sounds normal for a local

00:27:05.700 election completely normal completely normal for the disaffected public 45 46 you just don't get

00:27:12.280 that in a local election it's mad it's kind of unheard of and so okay well there's another 8 000

00:27:16.600 votes that have turned up for restore britain on top of the half of the reform vote that went over

00:27:20.700 to him well you've got to explain where they came from and it's one of those things where it's like

00:27:26.080 right okay something really mad has happened here because i mean the total number of ballots cast

00:27:30.040 in those nine wards was just under 34 000 anyway so it's mad for a local election it's mad but in

00:27:37.880 the general election it was uh 72 000 in total cost so more um more was to gain here he got more

00:27:47.620 of the share of the vote more actual just absolute number here so this this is where the real energy

00:27:55.600 so the interesting thing is right this as politics is not even unprecedented if you go back to the

00:28:01.800 brexit referendum dominic cummings and he's incredibly smart he's a bit of a genius

00:28:07.940 how did he win it right he won it by activating people who had never voted before or hadn't voted

00:28:16.620 for decades and the political class they simply couldn't see this coming because they were looking

00:28:22.180 at their focus groups of likely voters they were looking at polling of likely voters and they were

00:28:27.540 looking at um twitter and they were looking at the social media they go to dominic cummings wasn't

00:28:32.860 doing any of that he was on facebook where the where the non-voters are where the normies are

00:28:37.340 he was activating voters who hadn't voted before yeah and he he won and and and and it so shocked

00:28:45.040 the political system because they simply couldn't imagine that the thing could have happened and then

00:28:50.380 having made that genius political move the most the most i don't know the the most earth-shattering

00:28:57.220 discovery of british politics in the post-war period which you could activate non-voters

00:29:01.920 what did the political class do with that information they immediately forgot it

00:29:06.800 they immediately and they went straight back to looking at likely voters yes and the first time

00:29:12.960 somebody's done anything with it we put low an unbelievable victory as well yes so

00:29:20.120 i mean what one one thing like like you say when basically half of the electorate is checked out

00:29:26.760 and a guy turns up with the party saying look this is going to be called great yarmouth first

00:29:30.480 subsidiary of restore britain and we are going to represent you yes in your politics well even if

00:29:37.880 you'd halved the great yarmouth first vote they'd still have won well and all the other ones right

00:29:42.600 including reform when you when you get into what they really believe it is a long version of look

00:29:49.280 i know there's a fix everything button but here's why we can't press yeah we're never going to press

00:29:53.600 it we're never going to press it it's it's it to do to do my farage it's impossible it's literally

00:29:59.240 impossible shaking of the head it can't be done no we we we've got to we we've got to adapt or by

00:30:06.080 2050 you know if we still haven't pushed the button well we won't be able to push the button 0.66

00:30:10.260 and we can't just play war on islam because we'll lose yes and rupert's just coming along and said

00:30:14.320 i'll tell you what i'm going to push the button yes and then all these non-voters are like oh

00:30:17.540 yeah i vote for that that sounds brilliant yes anyway and this this goes for every single ward

00:30:22.220 in which he won yeah right some of them were won on an absolute majority of 51 right you don't

00:30:28.180 even see that in a general election genuinely you have to have the most kind of homogenous

00:30:33.860 um uh immigrants dominated ward or you would have to have like a student ward for it to be

00:30:40.320 a majority labor or greens or something like that like to to manage to get the and great

00:30:45.900 yarmouth is obviously a very right-wing place you know it's a very left behind coastal town

00:30:49.820 90 plus percent white english so to get them actually to rally to this degree it's an average

00:30:57.180 of 46 like i said some of them are like 51 50 absolute majorities it's just remarkable and it

00:31:04.140 just goes show it's not that they're not interested in politics it's they just don't feel anyone's on

00:31:09.160 their side exactly anyone represents them um so just amazing uh they even got some positive

00:31:16.340 coverage on itv this is very like i say positive but we'll watch a little bit you can you can tell

00:31:22.040 that this is like fair rupert lowe's party has achieved a remarkable set of results in england's

00:31:28.760 local elections great yarmouth first a local arm of his restored britain party has won all 10 seats

00:31:35.480 it contested in the area.

00:31:37.580 Lowe, who's the MP for Great Yarmouth,

00:31:39.580 only started the party last year

00:31:41.280 after being kicked out of Reform UK.

00:31:43.440 So to gain so many councillors so quickly

00:31:45.960 is an achievement.

00:31:47.520 Restore Britain is polling at 4% nationally,

00:31:50.320 but Lowe says he intends to stand candidates

00:31:52.560 across the country by the next general election,

00:31:55.320 which is expected in 2029.

00:31:57.640 Will you be voting for them?

00:31:59.440 Yes.

00:32:00.060 Didn't call him a racist.

00:32:01.740 No, that's true.

00:32:02.240 Didn't call him far right.

00:32:03.500 I mean, the interesting thing is Lowe has done everything he's done whilst having a media blackout.

00:32:09.000 So if they actually start covering him, what can he do then?

00:32:12.480 Probably quite a lot.

00:32:13.260 Well, exactly.

00:32:14.120 I mean, it's just remarkable.

00:32:16.760 So let's go back to the Tories for a bit then.

00:32:19.220 So Richard Tice flatly rejected a coalition with the Tories, which is a strange thing to do.

00:32:26.760 Yeah, but he's doing it in installments by just inviting them all in.

00:32:30.240 So...

00:32:30.520 Well, yeah, there is that.

00:32:31.720 What's the line here?

00:32:32.760 yes uh we're not going to deal do a deal with soggy lib dems pretending to be tories no we're

00:32:37.720 just we're just gonna we're just gonna give them turquoise rosettes instead it's like but also

00:32:42.140 okay well let's let's assume you're not going to do a deal well that that means we don't get a

00:32:46.100 government yes right you're not getting government with numbers like these as you must know this

00:32:51.640 and in fact france knows this uh he doesn't rule it out he said quote i find it a highly

00:32:57.740 undesirable idea and no doubt you find it a highly undesirable idea because you should be miles in

00:33:04.380 in front of this point you should be looking at forming a government so let's pitch from here to

00:33:12.320 the government at the moment uh how are things going for the starminator now this uh this was

00:33:18.400 a yougov poll taken just after uh the local elections the 10th to 11th of may you can see

00:33:24.040 reform have actually had a three-point bump in you gov and you gov normally have them about 25

00:33:28.120 so that's okay that's pretty good restore is still on three percent so they're down minus one but

00:33:33.200 it's not terrible um but the conservatives on 17 greens on 16 and labor down minus two to 16

00:33:40.120 percent uh your party's still not and the the your the your party in restore britain still not being

00:33:44.940 prompted for some reason um even though we still just have this amazing victory uh and so things

00:33:51.480 are not going great in labour no everyone can tell things aren't going great and at the time

00:33:57.100 of recording yes things are tense in the starmer bunker i i was i was just looking down just now

00:34:03.560 to check to see if starmer had been resigned yeah but i mean that i mean when you say things are not

00:34:09.400 going well in labour i literally have to keep checking my screen to see if the prime minister

00:34:13.700 has resigned that that's some indication of how badly it's going yeah i mean it's going really

00:34:17.940 badly i mean it just looks like they're all slight look we think our time's up shibana

00:34:22.680 mahmoud two of the senior cabinet ministers look just to set our timeline to resign you've you've

00:34:27.500 got it'll be another band and um yeah oh who's the home secretary yvette cooper yep uh and and

00:34:32.660 uh no shibana moves the home secretary uh yvette cooper's um a different one oh no she's foreign

00:34:37.380 secretary now foreign secretary that's right um anyway so at the time of recording there were 86

00:34:43.040 um in fact i've got that written down as 81 so this has been updated uh 86 uh labor mps

00:34:50.260 have demanded that starmer quit but these people don't have a champion yet so to actually force

00:35:00.960 starmer out they would need to trigger a leadership election and they would all have to back the same

00:35:05.780 candidate but it was it was that um i'm getting her name wrong um rose west catherine west catherine 0.99

00:35:14.080 west yeah she she decided to be reticent about this and not put herself well that's because 0.92

00:35:18.660 she's labor and she's not particularly bright and it when it was explained to her that because she's

00:35:24.400 she's a burnham supporter when it was explained to her that if you force an election now burnham

00:35:30.380 isn't actually an mp yes and therefore you're going to hand it to um either west streeting

00:35:35.740 or angela rayner she was like oh bugger and then had to quickly retract it yes but but the point

00:35:41.660 is okay you can find somebody you would think so wouldn't you so we've got 86 uh labor mps who are 0.68

00:35:49.380 like not having it we've got cabinet members resigning jess phillips for example the women

00:35:53.660 and girls safeguarding minister i wouldn't even sack her well what's interesting i love that

00:35:57.820 she's got her own photo on there like jess phillips the known moderate a modest uh person

00:36:04.620 if i ever get headed notepaper i'm going to put my own picture on it it's wild isn't it anyway

00:36:09.020 she's she's resigned and then you've got uh alex davies jones who is the parliamentary

00:36:13.460 undersecretary for state of state for victims and tackling violence against women and girls

00:36:17.260 so this is basically the feminist caucus that's abandoning starma and then we started getting

00:36:21.740 leaked messages from the starma bunker and some of these just amazing uh well this one i think

00:36:27.020 is an important one from natasha ryan's uh bottom line changing leader because nigel farage has

00:36:31.660 forced us to is not something any of us can come back from anyone who thinks we can needs to wake

00:36:36.600 up and that's true and natasha ryan's is is it is it nigel farage was it the fact that your votes

00:36:43.140 collapsing i mean well the problem is farage framed his campaign as vote for us and the locals 0.57

00:36:49.320 get starma out what and everyone was like well yes we're not voting for the government nigel

00:36:56.000 but obviously faraj knows this he just knew that it would become politically untenable for starmer 0.83

00:37:01.980 to stay and that there'd be a lot of pressure going look our party's getting creamed here

00:37:06.320 starmer you've got to go because everyone hates you you are the most unpopular prime minister

00:37:09.720 that we've ever had labor is getting historically low vote shares it looks like we're literally

00:37:15.400 jumping off the precipice here so saying get starmer out is actually not terrible messaging

00:37:20.620 no can you can you just go back one to your your resignation tracker um uh there we go 86 okay so

00:37:29.440 it's up to 88 so from from while we've been sat here right yeah two more yep uh i mean what it's

00:37:36.860 going to be by the end of the week but they're in this double bind where if they do go yeah you know 0.99

00:37:42.120 we're gonna have to get rid of samba well guess what farage comes out and does i told you i'm the 0.99

00:37:48.140 winner here now we need to call a general election because nobody wants the country you're already 0.99

00:37:52.720 doing what i say yeah what's your excuse not to and natasha who's one of starmer's 2024 new uh mps

00:37:59.940 is right on the money she's like well you know we haven't got long histories in our own

00:38:04.980 constituencies we haven't got like solid bases yes like we're not going to win yeah like it's

00:38:10.720 going to be a bloodbath where literally like 400 labor mps never see the inside of parliament again

00:38:16.020 we can't do this and she's not wrong yeah but it's not they've got any good choices

00:38:21.900 and well that's another reason why they can't do this we'll come back no i i i didn't mean just as

00:38:28.600 in who to replace him i mean that is that is his own problem but doing nothing is disastrous and

00:38:33.580 doing something is disastrous as she points out i mean there was there was no option that is not

00:38:37.740 head on a spike at this point but doing nothing is disastrous tomorrow like you know further down

00:38:43.100 the line doing something today is disastrous now and so if we do nothing and we maybe maybe in a

00:38:49.780 year's time things have turned around who knows right it might still be disastrous well but it's

00:38:55.900 better than uh sort of collapsing the singularity and having the disaster happen right this second

00:39:00.360 you're saying that actually the least worst thing to do is just to ride star morale and collect your

00:39:05.840 mp's salary yes accumulate your mp's pension years for three more years because i mean that's that's

00:39:13.560 the giving up position yeah because i mean like natasha ryan's for example she was um some some

00:39:18.520 sort of social media producer for channel four so she'd have been on like 50 grand a year at the

00:39:22.840 most right and now she's on and now she's on nearly 100 grand well it's probably 121 once

00:39:27.960 you take the expenses yeah exactly right so i mean i if i were her i'd be like yeah i'd rather

00:39:34.300 just sit here and be hated by the country for three years and then bounce and do something

00:39:39.260 else afterwards right at least you get the money and this is why 100 labor mps have signed a letter

00:39:44.360 saying now's not the time for a leadership election so actually if you look at oh there's

00:39:50.760 86 we're saying no okay but that's not democratically majority here this is the

00:39:56.700 fascinated fascinating dilemma they've got the established mps they're thinking i can probably

00:40:03.540 cling on to my five lewis um john mcdonnell yeah diane all the names that you recognize

00:40:10.420 they're all thinking i can probably hang on to my seat how does the labor party itself survive as an

00:40:16.800 electoral force going forward yes whereas the recent intake are like i know that i'm going

00:40:22.880 so i'm i'm willing to let the i'm willing to stay on this burning cruise ship for the next three

00:40:29.240 years and just hope that it doesn't sink exactly that's exactly it and so we we have actually

00:40:34.960 more people who are actually dependent on starmer for their positions than those people who want to

00:40:40.360 see the labor parties because there was a big intake at the last election a huge intake of

00:40:45.120 newbies and so that starmer is actually not in as weak a position as people think and i we i said

00:40:53.580 this before starmer has this wrapped up and everyone yesterday was saying he's going to be

00:40:58.600 gone by the end of the day i was like i don't think so i think he's gonna stick it out i don't

00:41:03.520 know i if if i was gonna have a 10 pound flutter on this it would be that he goes by the end of

00:41:08.880 the week but you're firmly in the camp that he stays to the end of the week are you i am yeah

00:41:12.660 and so starmer right his defense his defense minister luke pollard being like i'm not resigning

00:41:18.740 whatever else is happening we will be continuing our efforts to support to to rearm rebuild the

00:41:23.720 united uh armed forces and protect the uk we're just going to do our jobs we're just going to get

00:41:29.120 with you you carry on with this right and so starmer he had a bunch of like ministerial aids

00:41:33.760 his own cabinet ministers resigning and when this happened to like rishi sennac or whoever else

00:41:40.600 boris johnson like oh oh god you know we've got to worry about the future of the party well what

00:41:45.500 if you don't care about the future of the party right yeah you can just replace them you can just

00:41:50.800 assign new people boris had this though he he had was it maybe four maybe five days i'm i'm not

00:41:57.220 i'm not remembering now where he was just regularly replacing people day in day out yes and it was it

00:42:02.080 was clown show and everyone you know the the uh media were like my god this is a a party that's

00:42:08.300 bleeding out a prime minister that's bleeding out we were only on day one of him doing this yes and

00:42:12.600 he's decided you know i can find these dependents who need me because these people haven't got

00:42:18.300 established constituencies aren't brand name mps yes and i can just shove them in no it's your

00:42:23.400 turn he won't get anything done from this point because the real power of an mp of a prime

00:42:29.200 minister is patronage yes right and and it's people think that he can get stuff done as much

00:42:34.220 as anything you still is politics is still ultimately about moving people around and

00:42:37.540 getting people to do things if people believe he no longer has the power of patridge apart from

00:42:42.620 replacing existing ministers but outside of that network he i mean i mean he might get his

00:42:49.240 breakfast clubs away but that'd be it he's burnt all of his political capital just securing his

00:42:55.700 position yes right and so that's that's great from the position of the right right so starmer

00:43:03.020 the big fear is he's going to destroy the country well if he can't do anything he actually can't

00:43:07.820 destroy the country so we can actually bank a few of the positive things that he's done he got net

00:43:11.960 immigration down by seven percent it didn't drag us into a war with iran right these are actually

00:43:16.180 moderately impressive do you think you want to take that tenor bet when we meet here next week

00:43:21.700 a tenor to me if he goes tenor to you right sure we'll take a bet bet made i'm not a betting man

00:43:28.940 but uh we'll take it um and so you're right he can't really do anything and he will just be in

00:43:34.680 this constant state of fending off challenges as the polls continue to collapse so what we are

00:43:40.360 watching is a man who is just too selfish to know when his time is up and has decided to use the

00:43:45.080 power of his office and the power of the fact that he's got 300 dependent mps on him yes to just no

00:43:51.560 i don't have to i mean i kind of admire it in one sense well i quite like it because yeah this is

00:43:56.480 great for the right oh yeah this is the preferred outcome oh it's brilliant it's i i i would have

00:44:03.040 i would have asked him to do this i have been on twitter like kid you've got to stick this out

00:44:07.300 we could be looking at the actual end of the labour party as a political party forever if you

00:44:13.140 just hold the line and not just that like the left generally no everyone's watching this kind

00:44:19.200 of disrespectful politics going on and they're kind of backbiting and you know everything they

00:44:23.480 said about the conservatives this is way worse but it didn't it didn't work for the choice so

00:44:27.440 they changed from boris johnson who had become unpopular over covid to rishi sunak who had quite

00:44:32.640 high personal numbers of people liking him didn't make a damn difference not at all because people

00:44:37.920 realized oh actually no it's it's not the leader it's just that this party is rotten yes so i don't

00:44:44.060 mind him being swapped for somebody even angela rainers who's got some personality because people

00:44:48.660 realize oh wait all of these problems are still here it's not the leader it's that labor just

00:44:54.000 needs to be destroyed yes so either way we get there and so the longer he holds out the better

00:44:58.280 and he's just going to be going to a meeting with apprentices tomorrow to underline the government's 0.72

00:45:02.720 drive to overhaul the apprenticeship system i bet he talks about bloody breakfast clubs again

00:45:06.280 absolutely right the point being he's just going to power through it and carry on as if nothing's

00:45:13.420 happening which is amazing he's just come out and he had a cabinet meeting today obviously now you

00:45:18.480 can imagine how tense this starma bunker meeting was right but he said he told the cabinet as i

00:45:24.980 said yesterday i'll take responsibility for the election results i'm sorry i'll put the

00:45:27.840 voice on and i take responsibility for delivering the change we promised the past 48 hours have

00:45:32.760 been destabilizing for the government and that is a real economic cost for our country and families 0.96

00:45:36.200 the labor part i mean you've seen the bond markets today right yeah atrocious like led by donkeys

00:45:41.720 just have never allowed to talk about liz truss ever again right yes it'll just always be thrown 0.92

00:45:47.100 in the face no no this is way worse you know under starmer well and and liz truss was was a

00:45:52.120 was a blip which kind of engineered by the bank of england this is this is a grinding they did

00:45:57.240 this to themselves yeah and the reason why it matters when it's grinding is because not only

00:46:01.100 is there the new debt issuance because they can't make their sums add up but we're having to roll

00:46:05.020 over old debt all the time and we're already at the point now where the i i don't know if we have

00:46:11.160 a minister for debt but if we do he would have the biggest department in the government i wouldn't

00:46:15.060 want to be that guy yeah but as you can see the labor party has a process for challenging a leader

00:46:19.620 and that has not been triggered oh that's an interesting statement it's that is so starmer

00:46:26.920 the rules technically say whatever it's also so the soft left right we're gonna sign a letter

00:46:35.260 kia asking you there are 86 we want you to leave we'll trigger the process then well we're not 0.98

00:46:40.840 gonna do that like you cowards you absolute cowards yeah you're like you're watching your 0.99

00:46:48.120 party on the road to destruction and you're like well we're gonna have to ask him really nicely 0.99

00:46:52.020 no you could take executive action here there is a mechanism and you didn't so you've got the

00:46:57.360 numbers yeah you've got the numbers and so starma's just like no i don't care right so starma's like

00:47:01.720 no i'm not resigning no no leadership challenge has been triggered so ministers looking glum

00:47:07.520 entering number 10 they're just like what are we going to do no you're you're you are not lions 0.94

00:47:11.900 right you do not have the balls to step forward uh and so starma is basically just taking them on 0.97

00:47:17.140 a death march at this point like he's just marching on a baton death march for his own party 0.99

00:47:23.240 and he doesn't care it's like that meme of the of the tram coming across the track with all the

00:47:28.420 bodies on the track you can stop at any time but no it's just you're a labor minister you're on

00:47:33.480 the track you can stand up at any time all it takes is one of you to stand up and actually

00:47:39.480 trigger the challenge yes and yet nothing's happening god they're such wimps it's so bizarre

00:47:46.360 the soft left is so i mean genuinely soft well if this was a tories i mean we'd already be through

00:47:51.560 three prime ministers by now exactly would have would have happened over and over and over we've

00:47:55.640 probably been a general election um but yeah so star was basically taking his partner in death

00:48:00.780 march because they're too cowardly to do anything about this uh and so what happened with say uh

00:48:06.800 west streeting uh nothing actually uh west streeting went into the cabinet meeting apparently

00:48:11.740 um completely cucked uh where is it like there was a lot of people apparently um like side-eyeing

00:48:20.040 each other but starmer didn't bring any of it up at all right there was no challenge from west

00:48:24.680 streetings to sam coach from sky a number of cabinet ministers catching each other's eyes

00:48:29.120 as he was speaking but starmer said that he won't discuss the elections or his leadership

00:48:32.900 and he'll only speak to cabinet ministers about that individually and we're going to carry on

00:48:36.600 with the agenda come on so we're streeting bottled it absolutely bottled it like absolutely

00:48:44.960 cucked unbelievable i mean we we can't we can't be too harsh because remember if any of these men

00:48:52.540 had higher testosterone levels they wouldn't be on the left to begin with yeah i mean so by virtue

00:48:58.360 of the fact that they're wimps also means they're on the left which means you just but it also means

00:49:04.020 because remember starmer purged the sort of um the the secure left out of his uh party as much

00:49:12.060 as he could and marginalize them right so john mcdonald may well win in his own seat you know

00:49:16.280 clive lewis may well win in his own seat diane abbott may well win in her own seat but they're

00:49:20.440 nowhere near the government he's got this the you know the the 300 brand new faces and people like

00:49:27.020 west street who won their majority of 500 votes and are going to lose the next election so if

00:49:33.000 we're streeting sat there it was like no right that's it starmer cards on the table i'm triggering

00:49:37.500 it let's go for it summer could be like right i'm just gonna ask the king to call an election then

00:49:40.760 and you're out forever i mean it's like starmer's probably gonna lose his seat too but he'd have a

00:49:46.480 better chance than we're streeting so it's just it's just brutal absolutely brutal right the the

00:49:53.940 people in the low party have got no balls and uh as jesse was resigned um no one's no one's he's 0.90

00:50:02.120 he's just chad ignoring them he literally set them all around the cabinet office and just stared them 0.97

00:50:08.940 all down and was like no this is what's going to happen can we discuss the leadership no we can't

00:50:13.760 in in a party full of wimps yeah yeah exactly we're going to talk about the iran war and the

00:50:19.260 straitful moves and they're like really is that like what's going on with that probably not that 0.84

00:50:22.780 much at the moment right so absolutely nothing so let's talk about andy burnham right andy burnham

00:50:30.760 who starmer has already kept out of the limelight by preventing him from running sabotaged him once

00:50:36.600 yeah he's already sabotaged him once he's apparently arrived in london like lenin

00:50:40.820 traveling to moscow on the train right grant ayatollah khamenei has arrived in iran yeah

00:50:46.120 exactly like this there's so many he was seen arriving at london euston station while keir

00:50:51.880 starmer fights for his life but the thing is keir starmer is in a much stronger position than andy

00:50:55.700 burnham because andy burnham isn't an mp and andy burnham isn't an mp because kia starmer prevented

00:51:00.760 it like sorry i've already checkmated this this chess piece you're moving to get me you can't do

00:51:07.840 that he's gone to meet with various allies uh like angela rayner and various others um because

00:51:14.800 he says quote uh an insider source close to him says quote he has he's got a seat secured in

00:51:21.920 greater manchester so someone in greater manchester is prepared to stand down for the good of the

00:51:26.760 party for the good of andy burnham for andy burnham to win it now andy burnham is relatively popular

00:51:34.200 by far the most popular labour mp but but right by relatively popular what we mean is we can't

00:51:40.920 automatically assume that either reform or greens are going to win that seat that labour might have

00:51:46.580 a chance yeah but they probably don't well so he's got uh 34 approval rating from all people

00:51:55.540 that's because 36 don't know who he is so it it's not bad and it's not you know it's it's it's as

00:52:04.760 good as labor ever gonna get right no one in labor is more popular than andy burnham but that's not

00:52:09.400 saying much because most people just don't know okay so so it has to be a manchester seat because

00:52:13.960 he's from manchester and he's got the name recognition in manchester he's most credible

00:52:18.180 in manchester right and when it can't be a manchester seat with too many students

00:52:22.640 otherwise they vote green it can't be a manchester seat with too many immigrants

00:52:26.000 because they vote green it can't be with too many old manchurians because they vote reform

00:52:31.800 you're narrowing it down quite a lot because what's interesting is in the local elections

00:52:37.940 guess who won in gorton and denton

00:52:41.020 oh that's an interesting i don't know yeah uh in the area in the area that uh led to the

00:52:50.780 quoting from this in the area that led to the resignation of mp andrew gwynn that led to the

00:52:54.800 by-election which saw the green party win their fifth seat reform uk won 18 of the 19 seats up

00:53:01.040 for election oh now that tells us a lot doesn't it well yeah i mean purely mechanicalistically 1.00

00:53:08.520 um you you can get the muslim vote out for a by-election but they really can't be bothered 1.00

00:53:13.820 with local elections it tells you that the white um the white proportion of um it's still two-thirds 0.99

00:53:21.960 white british yep but they were pretty pissed off and and they were asserting themselves yeah

00:53:27.540 yeah exactly they didn't come out for matt goodwin yeah yeah wonder why um yeah that's that's not

00:53:33.600 strong for like labor it's terrible if you had told me that labor had won 18 out of the 19 i'd

00:53:40.600 be like oh yeah yeah sense uh bandy burnham just needs to do blah blah blah and then he'd be and

00:53:45.360 in any other time or place yeah it would have been guaranteed that it would have been labor

00:53:49.200 but no reform won 18 of the 19 seats according to um itv and so it shows that not only did matt

00:53:56.640 goodwin miscarry his campaign well yeah an mp but everyone isn't he so but it also means there are

00:54:03.500 no real safe seats in manchester for labor yeah i mean um here's the greater manchester vote share

00:54:09.800 as of may 2026 in the local elections well reform got 234 000 labor got 177 000

00:54:17.820 so and the greens got 147 000 so sorry if you're andy burnham are you sure you've got a safe seat

00:54:26.140 in manchester are you really that sure that you don't have a bunch of uh you know chad patriots

00:54:33.980 who are sick and tired of the labor party and a bunch of foreigners who are going over to the

00:54:38.580 green party and you're still soft left which is the biggest faction within the labor parliamentary 0.73

00:54:43.800 party yes but it's still only like 35 of the labor party is soft left so are the other 65

00:54:51.300 percent just going to sit there twiddling their thumbs while you try and get back into parliament 0.68

00:54:55.660 to head up the biggest faction because you know the blue labor are going to be doing their thing

00:55:01.300 hard left are going to be doing their thing the blair rights under west street are going to be 0.64

00:55:04.660 doing their thing it's a lot of ducks you've got to line up for this shot to do it exactly if if i

00:55:13.000 was like yeah i've got i've got to get back into parliament yeah i mean i'm not saying he should

00:55:17.400 go somewhere other than manchester obviously um because why why would that succeed in any way

00:55:23.160 shape or form but it just doesn't look like manchester's a sure thing no at all i mean

00:55:29.020 labor just with the bleeding their vote to reform the greens hugely heavily just stuck in both sides

00:55:37.160 pouring out blood yes well yeah you would have to get really quite lucky i think actually to find a

00:55:43.060 really secure uh place and okay so let's assume that you do trigger a by-election well what if

00:55:49.160 zach polanski runs in it yeah what if zach polanski's like all right no we've got quite a

00:55:54.120 lot of muslims and students there i'm gonna go for it what if zia yusuf went for i don't know

00:55:58.840 whoever like some bright who would reform send i can only think of zia yusuf off the top of my head

00:56:06.760 but let's assume they don't send matt goodwin and someone who's who's actually let's assume

00:56:11.540 they actually want to try and win this one yeah let's assume they actually want to try and win it

00:56:14.180 right uh pretty much any constituency in manchester is basically potentially winnable

00:56:19.600 for reform with those sorts of numbers oh yeah it's just like if reform had a very active campaign

00:56:25.560 and polanski had a very active campaign it's entirely entirely likely that one of them wins

00:56:31.260 and labor comes third like they did in gorton and denton and he's just given up being mayor of

00:56:35.820 manchester for nothing for two more years to try and save the labor party and fails right and his

00:56:42.840 faction isn't even a majority so yeah so keir starmer with his phenomenal unpopularity has

00:56:48.940 checkmated andy burnham again like he's just chad keir summer like it's just crazy how he's mogging

00:56:55.800 everyone right everyone's looking at themselves and like word street and tried to see keir starmer

00:57:00.800 after the cabinet and starmer just refused like i'll talk to everyone individually where street

00:57:05.100 is like can i speak to you no he's just mocking them completely and there's nothing they can do

00:57:10.680 about it and the thing is probably for the best right this is what it would look like if west

00:57:14.800 streeting was pm in 2029 where's labor oh

00:57:21.280 raj would actually get his majority when uh you gov poll people saying if west streeting was

00:57:32.740 prime minister how would you vote in the 2029 general election and people are just like no

00:57:37.360 that's a thumbs down from me bro and i don't i don't hate this because both the conservatives

00:57:41.520 and labor get properly crucifixed i mean yeah i i could tolerate a farage prime ministership

00:57:47.740 if it meant destroying labor and the tories like this yeah i could tolerate it now i don't think

00:57:52.200 that's gonna happen i mean you can see great yarmouth is still the dark blue blob

00:57:55.500 yes uh you know absolute holdout because we're streeting he's blairite and that has i mean that

00:58:02.120 blairism was blairism with a weak chin that's what he is yes like he's without the political

00:58:08.200 skill and machination exactly but blairism went out of favor 20 years ago exactly no one wants

00:58:13.500 everyone can tell this is the problem yeah i would rather something else and so you've got like um

00:58:18.460 the government favorability down to 14 percent like it just can't get any worse well i mean i

00:58:24.260 guess theoretically it can get 14 points worse yes and so unsurprisingly west street and just

00:58:30.120 bottled it right he just bottled it um i'm as kevin scofield a mirror uh editor says i'm told

00:58:36.720 any burden does not plan to say anything publicly about his leadership plans unless everything

00:58:41.040 kicks off uh he ain't doing the kicking off says one supporter one mp says can't believe wes is 0.62

00:58:45.980 bottling it if he doesn't go this time he's done as a political force coward right absolute weak 0.96

00:58:50.940 chinned cucked completely chad giga chad keir starmer goes out and just like i'm not talking 0.93

00:58:56.900 to you i'm gonna do a like you haven't leveled challenge therefore i think it's going to like

00:59:01.420 an owl sanctuary or something this afternoon just to just to look at some owls or something it's

00:59:05.500 just like what is happening there was that labor policy but they accidentally tweeted out a couple

00:59:11.180 of years ago which is everybody gets a free owl so maybe yeah yeah that was the tweet everybody

00:59:17.740 gets a free owl and and so maybe that's what keir starmer is working on maybe but anyway like we've

00:59:22.680 covered previously starmer genuinely thinks he can win the next election uh he is not stepping

00:59:29.060 down so at the time of recording this is the state of play now of course he might tomorrow

00:59:33.240 but to be honest with you i don't think he's going to yeah i think he's got it sewn up with

00:59:38.340 these newbie mps i think the people challenging him are piss weak he's already checkmate andy

00:59:44.540 burnham none of them are putting their name forward for everyone to get behind them yes

00:59:48.140 there's no way of getting rid of him oh i don't know i mean i've just refreshed for the news feed

00:59:54.040 no he has not resigned but now we're up to 90 mps according of him to resign

01:00:00.080 i mean this is kind of but more than 100 are like don't resign because we need you for our jobs

01:00:07.860 it's just okay well i don't know but this is great kirsten was taking the labor party down with

01:00:14.680 it's so amazing he's got a job to do the british public elected me and i will be here until 2029

01:00:22.120 then i'll fight the next election brilliant oh no he's been telling people he wants another 10

01:00:25.520 years i know i know and honestly i just couldn't couldn't have asked for more i couldn't have

01:00:30.240 asked what there is no greater hero to the right at the moment than keir starmer the starminator

01:00:35.920 so can he really ride the ship when it is literally disintegrating under him it's because

01:00:42.680 the the ones the the 300 odd new ones absolutely need him they need him they can't get away from 0.96

01:00:51.260 him he has this stitched up like i've been saying and so they just they haven't got the balls to be

01:00:56.120 like right we're gonna have the challenge because the thing is they might even lose the challenge

01:00:59.500 if there's an internal vote and the membership votes for starma yeah like because starma can

01:01:06.780 make the argument look there basically isn't going to be another and he would run as well

01:01:10.280 he already said he would but he'll fight it and he's already said look we you know labor

01:01:15.240 governments don't come around often which is code for we're never getting in again right so we've

01:01:19.980 got to do what we think needs to be done now we've got three years to inflict as much damage as we

01:01:24.720 possibly can be so we might be and and like we've said previously like who would you want to replace

01:01:30.580 him with my god everyone in labor is useless and unpopular and like the best you've got is

01:01:36.560 Andy Burnham and Storm's already squished him like a bug so I don't think he's going and I mean

01:01:43.260 hey this might end this might age really really badly because remember this is we're being by the

01:01:49.000 day you get this we recorded it the day before uh and in that time he might have come to his senses

01:01:54.660 and decided my tenor might be safe but I'm not feeling good about this I'm just saying I don't

01:02:01.820 think he's gonna so anyway this this is what i think is what the local results have shown us

01:02:07.500 actually uh the labor party's on hiding nothing reform are on the decline and there was one

01:02:12.700 true standout success story and that was restore britain

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 13, 2026

The Local Elections Autopsy

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