Vote 2012

:00:23. > :00:27.Hello and welcome to the BBC's election night centre. The polls

:00:27. > :00:30.closed at 10pm of course. There's nothing more the candidates and

:00:30. > :00:38.party leaders can do now, except bite their nails and wait. When we

:00:38. > :00:42.had local elections a year ago, the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed.

:00:42. > :00:46.Nick Clegg's party was pummelled in England and Wales and in Scotland

:00:46. > :00:49.fell to Alex Salmond SNP. David Cameron, on the other hand, defied

:00:49. > :00:53.the pundits to gain council seats last year, mostly in the south of

:00:53. > :00:58.England. But the last month has seen his poll ratings taking a turn

:00:58. > :01:02.for the worse. Ed Miliband, Labour leader since 2010, hoping tonight

:01:02. > :01:06.to prove he is a man with momentum, who can inflict severe damage on

:01:06. > :01:12.his opponents at the ballot box. Over the next 24 hours, we'll meet

:01:12. > :01:22.some of the victors and vanquished and finding out who's triumphed and

:01:22. > :01:34.

:01:34. > :01:38.Soon we'll be getting a flow of results. We've got some first

:01:38. > :01:41.indications. What we're looking at tonight is how people have voted in

:01:41. > :01:45.the English and Welsh Council elections. Tomorrow we'll hear

:01:45. > :01:47.what's happened in Scotland and in London, the result of the battle

:01:47. > :01:51.between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone and nothing this year

:01:51. > :01:54.from Northern Ireland. A lot of different signals from complex

:01:54. > :01:57.competitions, results that are going on, elections going on, all

:01:57. > :02:01.of which need careful interpretation. We'll try and

:02:01. > :02:05.explain to you what has happened and what the implications are for

:02:05. > :02:08.the next general election. Come into our studio here, where we have

:02:08. > :02:12.a number of political guests. Good evening ladies and gentleman, thank

:02:12. > :02:16.you for coming in. We'll talk to them in a moment. We'll try and get

:02:16. > :02:19.as many of the particular results as we can explained by Emily

:02:19. > :02:23.Maitlis who is here with her grand chart.

:02:23. > :02:25.Yes the touch screen is back. I'll use this to bring you the results

:02:26. > :02:29.of the night. Let's go into England and look at the interesting

:02:29. > :02:33.councils that the Conservatives are defending tonight. This blue tells

:02:33. > :02:36.us the Conservatives have controlled here. The red arrow

:02:36. > :02:39.tells us that Labour is in the tells us that Labour is in the

:02:39. > :02:43.second place. Ed Miliband would love to see this slate turn red by

:02:43. > :02:47.the end of the night. Will he do it? They start easy on smaller

:02:47. > :02:51.majorities. They get harder going down. What about the hung Councils?

:02:51. > :02:54.This time the grey tells us no one party has overall control here.

:02:54. > :02:58.There's big prizes for Labour tonight, places they ought to pick

:02:58. > :03:01.up. What about Birmingham? They did well here last time around, they

:03:01. > :03:05.got 14 seats, a similar result would deliver Birmingham safe live

:03:05. > :03:09.home. Ed Miliband would love that and he needs to have that. It's the

:03:09. > :03:13.biggest in the UK. All that affects local Government

:03:13. > :03:16.which we tend not to talk about. We tend to talk about the results as

:03:16. > :03:20.though they only mattered for the national picture. What happens

:03:20. > :03:25.matters to people living in those areas. On the other hand Jeremy

:03:25. > :03:29.Vine will be looking at a national picture, building up those results

:03:29. > :03:33.no a portrait of the political mood of Britain.

:03:33. > :03:38.Yes, our graphics will show you the lay of the land. Let me bring the

:03:38. > :03:42.map on with all the English councils on and colour them in in

:03:43. > :03:45.the colour that controls them and then show you the 128 being

:03:45. > :03:48.contested tonight, nearly half of them Conservative. What happened

:03:49. > :03:58.last year? It was a very close result in the council elections in

:03:59. > :03:59.

:03:59. > :04:02.2011. These are the percentages. 36 for Labour, just a hare's breath

:04:02. > :04:07.behind them the Conservatives, Lib Dems on 16 and the others on 13%.

:04:07. > :04:11.Before the night is done we'll see which parties are up and which --

:04:11. > :04:15.are down. We will be back-and-forth to you right through the night.

:04:15. > :04:19.We'll be all over the country hearing from our political editors,

:04:19. > :04:23.hearing from reporters. We'll be at the counts. There are counts, like

:04:23. > :04:27.the general elections, doub in Southampton for instance. If it's a

:04:27. > :04:33.very good night for Labour in Southampton, there say pont they

:04:33. > :04:37.could take control of Southampton from the Conservatives. We'll also

:04:37. > :04:42.be in Cardiff. Almost all Wales is having elections tonight. Cardiff

:04:42. > :04:48.is a hung Council. It's hotly contested. We'll be in Liverpool.

:04:48. > :04:52.Now Liverpool is tonight elected a mayor. Ten other places are voting

:04:52. > :04:56.on whether to have a mayor. Liverpool and Salford have decided

:04:56. > :04:59.they are going to. They will be picking their mayor tonight. Those

:04:59. > :05:02.are some of the places we're going to. I said we had people round the

:05:02. > :05:07.table. I better introduce them to give their reaction to whatever

:05:07. > :05:11.verdict the voters have provided. I should just say that the first key

:05:11. > :05:16.ward results we're getting in tonight from Sunderland, Basildon,

:05:16. > :05:20.Hull, show a very large swing to Labour and a big drop in

:05:20. > :05:25.Conservative and Liberal Democrat support, compared to 2008, when

:05:25. > :05:29.these Councils were last fought. Now, to field the questions beside

:05:29. > :05:35.me here Conservative co-chairman Baroness Warsi. For Labour the man

:05:35. > :05:41.who ran Ed Miliband's campaign, the shad Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan

:05:41. > :05:45.and for the Liberal Democrats their Deputy Leader Simon Hughes. And

:05:45. > :05:48.even more familiar face, the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson who

:05:48. > :05:51.will tell us what he thinks the significance is and perhaps you'd

:05:51. > :05:55.shoot in straight away with what you think the three parties are

:05:55. > :05:58.expected to happen tonight and what the significance is. They're

:05:58. > :06:02.expecting a good night for Labour, expecting a good night for Labour,

:06:03. > :06:06.of course they were. It was a miserable night four years ago. The

:06:06. > :06:11.signs from those places, Sunderland counts very quickly. Even though

:06:11. > :06:13.it's a safe Labour area, it's often an indication of what's happening

:06:13. > :06:17.in the next of the country. Extraordinarily good results for

:06:17. > :06:20.Labour n. Place that's matter to them much more than that, in terms

:06:20. > :06:25.of winning MPs from the Conservative Party, in Essex, in

:06:26. > :06:28.particular, Essex-man our old friend, Basildon and Thurrock

:06:28. > :06:32.really good swings to the Labour Party. They're expecting good news.

:06:32. > :06:35.Maybe not such good news with the London Mayor tomorrow, we'll see.

:06:35. > :06:40.The Conservatives were preparing themselves, bracing for losses.

:06:40. > :06:45.They're already talking of losses of around 450 Councilors, worst

:06:45. > :06:49.than their worst predictions just a few days ago. And we're talking of

:06:49. > :06:53.the Liberal Democrats crossing their fingers and hoping, it's

:06:53. > :06:58.going to be bad, but not as bad as last year, which was gruesome for

:06:58. > :07:01.them. As you say, yes, this is about local people electing their

:07:01. > :07:06.local representatives, but with so many people in the country voting,

:07:06. > :07:12.most of Wales, not Anglesey, all of Scotland, large parts of England,

:07:12. > :07:18.all of London, these are the foundations of electoral victory in

:07:18. > :07:22.2015. Checking on this, you're actually saying that the Tories are

:07:22. > :07:27.saying 450, they're not doing that in order that when it becomes 350

:07:27. > :07:31.they'll say it's a triumph. You think they're genuinely... What a

:07:32. > :07:37.thought! Eric Pickles, who knows about these things of course, knows

:07:37. > :07:41.a little bit about expectations management too. He has now said on

:07:41. > :07:47.the record 450. He may hope to get that number in tomorrow's morning's

:07:47. > :07:54.papers, when people wake up and discover it's only 400 or 375 it's

:07:54. > :07:57.not so bad. It's bad. Sayeeda Warsi is raising her eyebrows. It's going

:07:57. > :08:02.to be a tough night. This is not something we've been saying today

:08:02. > :08:05.or this week. I've been saying this for months. If you look where we

:08:05. > :08:10.were in 2008, Nick will say this, this was about six months after

:08:10. > :08:15.that election that was never called by Brown. Gordon Brown was doing

:08:15. > :08:18.very badly in the polls at that time. There had been that 10p...

:08:18. > :08:22.know all that. We're just interested in what you think is

:08:22. > :08:24.going to happen. We want to go to Jeremy Vine. It's going to be a bad

:08:24. > :08:28.night for the Conservatives. We have to look at where we started

:08:28. > :08:32.off in these elections. Jeremy, throw a little light on this, and

:08:33. > :08:36.set the night in context. The context is crucial, David,

:08:36. > :08:39.The context is crucial, David, absolutely. I'll give you the map.

:08:39. > :08:44.You can see the 128 councils coloured in. Let's go back one year

:08:44. > :08:53.to 2011 and remind ourselves of Councilors won and lost. Here we

:08:53. > :09:00.go: You Conservatives up 86 last year. Labour up a huge 839. The

:09:00. > :09:06.Liberal Democrats down a very painful 748 and the others down 207.

:09:06. > :09:09.That's the big figure, Councilors won and lost. Lots of pundits

:09:09. > :09:13.saying how.Conservatives put on seats? Let me explain. Go behind

:09:13. > :09:17.the headlines and look at the regional results: These are

:09:17. > :09:21.Councilors won and lost in the north. The Conservatives and the

:09:21. > :09:26.Lib Dems both losing. 357 extra Councilors for Labour in the north.

:09:26. > :09:29.In the Midlands, Labour put on 380, again the Lib Dems and the

:09:29. > :09:35.Conservatives lose. But have a look at the south. Can you see the

:09:35. > :09:39.Conservatives in an area where they were strong any way, put on 187.

:09:39. > :09:43.Labour put on rather fewer. The Lib Dems it was just a horror show for

:09:43. > :09:47.them whichever way you look at it. The point about that is, the point

:09:47. > :09:52.about the gains in the south is that they covered up Conservative

:09:52. > :09:55.losses elsewhere. For Labour, they made the result a bit more modest

:09:56. > :10:00.as a performance than it might have been if you'd just looked at the

:10:00. > :10:04.Midlands and the north. It took the shine off their advances somewhat.

:10:04. > :10:07.Fascinating to look at the parties going head to head. Let us see what

:10:07. > :10:12.happens when we put the Conservatives against Labour. We'll

:10:12. > :10:18.go back to 2005. We're looking here at the Conservative leader, Michael

:10:18. > :10:23.Howard. What was happening between those two parties, the

:10:23. > :10:27.Conservatives were down 2%. They were behind Labour in 2005. Spool

:10:27. > :10:32.forwards, Gordon Brown comes in. David Cameron gives the

:10:32. > :10:36.Conservatives a bit of uplift. Here we are in 2008. Now this is the

:10:36. > :10:40.critical year to look at, as Baroness Warsi was saying. This is

:10:40. > :10:44.the year the Council seats were last up. The Conservatives with an

:10:44. > :10:48.18% lead. They had roughly 40% of the vote. Gordon Brown was really

:10:48. > :10:52.struggling as Prime Minister. David Cameron was getting into his stride

:10:52. > :10:56.and this is the year the seats were last up. Anything less than this

:10:56. > :11:03.18% lead, as you were just saying, and the Conservatives lose seats.

:11:03. > :11:07.Look at what happens here? The trajectory goes right down for the

:11:07. > :11:10.Conservatives. Labour change their leader. 2011 we see they're 1%

:11:10. > :11:15.behind the Labour Party. You're actually looking, when you look at

:11:15. > :11:19.what happens tonight, at the gap between their present-day

:11:19. > :11:23.performance against Labour. If it's anything like that, it was in 2011

:11:23. > :11:30.and the 2008 performance against Labour. I'll show you another graph

:11:30. > :11:32.now. Two parties, which two shall we choose? Let's look at

:11:32. > :11:36.Conservatives versus the Liberal Democrats. Fascinating story,

:11:36. > :11:40.because they're now in coalition together. In 2005 they were

:11:40. > :11:43.opponents. The Conservatives under Michael Howard, 3% ahead. Then we

:11:43. > :11:48.spool forward to this year of 2008. You can see the Conservatives

:11:48. > :11:51.putting on quite a lead here, under David Cameron, 16%. Nick Clegg was

:11:51. > :11:55.struggling at this point. Watch what happens when they go into

:11:55. > :11:59.coalition. There's a moment as you approach the election where the Lib

:11:59. > :12:02.Dems gain a bit here and then fascinating, isn't it, you can see

:12:02. > :12:05.that if you're measuring the Conservatives against the Liberal

:12:05. > :12:10.Democrats, both of them in the same Government, the Conservatives are

:12:10. > :12:15.posting a really healthy lead, 19% over the Liberal Democrats. That

:12:15. > :12:17.was last year, 2011. Again, you have to say, if this performance is

:12:17. > :12:22.anything to go by, the Lib Dems are going to struggle against the

:12:22. > :12:26.Conservatives. It makes one wonder in light of

:12:26. > :12:29.what Baroness Warsi was saying what has happened between this year and

:12:29. > :12:34.last year for the Tories sudden throi have sunk back again. What's

:12:34. > :12:44.going to happen for the Liberal Democrats against Labour in vur

:12:44. > :12:45.

:12:45. > :12:48.view? Lets -- let's see that graph. Again we remember Tony Blair as

:12:48. > :12:51.Prime Minister. He was the Labour leader in 2005. Charles Kennedy the

:12:51. > :12:56.Lib Dem leader. What was happen sning Mr Blair was in a good

:12:56. > :13:00.position against the Liberal Democrats. Things get tougher for

:13:00. > :13:03.him. Gordon Brown comes in. Where are we now in 2008? Again the base

:13:03. > :13:06.year, the year these seats were last fought, the answer is that

:13:07. > :13:09.Labour were 2% behind. The Lib Dems were actually leading Labour.

:13:09. > :13:13.You'll remember David that night we were talking about the Labour Party

:13:13. > :13:17.being in third place. But just watch what happens next. You have

:13:17. > :13:20.these events that follow, the coalition Government, the Lib Dems

:13:20. > :13:24.going into power with the Conservatives, Ed Miliband

:13:24. > :13:30.replacing Gordon Brown. Watch this. You see the problem the Lib Dems

:13:30. > :13:35.have. Bear in mind this is 2011 and this is head-to-head Labour against

:13:35. > :13:39.the Liberal Democrats. You can see Labour in a 20% lead. You put that

:13:39. > :13:42.together with the previous graph where the Liberal Democrats were

:13:42. > :13:46.19% behind the Conservatives and you're thinking, whichever way they

:13:47. > :13:51.turn, they've got a serious problem. Just before we get any more figures,

:13:51. > :13:53.we have some coming from Emily in a moment, Simon Hughes do you want to

:13:53. > :13:57.comment on the position of the Liberal Democrats as Jeremy show

:13:57. > :14:01.today there? And what your fears are for tonight. We've heard the

:14:01. > :14:05.Tories coming up with the figure of 450 losses, what do your experts

:14:05. > :14:08.say? The strange thing about last say? The strange thing about last

:14:08. > :14:11.year was we did badly. That wasn't to be unexpected, because we were

:14:11. > :14:15.in Government and governments... The Tories were in Government and

:14:16. > :14:18.they went up. They didn't do badly. That was it. The unexpected thing

:14:19. > :14:22.last year was that the Tories in Government were doing well. That

:14:22. > :14:25.was the unexpected thing. You normally expect governments to lose

:14:25. > :14:28.in local elections mid-term. I would expect both Government

:14:29. > :14:32.parties tonight to lose in mid-term. I would expect that. I expect we

:14:32. > :14:36.will and the Tories will. The interesting thing is do we lose in

:14:36. > :14:39.a similar way? Do we lose in similar places? Obviously, when

:14:39. > :14:42.we're head to head against Labour it will be more difficult for us

:14:42. > :14:46.than when we're head to head against the Conservatives. I know

:14:46. > :14:49.from colleagues I've spoken to around the country, places like

:14:49. > :14:54.Portsmouth, for example, where the battle is principally between us

:14:54. > :14:58.and the Tories, it looks as if we may actually made progress. This is

:14:58. > :15:05.not a universal thing. You're both taking comfort in the scale of

:15:05. > :15:10.Government parties are hammered in local elections mid-term, whoever

:15:10. > :15:14.is in Government. Therefore, you have to expect that. It is never

:15:14. > :15:19.pleasant and opposition parties do well. I will come to you in a

:15:19. > :15:22.second. Let's go to Birmingham and join Patrick Burns. What is the

:15:22. > :15:27.story in Birmingham going to be? There is this vote about whether

:15:27. > :15:31.they should have a Mayor for a start? Well, there's been a lot of

:15:31. > :15:35.speculation about that already. Of course, we are not going to know

:15:35. > :15:39.until tomorrow because that is when the count takes place. There is a

:15:39. > :15:44.lot of speculation in these parts that it is a very close-run thing.

:15:44. > :15:48.I can tell you that those campaigners in support of a

:15:48. > :15:55.directly-Elected Mayor have been nervous as the last few days to

:15:55. > :16:03.polling have ticked down. There are suggestions from some sources that

:16:03. > :16:09.it's going to be a no-vote. The real votes don't get counted until

:16:09. > :16:13.tomorrow. That will unsettle those who think this city needs someone

:16:13. > :16:18.to thump the tables at Westminster and Whitehall on behalf of this

:16:18. > :16:23.city. In terms of the council, do you have any idea of how things are

:16:23. > :16:26.going? Yes. Well, Labour sources, as you might expect, are supremely

:16:26. > :16:31.confident. I have been talking to one official. They feel that it is

:16:31. > :16:36.not going to take them very long to pick up the four extra seats that

:16:36. > :16:39.they need for an overall majority here, regaining control for the

:16:39. > :16:43.first time in eight years. The attraction for Ed Miliband is that

:16:43. > :16:47.this city has been run by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat

:16:47. > :16:54.coalition so he would love to get the message across from Birmingham

:16:54. > :17:00.that it signals a turning of the tide against Conservative-Liberal

:17:00. > :17:05.Democrat coalitions everywhere. Mr Miliband was here to launch his

:17:05. > :17:08.campaign. He was here a couple of days ago as the campaign reached

:17:08. > :17:14.its climax. I wouldn't bet against the possibility he will be back

:17:14. > :17:19.here very soon. Let's go to Plymouth and join Martyn Oates. The

:17:19. > :17:26.story in Plymouth is that Labour might take control directly from

:17:26. > :17:29.the Conservatives. Is that on the cards, do you think? Yes. Plymouth

:17:29. > :17:33.is a very unusual place because there are no Liberal Democrat

:17:33. > :17:38.councillors here at all. That is pretty much unique. Labour need

:17:38. > :17:42.just four more seats to take it from the Tories. They are pretty

:17:42. > :17:46.confident and senior Conservatives have indicated to me they are

:17:46. > :17:53.preparing for defeat. They are preparing themselves for defeat in

:17:53. > :17:59.the sense of losing control, or of it going straight to Labour?

:17:59. > :18:05.think they are probably preparing themselves to lose control. Exeter

:18:05. > :18:12.is another peculiar place in the South West. That is under no

:18:12. > :18:20.overall control at the moment. They need two seats to take Exeter. I

:18:20. > :18:25.think in Exeter, Labour are confident as well. Sadiq Khan, when

:18:25. > :18:34.we talk about these big gains, big losses, we are talking about an

:18:34. > :18:44.attempt to say that if Labour is doing what the polls show it is

:18:44. > :18:45.

:18:45. > :18:50.doing, these are the results you would expect to get? It depends

:18:50. > :18:54.which people you listen to. How do you work it out? The share of the

:18:54. > :19:01.vote nationally depends on where you put candidates up. There are

:19:01. > :19:05.some parts in the country where we don't put candidates up and we

:19:05. > :19:09.don't have any councillors. In those parts of the country where we

:19:09. > :19:14.used to have MPs, can we start winning back councils? What places

:19:14. > :19:19.are you thinking of? Exeter is a good example. We have a very good

:19:19. > :19:23.MP, Ben Bradshaw. Can we win back the council? Reading is a place

:19:23. > :19:28.where we have no Labour MPs. Can we take control of the council? I will

:19:28. > :19:31.need to find out the name of that Labour official who said they were

:19:31. > :19:39.supremely confident of winning Birmingham. That is not on the

:19:39. > :19:46.script! They are trying to reduce expectations on the amount of

:19:46. > :19:51.losses they are going to make. My prediction is this: If you go back

:19:51. > :19:56.to 2010, we secured 29% of the national vote. Last year, we

:19:56. > :20:00.managed to have a 7% increase to 36%. If we do more than 36% of the

:20:01. > :20:05.national share of the vote, we will be very pleased. To extrapolate

:20:05. > :20:10.national share versus council seats is more difficult. Some parts of

:20:10. > :20:19.the country - if we get a council elected, it is a great result. If

:20:20. > :20:29.we win Birmingham, it is a major achievement. We lost MPs in that

:20:29. > :20:36.midland area. A brief point? results show big swings, 13% in one

:20:36. > :20:39.ward, that the Labour Party is making gains against the Liberal

:20:39. > :20:43.Democrats. That would mean that the Labour Party are doing well, not

:20:43. > :20:48.just in the North against the Liberal Democrats, but starting to

:20:48. > :20:58.do well in the South. That would be very significant. We do have a

:20:58. > :21:03.first real result in, Emily? Yes, the first result of the night is in

:21:03. > :21:04.Sunderland. The North East seems to be the fastest at counting. A very

:21:04. > :21:09.be the fastest at counting. A very strong Labour stronghold here. They

:21:09. > :21:11.were never expected to do anything other than win this. You can see

:21:11. > :21:16.what's happened. They have consolidated their gains here at

:21:16. > :21:20.the expense of the Conservatives. Let me show you what happened

:21:20. > :21:26.overnight. This is how things have changed. Labour is up eight, the

:21:26. > :21:30.Conservatives are down six. The Lib Dems have lost their only

:21:30. > :21:34.councillor in Sunderland Council. If this is a pattern they can

:21:34. > :21:38.repeat not just in the North East, but in other parts of the country,

:21:38. > :21:42.the South East, they will be very pleased. Jeremy, can you throw a

:21:42. > :21:49.bit of light on that Sunderland bit of light on that Sunderland

:21:49. > :21:54.result? Does it tell you things? will try to. We were thinking is

:21:54. > :21:59.there any way of looking at how the Sunderland result matches with

:21:59. > :22:02.national share? Let me show you this graph here which is the

:22:02. > :22:07.Conservatives' performance against Labour in Sunderland and nationally.

:22:07. > :22:11.If I come down here, to explain what these lines are. You can see

:22:11. > :22:16.this is Sunderland, the Conservatives over 30% behind

:22:16. > :22:20.Labour. At the top, it correlates with them being about 4% behind

:22:20. > :22:25.Labour nationally. The point about this is - let's see the whole graph

:22:25. > :22:32.- look at the way these lines correlate. This is the figure from

:22:32. > :22:37.Sunderland. This is the national share. Actually, there's barely a

:22:37. > :22:40.moment where the gap either widens or narrows. It stays consistent

:22:40. > :22:43.throughout. We are just thinking that these wards in Sunderland,

:22:43. > :22:48.although they come in a particular Labour area of the country, they

:22:48. > :22:53.can give us some sense of the national picture. Let me show you a

:22:53. > :22:58.similar graph that is Labour's lead over the Liberal Democrats, again

:22:58. > :23:03.in Sunderland and again nationally. Here the two lines are the other

:23:03. > :23:08.way around. Down the bottom here you've got the Labour lead

:23:08. > :23:13.nationally, here. At the top, you have this huge lead over the

:23:13. > :23:19.Liberal Democrats in Sunderland of about 50%. Again, look at these

:23:19. > :23:23.lines. The way the gap between them stays - it narrows a bit there -

:23:23. > :23:27.but it stays consistent throughout. You see this big incline, the

:23:27. > :23:32.Labour lead against the Liberal Democrats going up in Sunderland,

:23:32. > :23:39.going up nationally. So we ask ourselves what can we learn about

:23:39. > :23:49.the Sunderland - the national result from what's happened in

:23:49. > :23:51.

:23:51. > :23:57.Sunderland? Here we go. Bear in mind we did this extrapolation - we

:23:57. > :24:01.will find out as the evening goes on. The Conservatives are down five.

:24:01. > :24:07.Labour up 2%. Liberal Democrats staying where they were last year,

:24:07. > :24:10.but that was a bad result anyway. The others up three. So if the

:24:10. > :24:13.calculations that seem to have worked in the past stay true for

:24:13. > :24:16.tonight, you will see something like this repeated nationally. We

:24:16. > :24:20.like this repeated nationally. We will only know as the night goes on.

:24:20. > :24:25.Jeremy, thank you. This correlation between what happens in Sunderland

:24:25. > :24:30.and what happens in the rest of the world, Simon Hughes, do you accept

:24:30. > :24:36.it? I have been caught out on this sort of question before on general

:24:36. > :24:43.election night. The early exit polls showed we would get 57 seats.

:24:43. > :24:53.I said, "We must do better than that." 24 hours later we had 57

:24:53. > :24:54.

:24:54. > :25:04.seats. It probably - we have to assume that the BBC is normally...

:25:04. > :25:08.Jeremy Vine is a genius! There are geniuses behind him! Interesting in

:25:08. > :25:12.local elections, there are sometimes local factors which will

:25:13. > :25:16.change an individual result. Let's take Birmingham. Birmingham used to

:25:16. > :25:21.swing between Labour and the Tories, then Labour lost control and then

:25:21. > :25:25.it's been run by a Liberal Democrat-Tory coalition. That's the

:25:25. > :25:29.sort of seat where because both our parties are in Government, there

:25:29. > :25:33.could be a very big swing - there could be a big swing against us if

:25:33. > :25:38.people wanted to protest against the Government. That may not be the

:25:38. > :25:46.case. You are protected from that because these are one-third, one-

:25:46. > :25:49.third, one-third. Of course. There are very few all-out councils.

:25:49. > :25:52.councils which change colour are very important. They show a trend

:25:52. > :25:55.and these councillors who win aren't important because they

:25:55. > :26:01.improve the quality of life for local people, they organise

:26:01. > :26:06.communities and they can be tomorrow's MPs and help build the

:26:06. > :26:11.party locally. We have lost our councillor in Sunderland... You are

:26:11. > :26:15.fielding fewer candidates this time. I saw somebody doing an

:26:15. > :26:20.extrapolation that if things went badly for you, you wouldn't exist

:26:20. > :26:28.by 2020 - that was on ITV? People have written us off on many

:26:28. > :26:35.occasions. If it is a bad night for you tonight, and the Liberal

:26:35. > :26:40.Democrats - we will bring you in a moment - will there be lessons

:26:40. > :26:45.learnt from the result? Last year, we ended up with 16% share of the

:26:45. > :26:48.vote. We lost something like seven out of ten of our seats in the

:26:48. > :26:52.North and four out of ten of the seats we were defending. We will

:26:52. > :26:58.not do as badly as last year because people have got used to the

:26:58. > :27:03.idea that we are in Government taking very difficult decisions. It

:27:03. > :27:09.is a slow climb-back for me. I won't read any great implications

:27:09. > :27:12.for the coalition. It will be about some very good councillors losing

:27:12. > :27:17.their seat. Nick? What the two coalition partners will be looking

:27:17. > :27:21.at is how they are doing against each other in the South of England.

:27:21. > :27:25.The Conservatives gained last year because of the Liberal Democrats'

:27:25. > :27:28.weak performance. The Lib Dems are unlikely to have anything they can

:27:29. > :27:32.cheer about tonight. If they hold on a bit better in some of those

:27:32. > :27:37.South and South West seats, they will start to think, "We might not

:27:37. > :27:42.lose those MPs in a couple of years' time." That will be

:27:42. > :27:46.important to them. UKIP, not running in many places. They have

:27:46. > :27:51.only 720 candidates out of 5,000 nationally. Where they are running

:27:51. > :27:56.they are doing extraordinarily well. We have only counted up in six

:27:56. > :28:01.wards. They have averaged 21% of the vote in those wards. They are

:28:01. > :28:10.likely to run where they are already strong. For UKIP to get 21%,

:28:10. > :28:14.that is quite... They are just wards? Exactly that. It is a

:28:14. > :28:19.strikingly high figure. They are fielding something like 14% more

:28:19. > :28:23.candidates this time than they did last time. Interestingly, the

:28:23. > :28:31.British National Party are fielding 14% less candidates this time than

:28:31. > :28:38.they did last time. Whether there is a link between the two parties

:28:38. > :28:47.I'm not sure. Sadiq Khan, before I go to Emily... I thought the

:28:47. > :28:54.chairman of the Conservative Party was suggesting there was a link

:28:54. > :29:04.between UKIP and the BNP? percentage fall in the number of

:29:04. > :29:04.

:29:04. > :29:11.candidates fielded by BNP is the same as the percentage increase of

:29:11. > :29:20.those candidates fielded by UKIP. lot of UKIP people are former

:29:20. > :29:25.Conservatives? There are members of the UKIP Party that come from all

:29:25. > :29:35.political parties. Emily? If you want to follow tweets from our

:29:35. > :29:44.correspondents, #bbcvote2012 is our hashtag. If you want all the

:29:44. > :29:50.results, go to bbc.co.uk/vote2012. Nick was mentioning the battles

:29:50. > :29:53.between the coalition partners in Government. It's quite an odd

:29:53. > :29:56.situation for the Lib Dems tonight. This is the sum total of councils

:29:57. > :30:00.that they're actually defending this time round. We'll get four

:30:00. > :30:04.results tonight. We'll get three tomorrow. Let me take you to

:30:04. > :30:07.Portsmouth. They have a majority of four. They just lost one Councillor

:30:07. > :30:14.last time round. It wasn't as bad a last time round. It wasn't as bad a

:30:14. > :30:18.result as in other places. If the Conservatives start to have a worse

:30:18. > :30:26.night, funnily enough perhaps the Lib Dems will not fare too badly

:30:26. > :30:30.there. We don't know who will take the bigger hit. Cheltenham is

:30:30. > :30:34.interesting. Sadiq Khan saying that most Councils are voting by thirds,

:30:34. > :30:38.but here it's voting by half. It allows for more volatility, more

:30:38. > :30:41.movement, more could happen there. The Lib Dems on 25 and

:30:41. > :30:47.Conservatives on 12. Let me take you into a couple of others. These

:30:47. > :30:51.are one that's we're going to see tomorrow, I'm going to ignore those

:30:51. > :30:58.for now. Eastleigh, Lib Dems can sleep pretty easily tonight with a

:30:58. > :31:03.majority of 32. The Lib Dems on 30 and the Conservatives on four. The

:31:03. > :31:05.point I want to make, the caveat is that even if you don't actually see

:31:05. > :31:10.these councils change colour tonight, it's important to watch

:31:10. > :31:13.the Councillor numbers. There's going to be a lot of movement there,

:31:13. > :31:18.ripbling -- rippling beneath the surface which might not show

:31:18. > :31:27.immediately. Thank you. Let's per sue this Liberal Democrat story a

:31:27. > :31:30.sue this Liberal Democrat story a bit more and go to Grimsby. Tim

:31:30. > :31:37.Ardell is there. What is the state of the Liberal Democrats there as

:31:37. > :31:43.far as you know at the moment? shortage of glum Lib Dem faces here

:31:43. > :31:48.tonight. The Lib Dems are defending just four seats here, but it looks

:31:48. > :31:51.like they've lost all four. Labour need to gain just two seats to win

:31:51. > :31:55.outright control of north-east Lincolnshire, this authority that

:31:55. > :32:00.covers the industrial former fishing town of Grimsby. It looks

:32:00. > :32:03.like Labour are romping to victory here. Just two years ago, the 2010,

:32:03. > :32:06.the year of the general election, the Liberal Democrats were the

:32:07. > :32:10.largest party here. They controlled this authority in coalition with

:32:10. > :32:16.the Conservatives. But times have certainly changed here tonight.

:32:16. > :32:21.It's a similar picture across this eegs. Over the Humber, in Hull, it

:32:21. > :32:25.looks like there are heavy Lib Dem losses to Labour. As there were

:32:25. > :32:33.this time last year. One Lib Dem activist here said a few moments

:32:33. > :32:37.ago, it's looking like melt down mark two. Thank you for that. We

:32:37. > :32:40.now go to Manchester and join Annabel Tiffin. We just heard that

:32:40. > :32:45.the Liberal Democrats are not doing well in north-east Lincolnshire.

:32:45. > :32:49.How's it looking for them in Manchester? Well, it's not looking

:32:49. > :32:52.any better for them here either, I'm afraid. Last year, it was

:32:52. > :32:56.nothing short of a bloodbath for the Liberal Democrats. They lost

:32:56. > :33:00.all the seats that they were contesting. This year, they have 12

:33:00. > :33:03.out of their remaining 21 up for grabs again. Obviously, they'll be

:33:04. > :33:07.trying to hold on to as many of those as possible. A few moments

:33:07. > :33:11.ago I was speaking it a senior Liberal Democrat who looked very

:33:11. > :33:16.glum, like in Grimsby, and said he thought it was as bad as last year

:33:16. > :33:19.and that they were likely to lose all their seats. If that did happen,

:33:19. > :33:25.that would leave the Liberal Democrats with just nine seats on

:33:25. > :33:31.Manchester City Council, which I think is the fewest number of seats

:33:31. > :33:36.they have had there since 1992. Of course, the other big vote here is

:33:36. > :33:41.the mayoral referendum. Voters are being asked whether they want to

:33:41. > :33:45.keep what they have now or whether they want an elected mayor. Voters

:33:45. > :33:49.were surprise whd they saw what was on the ballot paper, because

:33:49. > :33:53.there's been really no campaigning here at all either for a Yes vote

:33:53. > :33:56.or No vote. Having spoke ton a Council source this evening, he

:33:56. > :33:59.says it's looking quite close, which no-one was expecting.

:33:59. > :34:03.Possibly the Yes vote might just have it.

:34:03. > :34:07.Thank you very much. We'll hear more about that a bit later on.

:34:07. > :34:10.We've got two place that's are only voting on whether they should have

:34:10. > :34:14.a mayor. I don't know how many people will bodger to turn out for

:34:14. > :34:22.that. We shall see. Another result, knowsly, again grim news for the

:34:22. > :34:27.Liberal Democrats Emily? This is an extraordinary visual picture.

:34:28. > :34:29.Knowsley is now a one-party Council. The Lib Dems have been wiped out.

:34:29. > :34:33.The Lib Dems have been wiped out. The Conservatives were never in

:34:33. > :34:37.play. Let me show what you happened overnight then. Labour has gained

:34:37. > :34:41.four, completely at the expense of the Lib Dems. They've consolidated

:34:41. > :34:46.their gains in the north, as we saw in Sunderland, a similar result in

:34:46. > :34:50.hall ton as well. Let's see if we can bring that to you. Labour on 50,

:34:50. > :34:55.Lib Dem on four, the Conservatives on two. And this is what happened

:34:55. > :34:58.overnight. So both the Lib Dems and their coalition part nerds, the

:34:58. > :35:03.Conservatives, down. Labour then showing these consolidated gains.

:35:03. > :35:06.The point we've been making is it's Notts that these results are any

:35:06. > :35:10.big surprise. What we're looking at is to see how that swing, that

:35:10. > :35:14.shift towards Labour is happening and whether it can be replicated

:35:14. > :35:17.more widely further down in the south of the country as well.

:35:17. > :35:23.Thanks very much. Sadiq Khan, what about the other big battle that

:35:23. > :35:25.we're not going to hear about till tomorrow, we've had a poll on, your

:35:25. > :35:30.candidate for Mayor of London against the Conservatives candidate.

:35:30. > :35:34.Do you think Ken Livingstone is going to win? I'm not sure. I can't

:35:34. > :35:38.read the tea leaves. You've read the polls. Why do you think he's so

:35:38. > :35:42.far behind, the figures suggesting the same as four years ago?

:35:42. > :35:45.confident that Labour will do well in London. That wasn't what I was

:35:45. > :35:51.asking you. The Assembly is one thing. I deliberately chose to

:35:51. > :35:53.answer the way I did. The difference between the two has

:35:53. > :35:58.difference between the two has turned into a personality contest.

:35:58. > :36:03.I think the contest in London will be about the bigger personality.

:36:03. > :36:06.You know... Ken is the lesser personality? Ken has always been

:36:06. > :36:11.the underdog. It's been difficult for us to get our messages across

:36:11. > :36:16.and Boris has been very successful, again in the media, to get aacross

:36:16. > :36:24.-- across his personality. The campaign he's run has been

:36:24. > :36:30.effective in portraying Ken Livingstone is a negative manner.

:36:30. > :36:34.What did the effect of the tax, income tax have on this? Boris has

:36:34. > :36:37.health a leady lead for two years. Ken Livingstone reduced the lead in

:36:37. > :36:43.the last four, five months. At stages it's been neck and neck. It

:36:43. > :36:48.was neck and neck a couple of weeks ago. Why didn't Labour choose a new,

:36:48. > :36:54.fresh candidate to take on Boris Johnson rather than the old face?

:36:54. > :36:59.Ken Livingstone is a good canned dai. He's run a good campaign. I'm

:36:59. > :37:03.keeping my fingers crossed that he might win. He was up against a

:37:03. > :37:08.formidable opponent in Boris Johnson, who's run a very good

:37:08. > :37:13.campaign. It's effective because he's got across the negative points

:37:13. > :37:16.of Ken Livingstone. We think we've done very well in London. I think

:37:16. > :37:21.Labour will make gains on the Assembly. I think the Labour share

:37:21. > :37:25.of the vote will be healthy. I'm quietly confident that Ken

:37:25. > :37:32.Livingstone will beat Boris Johnson. The polls suggest not. It makes one

:37:32. > :37:36.wonder why Boris Johnson should do so much better than the Tory party

:37:36. > :37:39.appears to be doing? Well, these are two different types of

:37:39. > :37:43.elections. First of all, like I said in relation to local elections,

:37:43. > :37:47.we're starting from a very, very high base. We're starting from a

:37:47. > :37:51.point where we won a huge amount of seats in 2008 and we won them at a

:37:51. > :37:54.time when Labour were very, very low in the polls. With Boris

:37:54. > :37:59.Johnson he's run a fantastic campaign. He's had the whole

:37:59. > :38:04.machinery behind him. He was in HQ a couple of hours ago. He's run a

:38:04. > :38:07.clear campaign. He's had nine very clear points upon which he fought

:38:07. > :38:11.that campaign. Ken was a man of the past. We'll see what the result is

:38:11. > :38:14.tomorrow. One of the problems that Ken had, is that even the Labour

:38:14. > :38:18.Party couldn't get behind him. Whereas you had the Conservative

:38:18. > :38:22.Party behind Boris Johnson at all levels. Ken was constantly

:38:22. > :38:25.haemorrhaging Labour support. we're on the point of mayors, you

:38:25. > :38:33.ran for mayor once for the Liberal Democrats, perhaps you should have

:38:33. > :38:40.run this time instead of Brian Paddick. Maybe you could have seen

:38:40. > :38:46.off Ken Livingstone. What knows. Brian ran a more confident and

:38:46. > :38:51.effective campaign than when he did four years ago. You are both right.

:38:51. > :38:54.The mayoral contest is entirely different as a concept in politics

:38:55. > :38:57.than the conventional Council fight. Councils are fighting and they will

:38:57. > :39:03.reflect the view of the Government of the country, bluntly. In the

:39:03. > :39:07.north, we saw the figures, many of the places, the Liverpools, the

:39:07. > :39:10.Manchesters, the Knowsleys and so on, there are no Tories. We are the

:39:10. > :39:13.only sign of Government there for people to kick. The Tories have

:39:13. > :39:18.been eliminated ages ago from any of these places. We take the

:39:18. > :39:22.kicking. Mayoral contests are different. They are personality

:39:22. > :39:26.contests. One of the reasons why people are not keen on the directly

:39:26. > :39:31.eleked mayor is that it is in danger of becoming a personality

:39:31. > :39:38.contest not a policy contest. That's why local Councilors are so

:39:38. > :39:41.jealous about not having a mayor? Yes, our party has referred

:39:41. > :39:47.collective Cabinet local Government. So it's a Conservative idea you're

:39:47. > :39:52.saying to have mayors in areas of the country where Labour dominates

:39:52. > :39:56.and they hope to get a Conservative mayor in to rule the roost? I've

:39:56. > :40:00.been to several of these places where they're have referenda and

:40:00. > :40:04.mayoral contests. There's all sorts of interesting stuff. Manchester,

:40:04. > :40:08.for example, in Manchester, it is conceivable that if there is a

:40:08. > :40:11.directly elected mayor, a non- Labour person could win, because

:40:11. > :40:15.they would be the personality who would be Mr and Mrs Manchester,

:40:15. > :40:17.whereas Labour are in a very strong position traditionally in running

:40:17. > :40:21.the Council. For Liberal Democrats and Conservatives and others,

:40:21. > :40:25.actually, having a directly elected mayor amounts to a good idea

:40:25. > :40:30.because they might be able to get a chance of winning. More news, this

:40:30. > :40:36.time from Harlow. Our reporter there is Andrew Sinclair. Harlow, a

:40:36. > :40:40.very tight fight. Labour needing I think, is it three to gain control?

:40:40. > :40:44.They do. The Conservatives hold this Council at the moment with

:40:44. > :40:48.just one, with a majority of one. Labour have made one gain here this

:40:48. > :40:51.evening, it looks as if they're about to take control of the

:40:51. > :40:55.council here. Labour are feeling very confident. Looking across the

:40:55. > :40:59.whole of East Anglia, Labour have a lot of ground to make up after

:40:59. > :41:03.disastrous losss in recent years. They seem to be doing it this

:41:04. > :41:08.evening. They seem to be winning back seats in their old haunts.

:41:08. > :41:12.They have made gains in Basildon, four gains in Great Yarmouth.

:41:12. > :41:16.They're making about notable gains in Cambridge later. The party seems

:41:16. > :41:22.to be fighting back in East Anglia. Harlow we think will go to Labour

:41:22. > :41:24.in the next few minutes. Would that be a worry Sayeeda Warsi

:41:24. > :41:29.for the Conservatives? Because your Parliamentary majority is not very

:41:29. > :41:33.high in Harlow, is it? It isn't. It is going to be a marginal seat. It

:41:33. > :41:37.will be a battleground at the next election. Like I said, this is

:41:37. > :41:40.going to be, there are going to be losses across the night for the

:41:41. > :41:45.Conservatives, across the country for the Conservatives. Even

:41:45. > :41:49.independent predictions are we're going to lose about 450 seats. And

:41:49. > :41:55.predictions are that Labour are going to win between 800 to a

:41:55. > :42:02.thousand seats. The Mirror, your newspaper predicted a thousand

:42:02. > :42:06.seats on the 30th of April. Givover everyone. Nick? Remember where you

:42:06. > :42:11.heard that, the co-chairman of the Conservative Party has massively

:42:11. > :42:14.increased the gains for the Labour Party. It was the Mirror! It was

:42:14. > :42:19.700, now it's approaching a thousand. That seems to suggest

:42:19. > :42:25.that iPad is sending the odd message from Tory HQ that things

:42:25. > :42:29.aren't too good. It's from the Mir or. We've had a ward in from

:42:29. > :42:33.Southampton where Labour have a swing of 10% that. Would be enough

:42:33. > :42:37.to take the Council. Derby, Labour expect to get victory there. The

:42:37. > :42:41.significance of these places takes some -- take somewhere like Harlow,

:42:41. > :42:43.it might be a signal of what's to come in a Parliamentary election,

:42:43. > :42:48.but it will alter the debate within the Government and within the

:42:48. > :42:52.Conservative Party. There will be people in the Tory party who look

:42:52. > :42:57.at them losing in Essex, who will say, hold on, we know why we're

:42:57. > :43:05.losing, because our leader, our Prime Minister's a bit too small

:43:05. > :43:09."l" liberal. We need tougher, more Euro-sceptic. This will reinforce

:43:09. > :43:12.the battle, will it have an effect? Absolutely. Crucial to David

:43:12. > :43:16.Cameron's success until six weeks ooing, was that he could say to the

:43:16. > :43:20.doubters in his party, look it's working, I'm doing fine. Look at

:43:20. > :43:27.the polls. If tonight confirms that what we saw in the opinion polls,

:43:27. > :43:31.what we saw after six weeks of the omni-sham bldz, become a reality on

:43:31. > :43:34.the ground, albeit people say mid- term blues and Mrs Thatcher

:43:34. > :43:38.recovered from positions like, that others inside the party say we know

:43:38. > :43:44.how to recover and it's not your way. Let's join Jeremy Vine and

:43:44. > :43:47.look at another country, Wales. Yes and elections for every Council

:43:47. > :43:52.Yes and elections for every Council in Wales bar one, Anglesey. Now the

:43:52. > :43:57.map from 1997. I will give you a sense of the direction of travel

:43:57. > :44:02.for the parties here. A strong tradition of independent Councilors

:44:02. > :44:05.in Wales. This is Powys here, if it's black that means no overall

:44:05. > :44:11.control. Plaid Cymru in green in the North West. The main impression

:44:11. > :44:15.of this map is in the south, all these Labour councils. Look at the

:44:15. > :44:18.power Labour had in Wales in 1997. That was when Tony Blair was in his

:44:18. > :44:23.pomp and what has happened since? The answer is they've been hemmed

:44:23. > :44:28.in by the black on our map, by no overall control. They've lost

:44:28. > :44:33.control of those southern councils. The question is is there any sense

:44:33. > :44:37.of whether Labour are heading up or down from recent events? Let me

:44:37. > :44:42.show you some graphs here. Let's see what they tell us. Over here,

:44:43. > :44:47.Councilors in Wales and we're going back to 1995 to the mid-90s. You

:44:47. > :44:57.see the dominance of Labour here, 726. If you look down, see how far

:44:57. > :45:04.

:45:04. > :45:12.story the map told, where you see the red hemmed in and replaced by

:45:12. > :45:22.black. You can see the attrition in Labour's vote here, gradually

:45:22. > :45:27.coming down. This is the reason Labour were ruing the result last

:45:27. > :45:32.time. They came behind the independents. The other parties are

:45:32. > :45:37.bunched down here. We will see exactly what is going on here. You

:45:37. > :45:40.can see the bunching, you can see that Labour was being pulled down.

:45:40. > :45:45.The Conservatives were saying they were on the rise. Is there any way

:45:45. > :45:51.of finding out what's happened since then, since those councillors

:45:51. > :45:58.were elected? Yes, there is. We have results for the Assembly.

:45:58. > :46:04.Let's look at these. Again, we are looking at the trajectory between

:46:05. > :46:12.1999 and 2011. The constituency vote in the Assembly. You can see

:46:12. > :46:19.here - 38% Labour, Plaid Cymru 28%. You see Labour strengthening for

:46:19. > :46:28.the second Assembly vote. For the third, 2007, they are coming back

:46:28. > :46:35.down a bit. And then let's look at the result last time. So this was

:46:35. > :46:40.the 2011 vote, 42% for Labour in the Assembly. A very, very powerful

:46:40. > :46:49.performance for Labour. Have a look again, down the line here, you will

:46:49. > :46:53.see the other partys who have shown a clear pair of heels. If Labour's

:46:53. > :46:57.recovery has started in Wales, if they went as low as they were going

:46:57. > :47:01.to go, maybe the map would be showing quite a bit more red when

:47:01. > :47:07.showing quite a bit more red when we get the results later tonight.

:47:07. > :47:17.Let's see if that is confirmed by Betsan Powys. Does Labour expect to

:47:17. > :47:17.

:47:18. > :47:21.make that kind of progress tonight? They absolutely do. They are only

:47:21. > :47:26.going one way tonight - that is up! It is a question of whether they

:47:26. > :47:31.are going to have a very good night or a great night. They had a

:47:32. > :47:38.devastating night in 2008, where they lost swathes of the country.

:47:38. > :47:42.Rhodri Morgan was here tonight talking about them having "taken a

:47:42. > :47:49.belting from the electorate" but they have been rebuilding since

:47:49. > :47:53.then. Not only did they lose Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr

:47:53. > :47:59.Tydfil, the sort of places you would never have expected Labour to

:47:59. > :48:03.lose their grip of. They are hoping they don't just regain those and

:48:03. > :48:06.they go further by taking Wrexham from the Liberal Democrats, by

:48:06. > :48:10.taking Swansea from the Liberal Democrats. The prize they want?

:48:10. > :48:15.Cardiff. They want to be the largest party in Cardiff. They

:48:15. > :48:21.would love to have a clear majority in Cardiff and take it out of Lib

:48:22. > :48:26.Dem control. I have spoken to the Lib Dems who are very worried.

:48:26. > :48:29.Wherever we are taking on Labour, they are losing. They are blaming

:48:29. > :48:32.the national picture. I have spoken to the Conservatives who are

:48:33. > :48:39.talking about it being a difficult night for they will. There is talk

:48:39. > :48:43.of them losing their majority in Monmouthshire which would point to

:48:43. > :48:46.a disappointing night. Plaid are expecting a disappointing night,

:48:46. > :48:50.too. How well does Labour perform? Certainly no belting for them

:48:50. > :48:55.tonight. The belting looks like it is going to the Liberal Democrats.

:48:56. > :49:01.To what extent is this a reflection of the workings of the Welsh

:49:01. > :49:05.Assembly and to what extent of the coalition at Westminster, in your

:49:05. > :49:10.opinion? Well, the Labour message was fairly clear - send David

:49:10. > :49:14.Cameron a message. They have talked about the vicious UK coalition. If

:49:14. > :49:18.you have feelings about that, they said send a message to Westminster.

:49:18. > :49:22.Of course, the other three parties say, "Hang on, who is in Government

:49:22. > :49:26.in Wales? Labour. What about messages about how things are going

:49:26. > :49:30.in those issues that have been devolved for quite a long time? Why

:49:30. > :49:34.don't you talk more about local issues?" Labour will not accept

:49:34. > :49:39.that. They say they have run a positive campaign. But there is no

:49:39. > :49:43.doubt that they saw an opportunity to ask an electorate that was

:49:43. > :49:46.disillusioned with them in 2008, but they now feel wants to come

:49:46. > :49:53.home in droves to Labour because they are disillusioned with the UK

:49:53. > :49:57.coalition. We did have a visit from Ed Miliband. We have had all the UK

:49:57. > :50:02.leaders here and the message has been, "If you are fed up with the

:50:02. > :50:06.coalition, tonight is the night to tell them so." It looks like the

:50:06. > :50:15.electorate in Wales has done that. The Conservatives have lost control

:50:15. > :50:25.of the council of Hart in North East Hampshire. Let's now have a

:50:25. > :50:26.

:50:26. > :50:27.look at Scotland, can we, Emily? look at Scotland, can we, Emily?

:50:28. > :50:31.Let's see what the picture there is. I wonder if there will be a

:50:31. > :50:36.different narrative here. A lot of these are hung, as you can see,

:50:36. > :50:41.because the voting system they now use - have used since 2007 - seems

:50:41. > :50:45.to favour the smaller parties more, it breaks up the bigger monopolies.

:50:45. > :50:54.I'm going to start with the ones that are really the stories of the

:50:54. > :50:58.night. Glasgow, which has been Labour since 1977, since the Silver

:50:58. > :51:01.Jubilee. They lost one councillor in March through in-fighting and

:51:01. > :51:05.defections and now they haven't got control of the council. So the

:51:05. > :51:10.battle here will be to see whether the SNP, which hasn't got any

:51:10. > :51:15.councils under this system, can make enough of an in-road to take

:51:15. > :51:19.that Labour spot knocking Labour off that top position to dominate

:51:19. > :51:23.the council itself, or take it outright. That will be quite an

:51:23. > :51:27.interesting one to watch. A lot of talk about that. What about

:51:27. > :51:32.Edinburgh? The Lib Dems are the largest party here. They are short

:51:32. > :51:38.by 14. It is quite a difficult picture. It is a four-horse race

:51:38. > :51:44.here. Last year, the SNP won five out of six of those Scottish

:51:44. > :51:53.parliamentary constituencies. Are we going to see the SNP become a

:51:53. > :51:57.resurgent force here? The other one is Aberdeen. We saw a 16% swing in

:51:57. > :52:03.this part of the world at the Scottish Parliament elections

:52:03. > :52:07.towards the SNP. This is the North East of Scotland, Salmond territory,

:52:07. > :52:11.Alex Salmond territory. It is possible that they could take this

:52:11. > :52:15.one. At least, they are going to have a look at Dundee, Perth and

:52:15. > :52:19.Kinross, Angus, these are the places that the SNP should be

:52:19. > :52:22.feeling fairly confident of taking out of no overall control. I will

:52:22. > :52:31.show you some of the other ones show you some of the other ones

:52:31. > :52:35.later. Thanks. The chairman of the SNP is in Glasgow, Derek Mackay.

:52:35. > :52:39.You were saying in January that you thought the SNP would take Glasgow.

:52:40. > :52:43.Is that still your view? We will make progress in Glasgow. We will

:52:43. > :52:49.have a good result across Scotland and it will be interesting to see

:52:49. > :52:53.what happens. Remember, we were 18.7% behind from the 2007 election

:52:53. > :52:57.which is what we have got to compare with. We are confident we

:52:57. > :53:03.will have progressed within the city. Of course, Scotland is very

:53:03. > :53:07.different because of your voting system there. You have a vast

:53:07. > :53:10.majority of hung councils? That's correct. The proportional

:53:10. > :53:13.representation system will throw up results that are more proportionate

:53:14. > :53:17.to the traditional first past the post system, which is essentially a

:53:17. > :53:21.good thing. That said, we are predicting across the country that

:53:21. > :53:25.the SNP will make progress. Do you have any indications from your

:53:25. > :53:31.people on the ground? Of course, we won't have any results until

:53:31. > :53:35.tomorrow. We have heard good news from the cities in Scotland that

:53:35. > :53:41.progress will be made in some of the cities, in Dundee, Edinburgh,

:53:41. > :53:46.Aberdeen, Perth and Stirling. It is possible the SNP could form our

:53:46. > :53:52.first majority administration in one of those cities. Right across

:53:52. > :53:56.the country, as the national party, we are looking for progress across

:53:56. > :54:00.the country. On the issue of Alex Salmond, there was a flurry about

:54:00. > :54:04.his relationship with Rupert Murdoch. Has that been damaging to

:54:04. > :54:10.the SNP? No, this election has been about local issues and who is best

:54:10. > :54:14.placed to run local services. Those issues haven't impacted in this

:54:14. > :54:18.campaign at all. That is not what people have been talking about in

:54:18. > :54:22.Scotland. It has not been about independence? This was a campaign

:54:22. > :54:25.fought on local issues and who was best placed to run local councils

:54:25. > :54:30.and not for independence. The people of Scotland will be asked

:54:30. > :54:33.the question of independence in the autumn of 2014 as outlined in our

:54:33. > :54:39.campaign last year. Would it be fair to say you are sounding a wee

:54:39. > :54:43.bit more cautious than you were in January about the outcome? Simon

:54:43. > :54:47.Hughes was saying that governments get a hammering mid-term. This

:54:47. > :54:50.Government, the SNP Government, is getting more popular and we look

:54:50. > :54:56.forward to progress at these council elections. That stands out

:54:56. > :54:59.quite differently to what is happening with the UK Government.

:54:59. > :55:05.We will get progress across the country and we are looking forward

:55:05. > :55:09.to some good results tomorrow. Thank you very much. Sadiq Khan, if

:55:09. > :55:16.he is right and they take councils, that will be bad news for Labour?

:55:16. > :55:21.Yes. They are doing very well. Derek articulated some of the

:55:21. > :55:26.popularity they have as a party. The challenge for us is - bear in

:55:26. > :55:31.mind the disappointing results last year - can we win backseats we have

:55:31. > :55:34.lost? Can we gain popularity? We are the biggest party. If we stay

:55:34. > :55:39.the biggest party, that will be fantastic. It is difficult there

:55:39. > :55:45.because we have lost members. We had a terrible result last year.

:55:45. > :55:50.The SNP are very popular. We better pause there. I want to thank you

:55:50. > :55:55.three for coming in tonight. Later on, we will be talking to Labour's

:55:55. > :55:58.Deputy Chair, Tom Watson. He of course of the Murdoch Committee.

:55:58. > :56:02.And the Transport Secretary, Justine Greening for the Tories.

:56:02. > :56:10.Jeremy Browne will be here for the Liberal Democrats. First, we have a

:56:10. > :56:13.full news update. Counting is under way after local

:56:13. > :56:16.elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The contests are an

:56:16. > :56:20.important test of support for the coalition two years into the

:56:20. > :56:26.Parliament and for Ed Miliband's effort to lead Labour back to power.

:56:26. > :56:32.In England, early indications suggest large swings to Labour in

:56:32. > :56:37.wards in the North and the South. Several areas are reporting low

:56:37. > :56:42.turnout. More than 4,700 English council seats have been fought over

:56:42. > :56:48.T there are reports of a low turnout -- fought over. There are

:56:48. > :56:55.reports of a low turnout in Scotland, too.

:56:55. > :57:01.The SNP hope to build on their Holyrood election victory last year.

:57:01. > :57:07.Every seat on Scotland's 32 unitary authorities have been contested.

:57:07. > :57:13.All Welsh councils except Anglesey have held elections. Some 1,200

:57:13. > :57:17.councillors are being chosen. Most areas are expected to declare

:57:18. > :57:23.during the early hours. In the capital, voters have been

:57:23. > :57:26.electing the Mayor and choosing the new London Assembly. Electronic

:57:26. > :57:29.counting will begin early this morning. The winner of the mayoral

:57:29. > :57:34.contest will be announced on Friday evening.

:57:34. > :57:39.Liverpool and Salford have been choosing their first directly-

:57:39. > :57:47.elected Mayors. Ten other cities have held referendums to decide

:57:47. > :57:50.whether they should elect a Mayor, areas. Others will wait till the

:57:50. > :57:55.morning. Doncaster has held a referendum to decide whether to

:57:55. > :57:57.abolish their mayoral elections. The US military says newly-released

:57:57. > :58:02.documents obtained from Osama Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan show he

:58:02. > :58:06.was intent on attacking President Obama and that he was frustrated by

:58:06. > :58:10.his diminished standing among Muslim radicals. Nearly 6,000

:58:10. > :58:20.documents were seized during the raid on the compound where Bin

:58:20. > :58:22.

:58:22. > :58:29.Laden was killed. The UK Border Force missed its

:58:29. > :58:39.targets for processing passengers last month.

:58:39. > :58:40.

:58:40. > :58:43.The Governor of the Bank of England has said the UK economy will see a

:58:43. > :58:53.steady rise later this year. Those are the headlines. Now back to Vote

:58:53. > :58:53.

:58:53. > :59:40.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 46 seconds

:59:40. > :59:45.Don't forget Labour's fortunes in Wales were terrible the last time

:59:45. > :59:48.these elections were fought in 2008, they lost 124 councils. They had a

:59:48. > :59:51.bad night. They should be on the up here. In Swansea they're short by

:59:51. > :59:58.here. In Swansea they're short by ten. Let's see what they can do

:59:58. > :00:03.here. This is the Lib Dems and the independents controlling the

:00:03. > :00:06.Council. Labour then, ignored. Last year at the Welsh Assembly, the Lib

:00:06. > :00:13.Dems were hammered by Labour. Labour are continuing that

:00:13. > :00:18.direction of travel, they hope to take Swansea. Newport, Caerphilly,

:00:18. > :00:24.all the places Labour should never really have lost in 2008. They'll

:00:24. > :00:29.hope to pick those up. Ceredigion, Plaid Cymru are in the top spot.

:00:29. > :00:34.This is their best chance of a gain under their new leader Leanne Wood.

:00:34. > :00:39.They're short by two. If they can get the rest of the councils to

:00:39. > :00:43.stop ganging up against them, this council is controlled by everyone

:00:43. > :00:47.by Plaid Cymru, they'd like to take that.

:00:47. > :00:52.Thank you. You may have spotted various people around the table, I

:00:52. > :00:57.will introduce them now. Otherwise they're sitting them. Justine

:00:57. > :01:01.Greening, the MP for put any, the familiar figure of Tom Watson,

:01:01. > :01:04.deputy Labour Party chair, campaign coordinator, God knows what for the

:01:04. > :01:07.Labour Party, everybody says he's doing too much and Jeremy Browne,

:01:07. > :01:12.the Foreign Office minister for the the Foreign Office minister for the

:01:12. > :01:16.Liberal Democrats. That's what the said! We'll come to you in a moment.

:01:16. > :01:22.Let's go down to Cardiff and join Sian Lloyd.

:01:22. > :01:31.We can pick up now on some of the points that Emily was making with

:01:31. > :01:35.my guests Allen Michael the -- Alun Michael. A lot of talk already

:01:35. > :01:38.about Cardiff, where we are here this evening. Carwyn Jones, the

:01:38. > :01:41.First Minister, said at the beginning of the campaign, he

:01:41. > :01:45.thought that Labour Party could take it outright. That's a rather

:01:45. > :01:51.large mountain to climb, isn't it? It's a very long stretch. I think

:01:51. > :01:54.to move from merely having some 12 successful candidates at the last

:01:54. > :01:58.local government elections to having a majority would be a very,

:01:58. > :02:02.very big climb that. Would be a real triumph. I think we will have

:02:02. > :02:08.moved forward massively. It's very clear that in general people are

:02:08. > :02:12.coming back to the Labour Party not just because they're frustrated

:02:12. > :02:16.with what the Liberal Democrats are doing locally or the Conservatives

:02:16. > :02:22.are doing nationally, but because they're chairing our view of the

:02:22. > :02:26.way that the future of the city ought to go. Byron Davies, we've

:02:26. > :02:29.heard a tweet from David Davis that the Conservatives could lose

:02:29. > :02:32.overall control in Monmouthshire. That would be a devastating blow,

:02:32. > :02:35.wouldn't it? It would be disappointing. But it's something

:02:35. > :02:40.we would have to live with. It's a difficult time for us. We are mid-

:02:40. > :02:45.term in Government. We would hope not to lose it. But we'll see.

:02:45. > :02:48.Labour has been asking voters to send a message to the UK coalition

:02:48. > :02:53.Government, to the vicious UK coalition Government, you've said,

:02:53. > :02:56.that's been a negative campaign. that hasn't been the essence of the

:02:56. > :03:00.campaign on the doorsteps. I've campaigned in areas right across

:03:00. > :03:04.South Wales. What I've heard is candidates saying to people on the

:03:04. > :03:08.doorstep what they want for their area. As I say, it's a question of

:03:08. > :03:13.restoring people's confidence that Labour has a vision of what we want

:03:13. > :03:18.to do, not just protecting people against the impact of central

:03:18. > :03:21.Conservative actions, which are pretty devastating, but also having

:03:21. > :03:26.a positive vision of what we want to do for our communities. I'd like

:03:26. > :03:30.you to respond to that. This has been a campaign for us, hard-fought

:03:30. > :03:34.campaign. We fought it on local issues. I think when Carwyn Jones

:03:34. > :03:37.mentioned sending a message to central Government at Westminster

:03:37. > :03:41.he was quite wrong. There are issues here in Wales to be dealt

:03:41. > :03:46.with. We fought them with council tax, for example, with lowering

:03:46. > :03:56.business rates, those are the issues. Gentlemen, Alun Michael and

:03:56. > :04:02.

:04:02. > :04:06.Byron Davies thank you for joining Vote 2012 indeed. We'll catch up

:04:06. > :04:09.with some of the results we've had in Emily if we can, even though

:04:09. > :04:12.it's early in the night. This was the board you might remember, I

:04:12. > :04:16.started with at the beginning. These are some of the interesting

:04:16. > :04:21.ones we're watching. The blue means that the Conservatives control them.

:04:21. > :04:24.Look what happens when I update the button, this is the result of what

:04:24. > :04:28.button, this is the result of what we've seen so far tonight. Harlow

:04:28. > :04:34.has gone Labour. Let's have a look. This was a very tight Essex

:04:34. > :04:41.The Conservatives were on a majority of one here. The Labour

:04:41. > :04:45.have taken that. This is quite interesting in a Parliamentary

:04:45. > :04:47.Westminster level as well. It will be a feather in the cap for Ed

:04:47. > :04:51.Miliband. Look at where it is as well. It's in the south-east. These

:04:51. > :04:56.are the kinds of places, that sort of territory is where Ed Miliband

:04:56. > :05:01.will really want to feel that he's pushing back. I'm going to show you

:05:01. > :05:05.one other one, Worcester and who can forget that target voter,

:05:05. > :05:09.Worcester woman from the 1997 election. She was supposed to have

:05:09. > :05:13.swung it for Tony Blair. Last year, the Conservatives took it from

:05:13. > :05:17.Labour. We're seeing possibly the reverse of that. The Conservatives

:05:17. > :05:21.have been knocked off the top spot. They had Worcester. It's now grey,

:05:21. > :05:25.which means no one party controls it. It's a no overall control. It

:05:25. > :05:28.was not possible for Labour to take this outright. You can see what

:05:28. > :05:32.they've done, they've taken the Conservatives out of overall

:05:32. > :05:36.control of that. The Conservatives are down win. Labour has made three

:05:36. > :05:40.gains. The Lib Dems are down one and there's also a gain for the

:05:41. > :05:45.and there's also a gain for the Greens here.

:05:45. > :05:47.In the chaos, or the anarchy of the British electoral system it's worth

:05:47. > :05:51.remembering that we have different kinds of elections going on all

:05:51. > :05:55.over the place. The things that Emily's talking about, there's only

:05:55. > :05:58.one third of the Council being changed. Some places do half. Some

:05:58. > :06:01.places do the whole because they've changed the boundaries, Scotland

:06:01. > :06:06.has a different system. It's difficult to extrapolate from it

:06:06. > :06:11.what the mood of the country is. However, we do still have key wards,

:06:11. > :06:15.which are -- our psephologists look at carefully and produce from it a

:06:15. > :06:20.portrait of the country as a whole. Jeremy has the first stab at doing

:06:20. > :06:23.Jeremy has the first stab at doing this tonight. Yes, we take about a

:06:23. > :06:27.thousand wards dotted around the country as a way of sampling,

:06:27. > :06:32.getting a clue as to what the main vote, the share of the vote is.

:06:32. > :06:37.We've got about 190 in so far. Let me show you the change on 2008.

:06:38. > :06:41.First of all, Conservatives down ten. 2008 was a very, very good

:06:41. > :06:45.year for the Conservatives. Cameron was in opposition. Gordon Brown was

:06:45. > :06:49.the Prime Minister, really struggling. Down ten. Labour up 19.

:06:49. > :06:54.Again similar thing in reverse, very, very bad results for Labour

:06:54. > :06:59.in 2008. But a big jump since then. The Liberal Democrats down ten. And

:06:59. > :07:04.then the others you can see up one. That's the change since 2008. Again,

:07:04. > :07:08.we say the significance of that year is that is the year the

:07:08. > :07:13.council seats we're looking at tonight were last fought. Very good

:07:13. > :07:16.year for the Conservatives. What about the change since 2011? Let us

:07:16. > :07:21.about the change since 2011? Let us look here at the key wards. This is

:07:22. > :07:30.the change since last year. Here we go: The Conservatives down 4%.

:07:30. > :07:34.Labour up 3%. Liberal Democrats down 2%. And the others up 3%. Now

:07:34. > :07:39.we showed you the graph earlier, which showed the Labour and

:07:39. > :07:43.Conservative vote roughly 35%, 36%. You can see this, it's too early to

:07:43. > :07:46.do this, we won't see the share stabilise until later. You're

:07:46. > :07:53.seeing Labour heading into the high 30s. The Conservatives heading

:07:53. > :07:57.towards the low 30s. Let's clarify this, so we're clear, that is the

:07:57. > :08:01.change, people around the table here are asking, that is the change

:08:01. > :08:06.since 2011 is it? That is the change since this time last year

:08:07. > :08:12.when we were looking at Council seats in 2011. Repeat those

:08:12. > :08:19.figures? Conservatives down four, Labour up three, Liberal Democrats

:08:19. > :08:24.down two and the others are up three. We showed you earlier on a

:08:24. > :08:28.graph which gave Labour's vote last year as a total percentage at 36

:08:29. > :08:34.and the Conservatives at 35. I don't like to do this. But the two

:08:34. > :08:39.figures, if they stabilise, you'd add the three to the 36 and take

:08:39. > :08:42.the four from 35, so you get 31 and 39. But it's way too early about

:08:42. > :08:46.talking about national share. You can see how those figures fit

:08:46. > :08:52.together. We'll talk to John Curtice in a bit and see what he,

:08:52. > :08:56.whether he agrees with that. Maybe you are being a bit rash. Maybe you

:08:56. > :08:59.aren't. Tom Watson, the deputy Labour Party chairman and the

:08:59. > :09:04.campaign coordinator, might have a comment on it. He's here on my

:09:04. > :09:08.right. Beyond him Justine Greening, Secretary of State for transport.

:09:08. > :09:11.And Jeremy Browne, Liberal Democrat Foreign Office minister and of

:09:11. > :09:14.Foreign Office minister and of course, Nick Robinson. Tom Watson,

:09:14. > :09:19.we heard Sadiq Khan sort of cautious about how many seats

:09:19. > :09:23.Labour were going to take, 700 or so. What do you think it will be?

:09:23. > :09:28.Tories think it will be a thousand tonight? It won't be a thousand,

:09:28. > :09:34.that's a ridiculously over optimistic figure. There's only

:09:34. > :09:40.3600 seats up for grabs in England and Wales alobe. -- alone. We

:09:40. > :09:43.predicted we wanted 350 gains in England and 100 gains in Wales.

:09:43. > :09:47.That would consolidate our gains from last year, which would put us

:09:48. > :09:51.in a strong position in quite a few of the key seats. It's great to see

:09:51. > :09:55.the Harlow result tonight. I did a lot of listening in Harlow. There

:09:55. > :10:00.was a lot of people on the doorstep that were in two minds about where

:10:00. > :10:04.they were going a month ago. They've been hit by these Budget

:10:04. > :10:08.hits. They put their faith in David Cameron two years ago. They thought

:10:09. > :10:12.they voted for change. They, you could hear it on the doorstep, we

:10:12. > :10:15.voted for change and there hasn't been any. They've decided to go

:10:15. > :10:19.with Labour tonight. That's encouraging for us. It's looking

:10:19. > :10:22.dire for the Liberal Democrats at the moment, isn't it? As long as

:10:22. > :10:26.I've been interested in politics, it has always been the case that

:10:26. > :10:31.the parties in Government have difficulty in mid-term elections.

:10:31. > :10:35.And the parties in Opposition do well. Of course, the Lib Dems are

:10:35. > :10:38.in Government for the first time in pretty much living memory, we are

:10:39. > :10:43.in a difficult position compared to compare sons of four and eight

:10:43. > :10:47.years ago. And last year. We'll see. I think it's early in the night to

:10:47. > :10:50.look at that. I think we'll do better than the opinion poll rating

:10:50. > :10:53.overall. I think we might do better than last year when all the results

:10:53. > :10:58.are through. But I think the fundamental point is this. F.

:10:58. > :11:02.You're trying to look at a national picture, I think people across the

:11:02. > :11:05.country in their heart of hearts, know when they see what's happening

:11:05. > :11:12.in Greece and elsewhere, that we have to make difficult decisions.

:11:12. > :11:17.And they look at the Labour Party telling them there are no difficult

:11:17. > :11:21.decisions to be made. Why aren't you getting the support then?

:11:21. > :11:25.see why it's superficially attractive... So the electorate are

:11:25. > :11:29.superficial? Let's go back to the first Blair Government. Tony Blair

:11:29. > :11:32.lost something like 2,000 Councilors in his first term as

:11:32. > :11:36.Prime Minister. 2001 general election, he won a massive land

:11:36. > :11:40.slide majority again. People in mid-term elections vote against

:11:40. > :11:44.governing parties, but... You're switching your argument now.

:11:44. > :11:48.I'm not. You started by saying people understand what needs to be

:11:48. > :11:52.done. But you said they're not voting for it. People do understand

:11:52. > :11:56.there are difficult decisions to be made, but in the council elections

:11:56. > :11:59.in mid-term they feel they can exercise a protest vote and Labour

:11:59. > :12:02.Party which aspires to be no more than a party of opposition and

:12:02. > :12:06.protest is a good short-term vehicle for expressing that protest.

:12:06. > :12:09.When it comes down to it, they still have a fundamental belief

:12:09. > :12:12.that the Government is doing what is necessary and in the national

:12:12. > :12:15.interest. Why are people not voting in support of a Government doing

:12:16. > :12:19.the right things? I think the first thing to say it's really early on

:12:19. > :12:24.in the evening. We've had a few results. I think it's too early to

:12:24. > :12:27.say you can draw too many conclusions. As Sayeeda Warsi said

:12:27. > :12:31.earlier, we all expect it's going to be a tough night for the

:12:31. > :12:35.Conservatives. When we went into fighting these seats the last time

:12:35. > :12:40.in 2008, we really were doing incredibly well in the polls. We're

:12:40. > :12:45.in a mid-term Government at the moment, but what will be

:12:45. > :12:51.interesting for all of us, is to see how we all fare in particular,

:12:51. > :12:56.how Labour fare, even the Conservatives two years into an

:12:56. > :13:00.incredibly popular Tony Blair Government then, we took 1300 seats

:13:00. > :13:06.in 1999. I think local election results are probably a ref DMon how

:13:06. > :13:10.well Ed Miliband is doing. They are a referendum and let's bring in

:13:10. > :13:14.John Curtice, on how accurate the opinion polls are in the terms of

:13:14. > :13:16.the popularity of the party. You've been listening to what Jeremy Vine

:13:16. > :13:21.was saying and what's being said round the table. What light can you

:13:22. > :13:26.throw, at the moment? And how Justine Greening saying it's early

:13:26. > :13:33.day. How early are the days? They are early days, but the truth is

:13:33. > :13:38.from the first few results coming in from Sunderland, as early as

:13:38. > :13:42.11.30pm, we were seeing remarkably consistent numbers. Quite

:13:42. > :13:51.remarkably from the very beginning, we were getting results ward after

:13:51. > :13:55.ward showing the Labour Party yes, enormous swings since 2008, but

:13:55. > :13:58.doing better than the local elections in the same wards this

:13:59. > :14:02.time last year and the Conservatives doing worse. That is

:14:02. > :14:05.in dramatic progress for the Labour Party. But it is progress and it is

:14:06. > :14:12.progress in line with what we would expect given where the national

:14:12. > :14:15.opinion polls are now as compared where they were 12 months ago. So

:14:15. > :14:20.certainly good reason for Labour to take heart. But this isn't the kind

:14:20. > :14:27.of performance the Labour Party was putting in local elections before

:14:27. > :14:33.its success in the 199 7jebl e lection. But -- 1997, general

:14:33. > :14:39.election. When Justine Greening says things could be different

:14:39. > :14:43.later on, could they be different? You feel this pattern is new a well

:14:43. > :14:49.established pattern fortnight? could be different, yes, true.

:14:49. > :14:52.We've only got around 150, 200 of the 900 or so results we're going

:14:52. > :14:56.to collect. But they have been remarkably consist enter. I would

:14:56. > :15:00.say one other word of warning to both the coalition parties, the

:15:00. > :15:04.Labour advance looks as though it's strongest, and particularly the

:15:04. > :15:08.decline in coalition support seems to be greatest in those wards that

:15:08. > :15:12.they're trying to defend. Particularly the Liberal Democrats,

:15:12. > :15:16.as last year, are going down by far and away the heaviest of all in

:15:16. > :15:23.places where they're in competition with Labour. The results in north-

:15:23. > :15:26.east Lincolnshire, where they've lost badly, absolutely typical.

:15:26. > :15:29.Equally crucially, the Labour Party is doing relatively well and

:15:29. > :15:32.Conservatives relatively badly in those wards where Conservative and

:15:32. > :15:37.Labour shared first and second place before. The Conservatives

:15:37. > :15:41.seem to be losing ground, where hitherto they have been strong. If

:15:41. > :15:45.that continues, the Labour gains overall may be towards the high end

:15:45. > :15:49.of our expect aigsz. Being roughly what? We were expecting 700 or so,

:15:49. > :15:53.maybe, I don't want to push it too far, maybe we'll end up with

:15:53. > :15:56.slightly more than 700, because of the fact that the Labour Party is

:15:56. > :16:06.gaining and the coalition parties losing in the place where's it

:16:06. > :16:09.

:16:09. > :16:13.This isst gin room of the election. We have put it on the screen, but

:16:13. > :16:19.John Curtice is the big brain of all the brains, apart from Nick

:16:19. > :16:25.Robinson who is is a big brain. Nick, you wanted to comment on it

:16:25. > :16:29.Every viewer thought we knew all this stuff. There is a tendency

:16:29. > :16:33.about this time of the evening for parties that are losing to say it

:16:33. > :16:37.is of no consequence, don't worry about it, it has happened in the

:16:37. > :16:40.past. We can all look back to periods in the Thatcher

:16:40. > :16:45.administration, the Blair administration in which governing

:16:45. > :16:48.partys have done badly. But, and it's a very important but, these

:16:48. > :16:51.are troops that win general elections. Tom Watson will be

:16:51. > :16:56.looking at Worcester and Southampton and ebgter sand say

:16:56. > :17:01.they are the guys that are going to get my an MP. It has a real

:17:01. > :17:04.consequence, secondly it has a real impact on the debates within party,

:17:04. > :17:09.and what future direction and thirdly and crucially about what

:17:09. > :17:14.John Curtice has done, the coalition parties are going to come

:17:14. > :17:17.and clash over how they win their Parliamentary seats in three years

:17:17. > :17:21.time. What John Curtice is telling uss, is that the Liberal Democrats

:17:21. > :17:26.are losing again and again to the Labour Party. To hold on they have

:17:26. > :17:28.to have a fight with the Tories, fight in the south and south-west.

:17:28. > :17:31.As they get closer to a general election, that tension will

:17:31. > :17:34.increase, because they will be at each other for those few seats they

:17:34. > :17:38.need, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, to hold on, or the few

:17:38. > :17:42.seats the Tories need to gain a majority, in other words what is

:17:42. > :17:45.happening here will increase actual tension within the coalition.

:17:45. > :17:50.said it will increase tension in the Conservative Party, because

:17:50. > :17:53.people will be saying about Essex, we told you, you know, you are too

:17:53. > :17:58.liberal, you are not Conservative enough. Will it threaten the

:17:58. > :18:02.coalition or is it not as grave has the? I don't think it will threat

:18:02. > :18:07.tn coalition because they are thrown together. They need to hold

:18:07. > :18:10.on to each other. It is a kphuel battle for control of the...

:18:10. > :18:13.problem is there are two alternative forces at work. And

:18:13. > :18:17.that creates a deal of tension. On the one hand long-term, they

:18:17. > :18:20.believe in each other still, they get on at the top, they still

:18:20. > :18:26.believe in much the same thing, we will see David Cameron and Nick

:18:26. > :18:31.Clegg do a big media launch next week, when the Queen's Speech. But

:18:31. > :18:37.they will be listening to party advisers saying you have to draw

:18:37. > :18:42.the distinction to win those seats. One last thought for you, I thought

:18:42. > :18:46.he did a good job of, but Nick Clegg did say I sense as I go round

:18:46. > :18:51.the country there is a significant change, there are a lot of people

:18:51. > :18:59.flock back to vote for us I was his prediction matter of days ago.

:18:59. > :19:03.is what you have to say! You would be a hopeless politician Nick.

:19:03. > :19:07.take that as a compliment. One last thing, because Emily has more

:19:07. > :19:12.results I want to get. Ed Miliband's position as a result of

:19:12. > :19:17.this. Much strengthened because it endorses the theory. But of course

:19:17. > :19:20.there will be his critic, much strengthened but he he will have

:19:20. > :19:25.bad news in London and Glasgow, and of course what opposition parties

:19:25. > :19:29.have to worry about, is they don't delude themselves, the classic

:19:30. > :19:34.example you have heard raised there was William Hague who did well in

:19:34. > :19:38.1999 won the European election, did well in 2000 in the local election,

:19:39. > :19:43.didn't do very well when it came to 2001. Emily, let us have a bit more

:19:43. > :19:46.hard news.. We have some of the results in Ed Miliband and Labour

:19:46. > :19:50.will be pleased with this one, Great Yarmouth, two years ago, nick

:19:50. > :19:53.was talking about the work of the foot soldier, in 2010 at the

:19:53. > :19:59.general election this was somewhere the Conservatives took off Labour,

:19:59. > :20:00.so now they are starting to show or so now they are starting to show or

:20:00. > :20:03.suggest there is a reversal of fortunes. Labour in Great Yarmouth

:20:03. > :20:08.on 21. The Conservatives on 1. No play here for the Liberal Democrats

:20:08. > :20:12.at all. Let us see what happened overnight then. Labour up five, the

:20:12. > :20:18.Conservatives down four. It is a pattern you are going to see

:20:18. > :20:22.repeated. This seat, this council in the south-east. What about one

:20:22. > :20:28.in the Midlands. Nuneaton, that grey as you can see has been pushed

:20:28. > :20:32.off by the red of Labour, there on 25. The Conservatives on eight. If

:20:32. > :20:38.I show you that change overnight. Conservatives pushed down, they are

:20:38. > :20:41.down six. Labour is up eight and The Greens have made a gain of one

:20:41. > :20:45.seat here. Lincoln this is somewhere where the Tories have

:20:45. > :20:49.take an big hit. Let me show you again what happened overnight. This

:20:50. > :20:54.was Labour in 1997. Last year, there was a gain, one from the

:20:54. > :20:59.Conservative, and they have managed to move consolidate that direction

:20:59. > :21:02.of travel. Labour is up seven here, the Conservatives down six, and the

:21:02. > :21:08.Liberal Democrats, the coalition partners have also lost their seat

:21:08. > :21:11.here. They are down one. So what we are starting to see. Let me take do

:21:11. > :21:17.you Exeter that, was somewhere we heard Sadiq Khan talking about

:21:17. > :21:19.earlier as being an important one. This has been taken by Labour, from

:21:20. > :21:24.overall control. They are on 24. The Conservatives on 11. Liberal

:21:24. > :21:27.Democrats on five. They have their MP Ben Bradshaw here but this is a

:21:27. > :21:32.part of the world where they are not very well represented at a

:21:32. > :21:36.council level. The south-west. Here you can see the picture. The

:21:36. > :21:39.Conservatives on no councillor, the Liberal Democrat down four, and

:21:39. > :21:42.Labour is up five. Sorry I should say the Conservatives have not seen

:21:42. > :21:46.a change, the Liberal Democrats have taken a hit there and Labour

:21:46. > :21:51.is up five, so a whole set of results there. It would be good

:21:51. > :21:59.news for the Labour Party this far, still early days. Labour up five

:21:59. > :22:03.councils at the moment. The Conservatives down six I think. So

:22:03. > :22:07.Conservatives down six I think. So Albert Bore joins us. First of all,

:22:07. > :22:12.you are going to win Birmingham? Are you going to be the new leader?

:22:12. > :22:18.Without a doubt. We have not yet had many results phoned through to

:22:18. > :22:21.the council house, but we have two gains so far that are official. I

:22:21. > :22:25.am hearing there are substantial gains across Birmingham, both from

:22:25. > :22:31.the Conservatives and from the Liberal Democrats. And you are also

:22:31. > :22:37.voting in Birmingham on whether to have an elected mayor, aren't you?

:22:37. > :22:42.Yes, it appears but I can only use the word appears. It appears there

:22:42. > :22:45.is likely to be a "no" vote in Birmingham here tomorrow. There is

:22:45. > :22:48.some areas who have voted considerably for an elected mayor,

:22:48. > :22:52.but there are otherary areas which are heavily against. I think they

:22:52. > :22:57.will win the day tomorrow, and there will be a "no" vote. Because

:22:57. > :23:05.of course if there are an elected mayor and you were the new council

:23:05. > :23:09.leader, you would be up staged by Liam Byrne or someone else? I did

:23:09. > :23:16.myself consider standing for the elected mayor's role. I stood back

:23:16. > :23:20.to allow one of the three to take that role, and I did so willingly I

:23:20. > :23:25.felt I wanted to concentrate on winning Birmingham for Labour and

:23:25. > :23:29.indeed putting together a Labour administration post May 3rd. Do you

:23:29. > :23:33.think in principle that a leader of a council with a majority like you

:23:33. > :23:37.say you will have in Birmingham, can do as much for a city as a

:23:37. > :23:42.mayor? Are you yourself in favour of having an elected mayor or do

:23:42. > :23:46.you think you will get along fine without one? I have always been a

:23:46. > :23:49.proopponent of elected mayors and I think an elected mayor would be

:23:49. > :23:54.good for the city of Birmingham, but if the people decide otherwise,

:23:54. > :23:57.then that is the position we will have to work with. I think it is a

:23:57. > :24:03.matter for the people of Birmingham to decide on the governance of

:24:03. > :24:06.Birmingham, and if there is a vote, "no" vote registered tomorrow we

:24:06. > :24:10.will carry on with the current system, where you have a council

:24:10. > :24:15.appointed leader. So, just before we leave that, tell me about the

:24:15. > :24:20.other areas round Birmingham, in the Midland, you got news about the

:24:20. > :24:24.way Labour had done? It does appear that across the West Midlands

:24:24. > :24:28.region there is a big swing to Labour. There are not many results

:24:28. > :24:32.yet declared, but those that have been declared would indicate this

:24:32. > :24:36.is a good night for Labour in the West Midlands. Thank you for

:24:36. > :24:42.joining us. Maybe we will hear from you again when we get the final

:24:42. > :24:48.result in on the mayoral referendum that you are having there. We go

:24:48. > :24:54.down no to Plymouth I think, to Gary Streeter, how are thing

:24:54. > :24:58.there's? Good evening. How are things? We are all right thank you

:24:59. > :25:02.very much but we have taken a beating from the Labour Party. Not

:25:02. > :25:08.unexpected but they will certainly be leading the council in about an

:25:08. > :25:15.hour's time. How many council seats have you lost? Still a bit of

:25:15. > :25:19.counting going on but between five and six. They only needed three or

:25:19. > :25:22.four take the council. We have reverted back to Labour. This is a

:25:22. > :25:28.bit of a swing city, but the interest thing was doing a lot of

:25:28. > :25:33.work on the doorstep, people were unhappy, obviously about the last

:25:33. > :25:36.two months of our Government, and many of them say we can accept many

:25:36. > :25:41.things from the Conservative Party but we expect them to be competent,

:25:41. > :25:47.that is one of the messages coming across, first two month we have

:25:47. > :25:51.done well, the last two month not so good and we have to regain our

:25:51. > :25:56.sure footedness. What are the particular issues of incompetence

:25:56. > :26:01.that you would cite as being the cause of your defeat tonight?

:26:01. > :26:05.can list them as well as I can. can't. I am asking you. I think you

:26:05. > :26:11.probably K three or four things in the budget which have clobbered our

:26:11. > :26:15.sport e a lot of unhappiness about one or two other decision, the fuel

:26:15. > :26:18.skrie -- crisis, these are well- known. People say we expect do you

:26:18. > :26:25.do better. A lot of supporters have stayed at home tonight. A lot of

:26:25. > :26:30.supporters have switched across and voted UKIP, a huge vote in Plymouth

:26:30. > :26:35.for UKIP tonight they have come to a whisker of taking seats here. We

:26:35. > :26:38.need to work out a strategy for dealing with voters shuffling off

:26:38. > :26:42.and voting gyp because they don't think our leadership is

:26:42. > :26:47.Conservative enough. Would you like to see a reshuffle and would you

:26:47. > :26:52.like to see ary re-assessment of policy within the coalition?

:26:52. > :26:55.think it's a question of recapturing the confidence and the

:26:55. > :26:58.decision making we were showing three or four months ago. I think

:26:58. > :27:03.we have a tremendous team at the top of the party, no-one doubts

:27:03. > :27:09.that. But we have had a couple of bad months and we need to get going

:27:09. > :27:14.again and to show the sure footedness and decisiveness in from

:27:14. > :27:17.the past. What about UKIP, that you mentioned? The news coming in is

:27:17. > :27:20.that UKIP where they are standing have done really well. How would

:27:20. > :27:27.you deal with that particular challenge from the Conservatives

:27:27. > :27:33.point of view? I mean, obviously one option is to have a referendum

:27:33. > :27:37.on our membership oif the EU. Maybe we will put it in our party

:27:37. > :27:41.manifesto. That is one way we could tackle it. The UKIP vote is not

:27:41. > :27:47.just about Europe. It is about a hard core of traditional

:27:47. > :27:50.Conservative voters saying, we don't like the kind of the small l

:27:50. > :27:55.liberal decisions the Government is beginning to tai, it offend our

:27:55. > :28:01.values and we are going to protest and vote UKIP. How will you get...

:28:01. > :28:05.How do you get rid of the small l liberal policies, in the coalition,

:28:05. > :28:10.without losing the Liberal Democrats from the coalition?

:28:11. > :28:14.know, the Liberal Democrat vote in Plymouth has just disappear. If the

:28:14. > :28:18.tail has been wagging the dog too much, it doesn't need to do that

:28:18. > :28:22.any longer. We can be tougher with them, we have to be much more small

:28:22. > :28:26.c and big C Conservative on crime, law and order, some traditional

:28:26. > :28:30.policies, that is what supporters are waiting, indeed gagging to see.

:28:30. > :28:35.Let us hope in the next few months we can demonstrate we will be

:28:35. > :28:40.robust in those areas and put right the misdeeds of the last two months.

:28:40. > :28:42.Thank you very much. Do you want to comment on that? Can you see the

:28:42. > :28:49.coalition being told in effect by the Conservatives, look, this is

:28:49. > :28:56.going to fall apart if we don't act with less of our little l liberal.

:28:56. > :29:02.The coalition is very strong, very cohesive at the centre, compared to

:29:02. > :29:04.the Blair-Brown permanent Civil War, you have ministers working co-

:29:04. > :29:08.operatively, intep -- intelligently together, which ever party they are

:29:08. > :29:11.in. The second point I would make b even though it is not my job to

:29:11. > :29:15.comment on the strategy of the Conservative Party, as distinct

:29:15. > :29:19.from the Government, I would think the Conservatives would be making a

:29:19. > :29:22.mistake if they sub scon tract all the liberal element of the

:29:22. > :29:26.Government to Liberal Democrats and they become a hard-core right-wing

:29:26. > :29:30.part they are in the market with UKIP competing for vote, rather

:29:30. > :29:33.than on the centre ground of British politics. That is advice

:29:34. > :29:38.for free, that is not my job to advice the Conservative Party, but

:29:38. > :29:42.I think that the Conservative MPs who say the only reason that David

:29:42. > :29:44.Cameron might entertain the idea of being liberal minded is to appease

:29:44. > :29:54.the Liberal Democrats are shifting the Conservatives into a place

:29:54. > :29:58.which is not a good place for them We're joined by Paul Nuttall of

:29:58. > :30:04.UKIP, the Deputy Leader the MEP for the North West of England, but is

:30:04. > :30:08.this evening, here in London. Our estimate at moment is that you're

:30:08. > :30:12.averaging 14% of the vote in the wards you're standing in, which is

:30:12. > :30:17.five points up since last year. Assuming that is correct, why do

:30:17. > :30:22.you think you're taking these votes? Well, because people are

:30:22. > :30:26.looking at UKIP as being a serious alternative nowadays. UKIP is in

:30:26. > :30:31.the past couple of years has begun to take local elections seriously.

:30:31. > :30:35.We're not just about Europe. We have sensible policies on crime. We

:30:35. > :30:38.have sensible policies on grammar schools etc. These are policies

:30:38. > :30:43.which should attract natural conservative voters they're

:30:43. > :30:49.switching to over us in swathes. Which that transcends into seats,

:30:49. > :30:54.we will have to wait. What are you going to do about that? Support

:30:54. > :30:57.leeching away to UKIP? First of all, we need to continue to get on with

:30:57. > :31:00.the programme that we've got in Government, which is sorting out

:31:00. > :31:04.this huge mess that was handed over to us by the Labour Party. That

:31:04. > :31:09.hasn't changed at all. It may be that we need to work harder on how

:31:09. > :31:13.we get that message across about why doing that is so important. My

:31:13. > :31:17.personal view is that we need to be a Government that represents the

:31:17. > :31:21.whole country, not a fringe of it. I think that's really important. I

:31:21. > :31:25.actually agree with a lot of what Jeremy said. So far the coalition

:31:25. > :31:29.Government has worked well together. I think what's most important is we

:31:29. > :31:33.continue to get on with that job that we've been given, which is to

:31:33. > :31:38.sort out our economy, get public finances back on track. That's the

:31:38. > :31:42.best way, frankly, if we want time prove our poll ratings is to get on

:31:42. > :31:45.with the job people want us to do. This ways significant moment. Gary

:31:45. > :31:49.Streeter is not one of the usual suspects, the MP we heard from

:31:49. > :31:52.Devon. He's not someone that's been booked to come on the programme

:31:52. > :31:55.because you can expect him to have a tilt to the Conservative

:31:55. > :31:57.leadership. He was a minister under John Major. He has said the

:31:57. > :32:02.leadership is not Conservative enough and the Liberal Democrat

:32:02. > :32:06.tail is wagging the dog. Now that's at the beginning of the evening. If

:32:06. > :32:11.there are many Conservative MPs thinking as he's thinking, looking

:32:11. > :32:15.at that rise in the UKIP vote and thinking what do we do about it?

:32:15. > :32:18.That will become big pressure on ministers like Justine greening and

:32:18. > :32:22.on David Cameron to change what they're saying to the electorate.

:32:22. > :32:26.The fear the Conservatives will have, we're a long way from this,

:32:26. > :32:31.but the fear is of a split in their vote in the way that the Labour

:32:31. > :32:35.Party suffered in the 1980s as they saw a split in the vote when the

:32:35. > :32:39.SDP was created. If UKIP becomes not just a fringe group with

:32:39. > :32:45.concerns about Europe, that does well in European elections but can

:32:45. > :32:48.do well in other elections on crime, immigration or mainstream issues

:32:48. > :32:52.thaz a big problem for the Conservatives. There are small

:32:52. > :32:57.majorities up and down the country they could wipe ou. I was looking

:32:57. > :33:01.at wards in Basildon and Thurrock, you had many hundreds of votes for

:33:02. > :33:08.UKIP, and they were significantly higher than the majority Labour had

:33:08. > :33:13.in those wards. You look at the impact of that vote is to allow the

:33:13. > :33:17.party that those voters to be in control locally to get in control,

:33:17. > :33:21.that is the Labour Party. How do you get them back then UKIP voters

:33:21. > :33:24.have to think about the outcome they want. If it's getting rid of

:33:24. > :33:28.the Tories that's one thing. If you end up with the Labour Party, most

:33:28. > :33:32.of them would overwhelmingly say that's far worse. I hope we might

:33:32. > :33:36.be able to hear Paul Nuttall's reaction to that. He's listening in

:33:36. > :33:40.to this. We'll come back to you in a moment. Another Conservative MP

:33:40. > :33:43.we're joined by Martin Vicers, Conservative MP for Cleethorpes.

:33:43. > :33:51.What is your reaction to the news tonight and particularly about

:33:52. > :33:54.UKIP's gains? Clearly it's disappointing. The UKIP have gained

:33:54. > :33:58.the ward on north-east Lincolnshire Council that I represented for

:33:59. > :34:03.about 15 years. It's permly very disappointing to see that happen.

:34:03. > :34:07.But it's a -- personally very disappointed to see that happen.

:34:07. > :34:10.There's an anti-Government vote, which is expected but there's a

:34:11. > :34:14.very strong anti-European vote, particularly here in the Grimsby

:34:14. > :34:18.area, where they still remember the sell out of the fishing industry in

:34:18. > :34:23.the original negotiations. Is there a change of policy at the top that

:34:23. > :34:30.you would like to see? On the basis of the results that are coming in

:34:30. > :34:34.and the way that Labour has soared away and your votes, at least 14%

:34:34. > :34:38.of the vote where UKIP stands, gone to UKIP. Do you think a change of

:34:38. > :34:42.course is required on those fronts? Well, we've got to be mindful the

:34:42. > :34:48.fact that many constituency that's we won at the general election two

:34:48. > :34:52.years ago are like mine, predominantly working class

:34:52. > :35:00.constituencies. We're not appealing sufficient live to them. The

:35:00. > :35:03.aspirational Conservatives. I heard what Justine was saying about the,

:35:03. > :35:07.delivering a clear message and I agree with that. We have to refine

:35:07. > :35:14.the message a bit to maintain the support that we gained two years

:35:14. > :35:22.ago. What's the refinement? Well, my own view is that for example, in

:35:22. > :35:26.the Budget, there was no desire here for the 50p tax change, fuel

:35:26. > :35:32.duty was far more significant to the people that I represent.

:35:32. > :35:35.right, thank you very much. Paul Nuttall you were hearing two Tory

:35:35. > :35:41.MPs, it sounds as if there'll be pressure on the Prime Minister to

:35:41. > :35:46.change course a bit. That may diminish the appeal of UKIP. What

:35:46. > :35:49.you find is that UKIP appeals to Labour voters as well. The news

:35:50. > :35:53.from our strategists is that we're finishing second in a lot of Labour

:35:53. > :35:58.seats as well. The Conservatives are running scared. You just had to

:35:58. > :36:02.list ton what Baroness Warsi disgracely tried to do before link

:36:02. > :36:06.us to the BNP. We are the only political party in this party which

:36:06. > :36:09.has a blanket ban on BNP membership. What she did before was a sign that

:36:09. > :36:13.the Conservatives are very afraid of UKIP and the fact we're picking

:36:13. > :36:19.up a lot of Conservative votes. Thank you very much. Do you want to

:36:19. > :36:25.comment on perhaps you didn't hear what Baroness Warsi said. No I

:36:25. > :36:29.wasn't here. She pointed out there was a link between the places where

:36:29. > :36:32.there are fewer BNP candidates running for the council and those

:36:32. > :36:36.place where's there are more UKIP running for council. I pushed her

:36:36. > :36:43.to say what was this link. She simply repeated the link that in

:36:43. > :36:49.those places where the BNP is less active, UKIP is more active. UKIP

:36:49. > :36:52.thought she was implying there's a link between their members.

:36:52. > :36:57.Professor John Curtice is confirming UKIP is taking vote from

:36:58. > :37:04.the Tories more than from others. Tom Watson let's bring you back in.

:37:04. > :37:08.Campaign coordinator, the per suer of Rupert Murdoch and the man who

:37:08. > :37:12.said of Ken Livingstone to Labour Party members, hold your nose, but

:37:12. > :37:18.vote for him. Why did you tell Labour people to hold their noses

:37:18. > :37:24.to vote for Ken Livingstone? It was slightly more contextual than that.

:37:24. > :37:27.There is a section of voters in London who said that if there was a

:37:27. > :37:32.general election tomorrow they would Vote Labour, but when it came

:37:32. > :37:35.to the same question about Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone they

:37:35. > :37:39.were considering voting Boris Johnson. What I reminded them was

:37:39. > :37:44.that if they did that, they would allow David Cameron to try and

:37:44. > :37:49.claim a victory on Friday and they didn't actually want to do that.

:37:49. > :37:56.The form of words was if you vote, if you vote, hold your nose and

:37:56. > :38:01.vote for Ken, you will help Labour and stop David Cameron. Obviously,

:38:01. > :38:03.Boris Johnson is a charismatic guy. He's a potential leader of the

:38:03. > :38:07.Conservative Party. He has reach into all three political parties

:38:07. > :38:13.and I was making the point he would be helping David Cameron if he wins.

:38:13. > :38:17.What was the hostility among your Labour voters to Ken Livingstone?

:38:17. > :38:22.don't know whether there has been. You wouldn't have said it. You know

:38:22. > :38:28.what the opinion polls say. We pick up on the doorstep. You've seen

:38:28. > :38:31.prominent Labour writers, people like Dan Hodges, who appears to be

:38:31. > :38:36.saying he's voting Conservative for the first time in his life today.

:38:36. > :38:41.He was voting for Boris Johnson. I would disadepree with that, but

:38:41. > :38:45.obviously, there's a section of Labour supporters who have decided

:38:45. > :38:49.not to vote for Ken Livingstone. I was trying to get a wider context

:38:49. > :38:53.to understand there are bigger issues than just the personalities.

:38:53. > :38:58.We don't get this result until, it's probably the last result we

:38:58. > :39:01.get tomorrow because of the... could be 8pm. Taize long time to

:39:01. > :39:04.wait. Because of the polling system. Obviously the Labour Party have got

:39:04. > :39:09.to say, losing the London Mayor is nothing do with the Labour Party,

:39:09. > :39:12.it's everything to do with Ken Livingstone. They have to. We'll

:39:12. > :39:17.take responsibility for it Nick. was going to say something helpful

:39:17. > :39:21.to you. On the other hand, a Tory win in London is also in a funny

:39:21. > :39:26.way a problem for the Conservative leadership, because people like

:39:26. > :39:31.Gary Streeter and others say well why is Boris Johnson doing so much

:39:31. > :39:37.better than our own party leader, that will in a curious way, it will

:39:37. > :39:41.be worse for the Tory party if they lost London, but it will fuel that

:39:41. > :39:46.debate about a brand of conservatism that's more successful

:39:46. > :39:52.than that. The Labour Party will have to look hard about choosing a

:39:52. > :39:58.candidate who might not win. might be hard to define what brand

:39:58. > :40:02.of conservatism Boris Johnson has? Outspoken, charismatic and anti-

:40:02. > :40:05.European. Gary Streeter hinted for the need of referendum on Europe.

:40:05. > :40:10.The one thing they would be clear about is that Boris Johnson is

:40:10. > :40:16.tougher on Europe than the Government. Councilors, we've had

:40:16. > :40:21.one tenth of the Councillor results in. The Conservatives are currently

:40:21. > :40:25.down 78, Labour up 117. Yes, and the Liberal Democrats down 33.

:40:25. > :40:32.Let's look at the councils Emily. There have been changes there too.

:40:32. > :40:36.Yes, just to remind you, we haven't got results in from Wales yet or

:40:36. > :40:40.from Scotland. We've had 3 out of 128 councils in England declared.

:40:40. > :40:45.Labour then on 19, they've gained seven tonight. The Conservatives

:40:45. > :40:51.are on nine. They've lost seven. The Liberal Democrats have just had

:40:51. > :40:55.one result, so no change there. Hung councils seven remain. There

:40:55. > :40:59.aren't any I'm taking you into there. Let me show you what it

:40:59. > :41:04.means in terms of the Councilors as means in terms of the Councilors as

:41:04. > :41:10.well. If I show you the numbers there: Labour has gained 121

:41:10. > :41:15.Councilors. The Conservatives down 83. Remember a moment ago you were

:41:15. > :41:22.looking at the Lib Dem result, it looked as if there's no change.

:41:22. > :41:27.They have lost a fairly significant number of Councilors tonight. You

:41:27. > :41:32.won't see, you will see that UKIP gain, that's just come through in

:41:32. > :41:38.the last few minutes. They've gained one Councillor tonight.

:41:38. > :41:45.We'll have a look at those results as they come through. It might be

:41:45. > :41:49.Plymouth or north-east Lincolnshire. Gloucester then, this was on the

:41:49. > :41:54.Conservative defence. They gained it last year. They've had it taken

:41:54. > :41:59.away into no overall control. A simple equation here. Labour then

:41:59. > :42:03.gaining one. The Conservative losing one. That has taken it out

:42:03. > :42:07.of Conservative control. One more, a similar pattern, Southend of sea,

:42:07. > :42:11.which was Conservative before tonight. The Conservatives on 25,

:42:11. > :42:16.Lib Dems on ten, Labour on six. Let's see you what happened there.

:42:16. > :42:21.The Conservatives down three, Labour and one or two others

:42:21. > :42:30.picking up that vote. Another one I want to bring you North East

:42:30. > :42:35.Lincolnshire. You will see the UKIP game. This was in no overall

:42:35. > :42:40.control. Labour has taken it. But this is what you started to hear

:42:40. > :42:45.about, UKIP up one, starting to eat into that Conservative vote,

:42:45. > :42:49.possibly in other places. We will keep a tight watch on Plymouth

:42:49. > :42:55.where UKIP is fielding a full slate of candidates, I think 19. As soon

:42:55. > :43:02.as we get that result, we'll see if there's a pattern emerging. Jeremy

:43:02. > :43:05.Vine, can relook -- we look at the differential movement, the strength

:43:05. > :43:07.and weaknesses of the parties in various parts of England and Wales?

:43:07. > :43:12.various parts of England and Wales? Yes, I'll show you the map from

:43:12. > :43:16.1997. I will colour it in and the depth of the colour shows how

:43:16. > :43:19.strong the party was, in this case of Conservatives. '97 was a bad

:43:19. > :43:24.time for the Conservative Party. They just lost a land slide

:43:24. > :43:27.election to Tony Blair. You could see only in a few places have they

:43:27. > :43:33.got more than 50% of the Councilors, that's dark blue. Watch the change.

:43:33. > :43:37.By the way, before I go on, the thing that was thrown at them again

:43:37. > :43:40.and again are the white spaces in the north, places like Newcastle,

:43:40. > :43:45.Liverpool, Sheffield, where there aren't a single Conservative

:43:46. > :43:49.Councillor. If it's white in the a single Councillor from that party.

:43:49. > :43:52.That's the reservation for them. Watch what happens now, as I move

:43:53. > :43:58.forward. This doesn't include the results that we're getting now.

:43:58. > :44:03.This is only up until last year. You can see their hos torque come

:44:03. > :44:07.back in local Government over the last -- historic come back in local

:44:07. > :44:11.Government over the last 15 years. Again, those councils in the north

:44:11. > :44:15.of England still white. It's still being thrown at them - they don't

:44:15. > :44:18.have a single Council there. We'll see how this map changes through

:44:18. > :44:24.the night. With Labour Party the picture is different. This is '97.

:44:24. > :44:27.This was when Labour was very strong nationally. You can see that

:44:27. > :44:32.although in these dense conurbations in the north, where a

:44:32. > :44:37.lot of voters, it's very dark red, lots of Councilors. In the south of

:44:37. > :44:42.England, even in their heyday in '97, they were struggling. Watch

:44:42. > :44:47.what happens when I flip the map forwards to 2011, last year, so up

:44:47. > :44:50.to date, minus the results we're getting tonight. You can see how

:44:51. > :44:54.Labour were basically cleared out of the south of England. So many

:44:54. > :45:00.white areas. White areas not a single Labour Councillor. We were

:45:00. > :45:05.looking to see if there's a way of getting from London to the end of

:45:05. > :45:15.Cornwall, Land's End, without passing a single Labour Councillor.

:45:15. > :45:20.

:45:20. > :45:27.is a corner, somebody told us there is a great pub there called the

:45:27. > :45:32.Crown and Garter. Down we go. Avoiding Southampton council which

:45:32. > :45:35.is Labour. We go through very easy to go without passing a single

:45:35. > :45:40.Labour councillor. Here we get to Exeter, they have just taken

:45:40. > :45:44.control of Exeter tonight, so that will be a darker red as a result of

:45:44. > :45:48.the votes we have now and it gets easier as we go down into the

:45:48. > :45:52.south-west, towards Land's End and right to the very end, the tip of

:45:52. > :45:55.country, without passing a sing. Labour councillor, when you get

:45:56. > :45:58.down here you meet a councillor called Bill madden, he is a

:45:58. > :46:02.Conservative. That is the problem for Labour that the Conservatives

:46:02. > :46:05.have in the north, but we are seeing the map change tonight. We

:46:05. > :46:09.are seeing dramatic results and we will be looking at the south of

:46:10. > :46:14.England to see what kind of inroads England to see what kind of inroads

:46:14. > :46:19.Labour have made here. Thank you very much. Tim Montgomorie is the

:46:19. > :46:23.editor of the website Conservative Home, and he is at Millbank. You

:46:23. > :46:27.have been hearing, I hope, what has been said and seeing the results

:46:27. > :46:32.coming in. Can we start with UKIP. Are you concerned about the, how

:46:32. > :46:35.well they are doing tonight? think a lot of Conservative MPs are

:46:35. > :46:39.very concerned, a lot of Conservative MPs have spoken to

:46:39. > :46:43.before tonight are worried that a lot of their members are feeling as

:46:43. > :46:47.Gary Streeter has explained, that the Conservative party isn't

:46:47. > :46:51.occupying enough of the political stage. A successful political party

:46:51. > :46:57.doesn't just occupy a narrow range of territory, but has to reach from

:46:57. > :47:02.the centre to the right. And has strong me sangs on crime and Europe

:47:02. > :47:06.and immigration, so that we can keep the right united. The great

:47:06. > :47:12.danger for the Conservative Party is if we lose a significant part of

:47:12. > :47:15.our right flank. UKIP only need to get five or 6% at a general

:47:15. > :47:19.election to make it difficult for the Conservative Party to form a

:47:19. > :47:22.majority, and if people get into the habit of voting UKIP, it is a

:47:22. > :47:26.dangerous thing for the Conservatives. How does a

:47:26. > :47:28.Conservative leader do that without losing the other side of the

:47:28. > :47:33.coalition? Well, that is the difference between a good leader

:47:33. > :47:36.and a great leader. A great leader will find a big enough and bold

:47:37. > :47:41.enough message, so they are talking about protecting the National

:47:41. > :47:44.Health service, cutting tax for the low paid, those are, there is very

:47:44. > :47:49.few Conservative MPs who don't believe that we need to reach out

:47:49. > :47:54.to the middle, to reach out to blue collar worker, but at the same time,

:47:54. > :47:59.-- worker, research this week, huge poll for the Policy Exchange think-

:47:59. > :48:05.tank shows that the voters that we need to reach in the north, they

:48:05. > :48:08.are very worried about immigration, crime, cost of living, energy price,

:48:08. > :48:12.much Thor than issues like climate change that the coalition has

:48:12. > :48:15.worried and fretted about too much. If we are going to build the kind

:48:15. > :48:19.of majority that the Conservative Party failed to get at the last

:48:19. > :48:24.election, and needs at the next one, we have to realise some of the

:48:24. > :48:28.mistakes we have made over recent years, we worry too much about

:48:28. > :48:33.Metropolitan liberals and not enough about working class

:48:33. > :48:35.communitys in the north and midland. So you are saying, that you have a

:48:35. > :48:40.good Prime Minister in David Cameron, but not yet a great one,

:48:40. > :48:43.north a great one full stop? think David Cameron has tremendous

:48:43. > :48:48.gift, he has shown I think in interviews he has given in the last

:48:48. > :48:53.week, he is still a very persuasive Prime Minister, but we didn't win

:48:53. > :48:58.the last election, something didn't go right, no Prime Minister since

:48:59. > :49:03.1974 has added to their vote share. Winning the next election will be

:49:03. > :49:08.incredibly difficult for the Conservative Party, and I think it

:49:08. > :49:11.is necessary that David Cameron, when he reshuffles his team, he

:49:11. > :49:17.finds more people who can reach the kind of voters that we are not

:49:17. > :49:21.reaching at the moment. I think that means that we have to have

:49:21. > :49:25.more people with an understanding of blue collar worker, more

:49:25. > :49:30.understanding of the Euro-sceptic cause, a more balanced ticket at

:49:30. > :49:34.the top of the party. Gene, do you agree with that -- Justine Greening,

:49:34. > :49:39.do you agree with that. I think it is important all parties have some

:49:39. > :49:43.balance. I think you have to have balance right at the top too. I

:49:43. > :49:46.think that is something David Cameron has been really concerned

:49:46. > :49:50.to have. In fact you have two Cabinet Ministers from Rotherham,

:49:50. > :49:53.myself and William Hague, so we have got all sorts of people

:49:53. > :49:57.involved in the Conservative Party. But I think it is something that we

:49:57. > :50:01.need to look at. We have fantastic MPs from all over the country. I

:50:01. > :50:09.think they have had time to really bed down, to start to learn their

:50:09. > :50:14.trade as MPs, and I think many of them can do a fantastic job being

:50:14. > :50:19.commentators and spokesmen for the Marty -- party going forward.

:50:19. > :50:22.you think David Cameron will listen to what Tim Montgomorie has said

:50:22. > :50:26.and take note, or is this a voice in the Conservative Party when, one

:50:26. > :50:30.of many who have been urpbging this on him and he will go on ignoring

:50:30. > :50:34.it. There is no doubt that was his view before the ruls were in and he

:50:34. > :50:38.is saying it after, so he can't claim anything has changed but he

:50:38. > :50:42.will argue and will have plenty of Conservatives who will agree, that

:50:42. > :50:46.the results confirm what he has been saying. David Cameron has a

:50:46. > :50:50.problem, which is he is about to do a kind of relaunch of Government.

:50:50. > :50:54.We get another Queen's Speech. We get the next opportunity where they

:50:54. > :50:57.again tell us their agenda, that agenda is one that the Conservative

:50:57. > :51:01.MPs already don't like what they have heard about, for example it

:51:01. > :51:05.involves reform of the House of Lords, there are many Conservative

:51:05. > :51:09.MPs who loathe that, and they will be saying, give us some red meat to

:51:09. > :51:13.sell to our own natural base, to our supporters. And therefore, he

:51:13. > :51:18.will be doing something with Nick Clegg, in a week's time, his own

:51:18. > :51:21.sort of, another moment, where the two of them come together and talk.

:51:21. > :51:26.He will have his Queen's Speech and others will be saying we need a

:51:26. > :51:29.change now, we don't need a confirmation of the route, we want

:51:29. > :51:32.a change. He gave the useful reminder that, that the

:51:32. > :51:39.Conservatives didn't win the last election so they are starting from

:51:39. > :51:43.a bad place any way. I thought Tim had a striking statistic, a

:51:43. > :51:46.reminder that... 5% that goes to UKIP. His point there was no Prime

:51:46. > :51:51.Minister since 1974 who has increased their vote share, so to

:51:51. > :51:56.the Conservatives to say we didn't win this time but we will National

:51:56. > :52:01.Express. Didn't David Cameron say something about if we want a

:52:01. > :52:04.Conservative-led Government rather than a Conservative Government.

:52:04. > :52:08.other words another coalition, which some of his own party was not

:52:08. > :52:16.what they were supposed to be aiming for. Do you think he meant

:52:16. > :52:21.to say it? I think it revealed what he thinks. Emily. Wyre forest will

:52:21. > :52:24.ring bells for a lot of you. This was the place that went independent

:52:24. > :52:30.under Dr Richard taiblor had a save Kidderminster hospital campaign.

:52:30. > :52:39.Look what has happened here. That same group has field add full slate

:52:39. > :52:43.same group has field add full slate of candidates.. This one has fallen

:52:43. > :52:47.out of Conservative control, it in no overall control territory. The

:52:47. > :52:51.Conservatives still remaining the biggest group with 20, but that

:52:51. > :52:54.health concern group eight, Labour on eight, the liberals, not to be

:52:54. > :52:57.confused with the Liberal Democrats on two. Let us look at what

:52:57. > :53:01.happened overnight then, Conservatives saw four of their

:53:01. > :53:05.councillors go. The health concern group are up three, Labour has made

:53:05. > :53:10.a gain, and the liberals again made a gain. Let me take you to one

:53:10. > :53:15.other sh Carlisle, the place that Ed Miliband kicked off his local

:53:15. > :53:21.election campaign a place visited by David Cameron as well. Very much

:53:21. > :53:24.a two horse race, at a Westminster level. Labour on 27. Cons on 20,

:53:24. > :53:29.and you see what has happened overnight. Labour has picked up

:53:29. > :53:34.four, Conservatives down two. They have taken it out of no overall

:53:34. > :53:41.control. Thank you. We hear that Nottingham has voted no to having a

:53:41. > :53:48.mayor in their referendum. So, I am going to lose some of my panellists

:53:48. > :53:54.because we are going have the news. So let us join the news. Counting

:53:54. > :53:58.is under way after local elections in. In England early indications

:53:58. > :54:01.suggest large swins to Labour with both the Conservatives and Liberal

:54:01. > :54:05.Democrats losing councillors. The Conservatives have lost Harlow in

:54:05. > :54:11.Essex to Labour, who are also close to winning control of Derby. UKIP

:54:11. > :54:16.appears to have made gains at the Tories's expense. Initial figures

:54:16. > :54:20.show the lowest turn out for more than a Dick aid. In Plymouth Gary

:54:20. > :54:24.Streeter says his party was taking a bit of beating and predicted the

:54:24. > :54:28.council would fall to Labour. He blames the coalition's performance

:54:28. > :54:34.The interesting thing was doing a lot of work on the doorstep was

:54:34. > :54:38.that people were unhappy, obviously about the last two months, of our

:54:38. > :54:42.Government, and many of them say we can accept many things but we

:54:42. > :54:45.expect them to be competent, and that was one of the messages coming

:54:45. > :54:49.across. The first 1 months of the coalition Government we have done

:54:49. > :54:53.very well. The last two months not so good. We have to regain our sure

:54:53. > :54:58.footedness if we are going to capture trust and confidence.

:54:58. > :55:02.are reports of a low turn out in Scotland. Counting will begin

:55:02. > :55:09.tomorrow with the battle for control of the biggest cities

:55:09. > :55:15.expected to command most' attention. The SNP hope the to build on their

:55:15. > :55:21.victory last year. Every seat on Scotland's 32 authorities has been

:55:21. > :55:25.contested. All Welsh councils except Anglesey have held elections.

:55:25. > :55:29.Some 1200 councillors are being chosen. Labour hope to win back

:55:29. > :55:33.power in heartland seats. Most areas expect to declare in the next

:55:33. > :55:38.few hour, but others will not announce results until later this

:55:38. > :55:42.afternoon. In the capital voters have been electing the mayor and

:55:42. > :55:45.choosing the new London assembly. Counting will begin later this morn.

:55:45. > :55:49.The winner of the mayoral contest and the new assembly members are

:55:49. > :55:53.due to be announced on Friday evening. Liverpool and salded for

:55:53. > :55:56.have been chooseing their first directly elected mayors. Teb other

:55:56. > :56:01.cities including Birmingham, Newcastle and match have held

:56:01. > :56:05.referendums to decide whether they shoulder lect a mayor. Counting has

:56:05. > :56:09.begun in some area, others will wait to the morning. Doncaster has

:56:09. > :56:19.held a referendum to decide whether to establish their mayoral

:56:19. > :56:24.elections. Thank you. Let us go back to Wales and have accuse loot

:56:24. > :56:28.at how things are gole. This is the picture, most of the councils in

:56:28. > :56:32.Wales are hung. The big prizes are the ones that Labour will be after

:56:32. > :56:36.are Cardiff, Swansea and these are some of the ones they should be

:56:36. > :56:41.picking up, they lost them in 2000 and shouldn't have done. But I am

:56:41. > :56:47.going to take you into a curious independent streak that Wales has

:56:47. > :56:51.herement there are four independent run councils, two of them are

:56:51. > :56:58.staunchly independent, historically so, Powys and Pembrokeshire will

:56:58. > :57:03.remain so, these are very much old Labour territories that are

:57:04. > :57:08.stomping ground of Michael Foot. Lost again in 2000, that very bad

:57:08. > :57:11.year for Labour, the independents on 1. Labour on ten. This is

:57:12. > :57:17.somewhere that Labour will be pretty much expecting to pick up.

:57:17. > :57:21.Blaenau Gwent as well has started shifting back to Labour, at Welsh

:57:21. > :57:26.Assembly level and a Parliamentary level. Both Labour seats, they will

:57:26. > :57:32.hope to finish off the triple if you like tonight, with that. Thank

:57:32. > :57:36.you very much. Let us go to Sian Lloyd in Cardiff.. Yes, let us see

:57:36. > :57:42.what further insight we can get into what is happening in Wales at

:57:42. > :57:46.the moment. They have only just started counting. Jenny Willott is

:57:47. > :57:50.started counting. Jenny Willott is the MP for Cardiff Central. First

:57:50. > :57:53.of all, how is it going for the Liberal Democrats? I think it is

:57:53. > :57:59.going to be a difficult night. I think we have been expecting a

:57:59. > :58:03.difficult night for a while now. I think to be honest it is too early

:58:03. > :58:08.to tell. They is only just started counting here. They are only just

:58:08. > :58:13.starting. I think it is going to be a wild yet before we see how it is

:58:13. > :58:15.going to pan out. The predictions are it is not going to be a great

:58:15. > :58:19.night for the Welsh Liberal Democrat, and that is largely

:58:19. > :58:23.because of the flak they are taking because of policies of being in

:58:23. > :58:28.coalition Government at Westminster. It is in part, and it is also in

:58:28. > :58:33.part because we did very well four years ago, we won lots of seats,

:58:33. > :58:38.and cities across Wales, that people did, never expected us to

:58:38. > :58:42.hold, swan circumstances Wrexham and car di. We had a high water

:58:42. > :58:47.mark. Labour had an appalling result for them the only way is up.

:58:47. > :58:53.For us it is a difficult time. But I hope we hold on to some of our

:58:53. > :58:58.excellent counts lors we have. Evan, you have a new leaders, the

:58:58. > :59:02.party has been through a turbulent time. It has been through a period

:59:02. > :59:07.of renewal, looking into itself after the bad results in the

:59:07. > :59:13.Assembly election, is this going to be an important test? It is for the

:59:13. > :59:18.party. We are not going to rebuild the party overnight, it does take

:59:18. > :59:22.time. We have already seen a 2% increase in our membership je, put

:59:22. > :59:27.up more candidates in this election than ever before, but of course, we

:59:27. > :59:32.know that in the current circumstances, we did have a

:59:32. > :59:37.difficult job tonight, we know we have lost some seats, we are

:59:37. > :59:41.hearing of gaining other seat, there are positive messages and

:59:41. > :59:44.disappointments but it is early on, and there are a lot more counts to

:59:45. > :59:48.go through. Because you have got to get that message across and Leanne

:59:48. > :59:55.Wood, it was hoped by many in the party, she was going to be able to

:59:55. > :59:59.pull some votes from Labour. I mean Leanne has had a big impact already.

:59:59. > :00:03.She has been across Wales, working with the candidates, I have been

:00:03. > :00:07.out across the country speaking to people, peep are talking about her

:00:07. > :00:10.where ever we go, the impact has been a very positive one. It is

:00:10. > :00:13.going to change the party, but we have got a lot of work to do we

:00:13. > :00:18.will be doing that work from the grass roots up, which is so

:00:18. > :00:28.important, that we have had so many of these community champions

:00:28. > :00:28.

:00:28. > :01:32.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 46 seconds

:01:32. > :01:36.Justine Greening is still with us. We have been joined by Chuka Umunna,

:01:36. > :01:46.the Shadow Business Secretary, and by Chris Rennad, the brains behind

:01:46. > :01:50.

:01:50. > :01:57.the Liberal Democrat revival over a number of years. You won by-

:01:57. > :02:00.election after by-election. You must be disappointed by what is

:02:00. > :02:07.happening? You look at those results and those seats where we

:02:07. > :02:12.had Lib Dem MPs and we are doing very well. We have seven councils

:02:12. > :02:16.we were defending tonight. It might be a difficult night overall. It is

:02:17. > :02:21.good where we have a Lib Dem council. What is the problem you

:02:21. > :02:25.have, though? Your losses are running at 36 now. Are you going to

:02:25. > :02:29.keep Cambridge? We probably are. The signs are that we will, perhaps

:02:29. > :02:35.in the casting vote of the Mayor. When you say, "What are the

:02:35. > :02:39.problems?" It's the usual Government mid-term unpopularity

:02:39. > :02:44.that is accounting for some of our losses. We are losing to Labour,

:02:44. > :02:49.but we are still doing quite well against the Conservatives and we

:02:49. > :02:52.have a Lib Dem MP, and we are doing quite well there. You are happy

:02:52. > :02:55.with the way the coalition is working out for the Liberal

:02:55. > :03:01.Democrats? It is important the coalition was right for the country.

:03:01. > :03:05.We are not going through the problems of Spain, Italy, Greece,

:03:05. > :03:08.or Ireland. I think we avoided those thing. If the Lib Dems had

:03:09. > :03:12.run away and not done what we did two years ago, things would be very

:03:12. > :03:16.much worse for us and for the country now. What do you make of

:03:16. > :03:25.the concerns the Conservatives have been expressing about the rise in

:03:25. > :03:31.the UKIP vote, about their vote leeching away in that direction and

:03:31. > :03:34.the Prime Minister should not be so liberal with a little "l"?

:03:34. > :03:37.Conservatives do have a problem. There are some splits within the

:03:37. > :03:42.Conservative Party. If the Conservative Party was to move to

:03:42. > :03:46.the right in response to that, that was a failed strategy they had

:03:46. > :03:50.under William Hague and it was not a great success for the

:03:50. > :03:54.Conservative Party. For them to tackle that, it would not make

:03:54. > :03:59.sense after tonight. What do you make of the results so far, Chuka

:03:59. > :04:04.Umunna? We walk into these elections with humility, having

:04:04. > :04:10.gone down to our second worst defeat since the mid-1930s. Last

:04:10. > :04:14.year, we benefited from some of the Lib Dem meltdown. If we want to

:04:14. > :04:18.form a majority at the next general election, we need to be winning

:04:18. > :04:22.back support from those areas you saw Labour support leave us. Is the

:04:22. > :04:29.scale of what is happening tonight sufficient, in your opinion?

:04:29. > :04:33.think it's encouraging that we have picked up Harlow. It is one of

:04:33. > :04:37.those swing-sweet places we would need to regain -- swing seat places

:04:37. > :04:43.we would need to regain. We will probably be joined by the Community

:04:43. > :04:47.Secretary at some point. We have won a ward in Brentwood. We need to

:04:47. > :04:51.be getting support back in some of those areas the Tories have taken

:04:51. > :05:01.from us, in addition to retaining some of the Lib Dem meltdown that

:05:01. > :05:06.

:05:07. > :05:12.we have benefited from. Let's talk about Lib Dem meltdown. Arif Ansari,

:05:12. > :05:16.would you describe it as "Lib Dem meltdown"? The situation here is

:05:16. > :05:20.one of the Liberal Democrats doing almost as badly as last year. Here,

:05:20. > :05:23.they are counting for the mayoral elections. I have been speaking to

:05:23. > :05:28.Labour and Lib Dem sources about the council count which will be

:05:28. > :05:33.taking place tomorrow. Labour believe that they are on course for

:05:33. > :05:35.a similar position to last time, which is about ten gains. In

:05:35. > :05:39.Manchester, we have heard from a good Liberal Democrat source that

:05:39. > :05:43.they have done as badly as last year. If that is true, that means

:05:43. > :05:46.they have lost every single seat they were defending there tonight.

:05:46. > :05:50.But equally, if you look in other places, places where the Liberal

:05:50. > :05:57.Democrats have done well in the past, they are not doing well at

:05:57. > :06:05.the moment. In Oldham, Labour is predicting ten gains. In Stockport,

:06:05. > :06:12.the Liberal Democrat Leader has lost by 45 votes. Sefton is a

:06:12. > :06:15.Labour gain. So throughout the North West, we are talking about

:06:15. > :06:19.Labour really tightening its grip on local government and a big

:06:19. > :06:25.reason is the Liberal Democrats having another disastrous

:06:25. > :06:29.performance, really as bad as last year. Were they expecting that?

:06:29. > :06:33.Well, I think they were more expecting it than they were last

:06:33. > :06:38.year. That came as a total shock. I think this year, they were hoping

:06:38. > :06:46.that they had turned the corner. For example, the issue over

:06:46. > :06:50.university tuition fees, I think that they felt that that would have

:06:50. > :06:55.receded and maybe they wouldn't have done as badly this time. They

:06:55. > :06:59.were braced for it. But they were hoping it wouldn't be the case. It

:06:59. > :07:03.is the nightmare scenario yet again for them. Thank you very much.

:07:03. > :07:08.Hilary Jones is the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Derby

:07:08. > :07:13.Council. Thank you for joining us. What do you make of the Liberal

:07:13. > :07:18.Democrats tonight and how are they doing in Derby? In Derby, it's a

:07:18. > :07:24.bit of a mixed picture. I have lost some colleagues, but in other wards

:07:24. > :07:27.I have had big swings in our favour, not enough to take the seat. I have

:07:27. > :07:33.retained my own seat, so have a couple of my colleagues. We are

:07:33. > :07:37.still waiting for a few results to come in. It is far from being a

:07:37. > :07:43.disaster here. You are saying you have had big swings in your favour?

:07:43. > :07:47.Yes, both in Conservative-held wards and in Labour-held wards. So

:07:47. > :07:51.we have worked hard in certain wards in the city and it's paid

:07:51. > :07:55.dividends. We have campaigned on local issues. That's paid dividends,

:07:55. > :07:59.too. Do you think at the end of the night it is still going to be a

:07:59. > :08:09.hung council with you and the Conservatives working together to

:08:09. > :08:11.

:08:11. > :08:13.control it? Well, we are already -- we already know Labour have taken

:08:13. > :08:17.control of the council. It sounds like they may have taken another

:08:17. > :08:24.seat. They were short by four and you think they have got their four?

:08:24. > :08:28.I think they have now got their four. So the Liberal Democrats out.

:08:28. > :08:34.Chris Rennad, I would like a comment from you on what we were

:08:34. > :08:40.hearing from Liverpool and the North West? Results this year seem

:08:40. > :08:43.to be similar to those of last year. Not too far away from Liverpool, in

:08:43. > :08:47.places like Cheadle and Southport the Lib Dems have been making gains

:08:47. > :08:52.from the Conservatives. So, again, the pattern is where we have a Lib

:08:52. > :08:56.Dem MP, we are doing well against the Conservatives. Where we are

:08:56. > :09:03.fighting the Labour Party, it is very difficult when you are in

:09:03. > :09:07.coalition with the Labour Party. Nick Robinson? Nick Clegg's great

:09:07. > :09:09.dream was to spread the Liberal Democrats across the North of

:09:09. > :09:14.England as the principle challenger to the Labour Party and make gains.

:09:14. > :09:18.What we have seen in this election is almost all of those gains have

:09:18. > :09:23.been reversed. What Chris Rennad has pointed to is nevertheless,

:09:23. > :09:27.because Liberal Democrats dig in in councils and parliamentary seats,

:09:27. > :09:32.they may be able to hold on better in those sorts of places than the

:09:32. > :09:38.national picture would suggest. On our wards so far, they are losing

:09:38. > :09:45.almost half of the seats in which they are running - 43 losses out of

:09:45. > :09:52.90 seats they have been defending. Evan Harris, the former Liberal

:09:52. > :09:55.Democrat MP, and Vice Chair of the Federal Policy Committee, he joins

:09:55. > :10:00.us now. What is your view about what Nick Clegg should do in the

:10:00. > :10:03.light of this leeching of support we are hearing about tonight?

:10:03. > :10:08.depends what we mean by "leeching of support". What the Liberal

:10:08. > :10:12.Democrats will look for is some improvement on last year's

:10:12. > :10:16.performance in respect of vote share, for example. Compared to

:10:16. > :10:20.last year, Liberal Democrats will be expecting not a brilliant night,

:10:21. > :10:24.of course not, it is very difficult being in Government in an austerity

:10:24. > :10:29.Government. That's already - that was understood actually two years

:10:29. > :10:33.ago when the coalition was formed. Certainly, wanting to do better in

:10:33. > :10:36.terms of vote share generally and an improved performance,

:10:36. > :10:39.particularly against the Conservatives in the South. I hear

:10:39. > :10:45.what's already happened or said to have happened against Labour in

:10:45. > :10:48.some of the Northern cities, but an improvement on last year fighting

:10:48. > :10:55.the Conservatives. I think there are signs that that has happened.

:10:55. > :10:58.After last year, a real effort was made by Nick Clegg to work harder

:10:59. > :11:04.to differentiate Liberal Democrats in Government from Conservatives in

:11:04. > :11:09.Government. Our figures are suggesting that your vote share has

:11:09. > :11:12.dropped? Compared to? Last year? Right. That would be disappointing

:11:12. > :11:16.to Liberal Democrats. And I suppose one comfort is that the

:11:16. > :11:21.Conservatives are not going to have as good a year as they had last

:11:21. > :11:25.year. I say "comfort" - it is important for Liberal Democrats

:11:25. > :11:29.that both parties in an austerity Government are seen to suffer in

:11:29. > :11:34.mid-term and that it is not just the Liberal Democrats. No-one

:11:34. > :11:36.thought it was going to be easy being in Government (a) with the

:11:36. > :11:41.Conservatives and (b) in instituting a programme of

:11:41. > :11:46.austerity. What many of us want to see, from the grassroots, is more

:11:46. > :11:49.of an effort made to say to people firstly, you know, not every

:11:49. > :11:54.Government policy is something that Liberal Democrats support. It is

:11:54. > :11:57.just the nature of coalition that you have to allow the Conservatives,

:11:57. > :12:02.the larger party, some of the things they want and a greater

:12:02. > :12:07.effort to prevent the Conservatives doing things that are unacceptable

:12:07. > :12:10.for us. Yeah. The Health Bill was not a great success. We are seeing

:12:10. > :12:14.more of that happening now and that will be important going forward.

:12:14. > :12:18.You are the ones taking the hit. Our figures show the Conservatives

:12:18. > :12:22.are losing about one in three of the council seats they are

:12:22. > :12:26.defending. Liberal Democrats are losing half the council seats that

:12:26. > :12:32.they are defending? Yes. Taking more of a hit would be an accurate

:12:33. > :12:36.way. That is still far better in sort of strategic terms than what

:12:36. > :12:41.happened last year which was where we were seen to be the only losers.

:12:41. > :12:46.We are not happy about losing, let me be clear about that. What many

:12:46. > :12:50.Liberal Democrats are sick of is being the fall guys uniquely within

:12:50. > :12:54.Government. I think what we heard from Tim Montgomerie was

:12:54. > :12:59.significant, unlike Chris Rennad I wouldn't give the Conservatives

:12:59. > :13:04.free advice not to move to the right because I think that would be

:13:04. > :13:08.a very bad idea for them strategically. I would encourage

:13:08. > :13:11.them to differentiate themselves from Liberal Democrats and appear

:13:11. > :13:15.more right-wing. Liberal Democrats realise, of course, that these are

:13:15. > :13:18.going to be difficult times. right. I think that is understood

:13:18. > :13:22.by Liberal Democrat grassroots but we do want to see increasing

:13:22. > :13:25.efforts to make clear that not everything that a Conservative-led

:13:25. > :13:28.Government does is something that Liberal Democrats would not be

:13:28. > :13:34.seeking to undo in the next Parliament. Obviously, there are

:13:34. > :13:44.joint things we share, but these are two different parties.

:13:44. > :13:48.Thank you very much. Yes, Nick? analysis is telling us not that the

:13:48. > :13:55.Liberal Democrats are doing better, but the Tories are doing worse. The

:13:55. > :14:01.Liberal Democrat vote share appears to be 1% down. They are holding on

:14:01. > :14:08.better against the Tories but because the Tories' vote share has

:14:08. > :14:18.dropped. They had 40%, I think, last time of Liberal Democrats...

:14:18. > :14:23.Of councillors. Now it is running... Hearing the coalition trying to

:14:23. > :14:26.work out to do in the light of the figures. I find the situation with

:14:26. > :14:30.the Liberal Democrats interesting. I had them in second place if my

:14:30. > :14:36.constituency, they really went for it. Ploughed a lot of money,

:14:36. > :14:40.outspent my party by 15-1 to try and get the seat in 2010 and didn't.

:14:40. > :14:45.If you listen to Chris you would think there was no problem and I

:14:45. > :14:49.think there is. This is anecdotally. What have noticed in the areas

:14:49. > :14:54.where the Liberal Democrats made a strong play for Labour's support,

:14:54. > :14:58.this time round it seems to have evaporated. I do not think this

:14:58. > :15:03.strategy of seeking to differentiate yourself does justice

:15:03. > :15:07.to the British public. The idea that somehow you can campaign

:15:07. > :15:10.locally, against the cuts, and even nationally do off-the-record

:15:10. > :15:14.briefing where you say we are not in favour of a top down

:15:14. > :15:19.reorganisation of the NHS, we don't like the 50 pence cut down to 45

:15:19. > :15:23.pence and expect the public to buy that, when you wave it through, and

:15:23. > :15:27.you vote through the programme in Government, that doesn't stack up.

:15:27. > :15:32.People are not stupid. I think the problem they have got at the moment

:15:32. > :15:37.is that people just don't know whether to believe them. I mean, at

:15:37. > :15:41.least, if you speak to Justine, she will be up front that she thinks

:15:41. > :15:46.doing what they are doing to the NHS is the right thing. I disagree

:15:46. > :15:48.with her, but she is straight about that. But I think with so many of

:15:48. > :15:54.the issues people don't know whether to believe Liberal

:15:54. > :15:58.Democrats, that is what people tell me on the ground. That is not

:15:58. > :16:03.scientific, it is anecdotal but that is their big problem. Let us

:16:03. > :16:07.go to Southampton, and join Peter Henley, our editor down there.

:16:07. > :16:11.Peter, what is your story there, you cover not just Southampton, but

:16:11. > :16:15.Winchester, Reading, right up to Reading. Portsmouth, Weymouth, all

:16:15. > :16:20.over the shop. Indeed, but Southampton was where Ed Miliband

:16:20. > :16:24.really concentrated his resources for this election. It is the place

:16:24. > :16:28.where they have two MP, and where they really felt they needed to

:16:28. > :16:32.turn the tide, and they have done that emphatically tonight, going

:16:32. > :16:35.from 19 councillors to it looks like 30. Pushing the Conservatives

:16:35. > :16:40.out of office and you may remember there was a bitter industrial

:16:40. > :16:44.dispute when Conservatives here tried to prevent redundancy, they

:16:44. > :16:48.said, by cutting council staff's pay and rubbish piled up on the

:16:48. > :16:53.streets. The voters have punished them here, and punished Liberal

:16:53. > :16:58.Democrats, squeezed between the two sides, they have dramatically lost

:16:58. > :17:02.vote, behind the greebs in one ward, behind UKIP in another ward, and I

:17:02. > :17:07.am sure Ed Miliband staked a lot of his personal reputation, launching

:17:07. > :17:11.his election campaign on the south coast, coming back for several

:17:11. > :17:15.visits, and that has certainly been repaid by the voters in Southampton.

:17:16. > :17:21.In Reading too, it looks like Labour have done well. In other

:17:21. > :17:26.places rush more, it looks like Labour have made some progress, in

:17:26. > :17:29.Basingstoke, even in Winchester, very much a Conservative -Liberal

:17:29. > :17:36.Democrat area, Labour managed to double their number of Councillors

:17:36. > :17:40.from one to two. What happened in Portsmouth? Now Portsmouth has

:17:40. > :17:43.stayed Liberal Democrat. This is interest. It's a Liberal Democrat

:17:43. > :17:46.stronghold and has been for many years, they have hung on to it.

:17:46. > :17:51.Labour made some progress at the expense of the Conservatives but

:17:51. > :17:55.the Liberal Democrats took seats off them. In Eastleigh, Chris Huhne

:17:55. > :17:59.is very pleased, the Liberal Democrats made gains there. Partly

:17:59. > :18:03.from some people who had left the Liberal Democrats, independents but

:18:03. > :18:06.we are getting the last two results here in Southampton. I think

:18:06. > :18:10.Southampton will be the story of the south and Ed Miliband felt he

:18:10. > :18:13.had a point to prove, to show he could appeal to voters in this part

:18:13. > :18:18.of the world as well as the Midlands and the north and he has

:18:18. > :18:25.done that this evening. Thank you. Let us join John Curtice, down in

:18:25. > :18:30.the bowels of the BBC, John. Welcome back today light, and what

:18:30. > :18:33.has happened since we spoke an hour ago? Well, the truth is David, we

:18:33. > :18:37.are looking at the kind of picture that we were looking at when we

:18:37. > :18:40.were last talking. It does look as though for example that certainly

:18:40. > :18:45.the Labour Party is doing round two or three points better than they

:18:45. > :18:50.did in the local elections 12 months ago and the kilths doing

:18:50. > :18:54.round two or three points worse. The Liberal Democrats at best are

:18:54. > :18:58.doing as well as they did last year, in truth on average they are doing

:18:58. > :19:01.slightsly worse. To that extent therefore it looks as though, and

:19:02. > :19:06.this is confirmed by some of the results we have seen from place

:19:06. > :19:09.like The Wirral, like Southampton, that indeed the Labour Party are

:19:09. > :19:13.certainly going do pretty much as well as the most recent national

:19:13. > :19:20.opinion polls have suggested. It may well be indeed that Gary

:19:20. > :19:23.Streeter was right, because that is one of, that the Conservatives are

:19:23. > :19:29.suffering as a result of a perception among the public that

:19:29. > :19:33.perhaps this Government is not as competent as they once thought.

:19:33. > :19:38.Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, the big problem they clearly face

:19:38. > :19:41.is that particularly in traditional Labour area, the areas where the

:19:41. > :19:45.Liberal Democrats were able to make a break through in the last ten

:19:45. > :19:49.years so, that is where they have been losing ground, it does raise

:19:49. > :19:53.questions about the extent to which the Liberal Democrats will indeed

:19:53. > :19:59.have much of a local Government base by the time of the next

:19:59. > :20:05.general election if this kind of decline is, continues in local

:20:06. > :20:09.elections next year and the year after. We have been joined by Eric

:20:09. > :20:11.Pickles. Mr Pickles we have had a lot of voices from the

:20:11. > :20:16.Conservatives talking about lack of competence in Government over the

:20:16. > :20:20.last two month, being the reason that you have been damaged tonight,

:20:20. > :20:28.and are down two to three -- 2-3% compared to last year. Do you think

:20:28. > :20:34.it is that? I think the real reason, the big reason is of course in the

:20:34. > :20:39.2000 and 2004 election, we went deep into Labour territory, and the

:20:39. > :20:46.seats we were defending would have gone just by Labour turning up, so

:20:46. > :20:51.I predicted before the start, that Labour would probably make 700 gain,

:20:51. > :20:56.it maybe hie higher. This is against 2010 that John Curtice is

:20:56. > :21:01.talking about with 12 months ago, your vote is down 2-3%. It is not

:21:01. > :21:06.to do with 2000. I am surprised that John is talking in these terms,

:21:06. > :21:11.because to compare this year with last year is like comparing apples

:21:11. > :21:16.with pears. The respectable, the normal way is to compare when

:21:16. > :21:22.people were last up for election, and to ignore the fact we did well

:21:22. > :21:26.in 2004 and 2000 seems to me to be not a very sensible way to get a

:21:26. > :21:30.sense analysis. I am happy to talk about it, aim happy to concede that

:21:30. > :21:34.Labour is doing well. Don't rubbish what John Curtice says because it

:21:34. > :21:39.is clear you did well last year, if you remember, I remember you

:21:39. > :21:43.sitting here and gloating about your improvement. I never gloated.

:21:43. > :21:50.You must accept.... You were still saying it was a triumph for the

:21:50. > :21:54.Labour Party. I remember it very well. The percentage decline of 2-

:21:54. > :21:57.3% against last year means there has been a slide, and your own

:21:57. > :22:00.supporters have been saying this is because of incompetence in

:22:00. > :22:05.Government over the last two months, that is the question I asked you.

:22:05. > :22:10.And the answer is, the Government has gone through a sticky patch, I

:22:10. > :22:16.concede that completely, but in terms of the fundamentals of, the

:22:16. > :22:21.interest rates are low, bringing down the deficit we, continue to,

:22:21. > :22:26.you are saying interest is high, you would like to increase them (I

:22:26. > :22:29.Am not saying that. Interest rates are going up. If you are on a

:22:29. > :22:33.standard variable rate, they are all putting their interest rates up

:22:33. > :22:37.at the moment Nothing compared to what they are in other parts of the

:22:37. > :22:41.community. Let me ask you a different point. You were a great

:22:41. > :22:48.spoefrt the idea of elected mayors for cities. We have heard that

:22:48. > :22:52.Nottingham has voted against that and we know that in a number of

:22:52. > :22:55.cities, the Labour councils are against it. Do you think you have

:22:55. > :23:00.misjudged people's appetite for mayors. This is something when

:23:00. > :23:04.Labour were in Government, they were in favour of mayors, and

:23:04. > :23:09.Nottingham, which is a bit of an oddity any way, it goes against

:23:09. > :23:16.grain of most things in local Government, but the important thing

:23:16. > :23:22.is, I am a bigger fan of localism and local people deciding, and I

:23:22. > :23:26.think we have seen a mayor elected or about to see a mayor elected

:23:26. > :23:31.tonight in Liverpool. We will see one elected in Salford. A place

:23:31. > :23:35.like Liverpool is a big global city and it will have a big advantage

:23:35. > :23:40.over other cities in the UK because it will be able to seek with a

:23:40. > :23:45.united leadership in a way that wasn't possible before. They didn't

:23:45. > :23:48.have a referendum. They just desighed to do it. Others have

:23:49. > :23:52.decided by a process of referendum. I am not so hung up in terms of the

:23:52. > :23:58.structure of local Government, but I do feel that British cities, if

:23:58. > :24:03.they are to be able to compete with the likes of Milan and Frankfurt

:24:03. > :24:06.and Chicago would probably have a better chance with a mayor. That

:24:06. > :24:11.isn't to rule out other forms of governance. We are about do, we

:24:11. > :24:14.have done a deal with, with the greater Manchester authority, we

:24:14. > :24:20.are negotiating with Yorkshire, to give a greater degree of autonomy

:24:21. > :24:26.to those areas. Is there the back of this, in your mind, that a lot

:24:26. > :24:31.of these big cities tend to be Labour held, in terms of the

:24:31. > :24:34.councils and you can diminish the power of Labour by having

:24:34. > :24:38.independent mayors? That is certainly not. It is likely to be

:24:38. > :24:41.true of London. If Boris Johnson wins London the assembly is likely

:24:41. > :24:46.to be Labour. But in terms of the city deals we have been trying to

:24:46. > :24:51.put together, there is more at stake here, than just nature of

:24:51. > :24:55.parties and we we have been able to work very closely and well with a

:24:55. > :25:00.number of Labour authorities working together. This is really

:25:00. > :25:05.about ensuring that that the cities are a big generator of growth

:25:05. > :25:08.within their region, and I think in terms of what we are seeing in

:25:08. > :25:11.Manchester, and which are the authoritys of different political

:25:11. > :25:15.parties coming together and operating together, particularly

:25:15. > :25:21.with regard to transport is something I would want to encourage

:25:21. > :25:25.generally. All right. Than you. We are joined by John Hes in Derby.

:25:25. > :25:32.Can you tell us a bit about Nottingham but also what is going

:25:32. > :25:34.on in Bassetlaw and the other places? Well, one interesting thing

:25:34. > :25:38.from Derby, is the Labour Party have exceeded expectation, they

:25:38. > :25:42.have taken more seats than they expected they had a target of four

:25:42. > :25:45.but they have taken seats off the Conservatives as well as

:25:45. > :25:49.independents and the Liberal Democrats, but the previous council

:25:50. > :25:54.leader, Philip Hickson who was the lead or testify Conservative-led

:25:54. > :25:59.coalition in Derby has said that David Cameron needs to get a grip

:25:59. > :26:04.and the coalitions needs to get a grip. He was particularly critical

:26:05. > :26:09.of the Government over the uncertainty over the bombardier

:26:09. > :26:15.train makers. In terms of what is happening in Nottingham. 57% voted

:26:15. > :26:19.no against the idea of having a city mayor, and the Labour party in

:26:19. > :26:24.Nottingham led a very robust campaign to secure that "no" vote.

:26:24. > :26:27.One of the problems of the yeah campaign in Nottingham was it never

:26:27. > :26:31.at -- yes campaign it never attracted a big hitter from

:26:31. > :26:35.politics, from the world of politics or the world of business.

:26:35. > :26:39.The "yes" campaign was always struggling to get the message

:26:39. > :26:43.across when the Labour group were arguing in leaflets and news

:26:43. > :26:47.letters that the cost of having a city mayor was going to be in

:26:47. > :26:53.excess of �1 million, at a time when council services in Nottingham

:26:53. > :26:56.were being cut by the coalition. That was their argument. That money,

:26:56. > :27:01.they totted up that was the cost of the referendum campaign. The

:27:01. > :27:06.possible cost of the mayoral election, the cost of the salary,

:27:06. > :27:11.plus all the half a dozen or so assistant mayor, so that argument

:27:11. > :27:15.in Nottingham against having a city mayor has proved to be very

:27:15. > :27:21.persuasive. There was a curious poster, I think -- which I think...

:27:21. > :27:27.Excuse me, I think we have this poster. Just. That is it. Racists

:27:27. > :27:31.want �1 million extra mayor. Who put that round? Well, that was put

:27:31. > :27:36.round by Nottingham Labour, and that has caused a lot of ill

:27:36. > :27:42.feeling in the last week at the campaign. They leafleted some of

:27:42. > :27:46.the biggest Tait, they argument was some of the right-wing party, the

:27:46. > :27:51.English Democrats and the British national party, were in fayre of

:27:51. > :27:55.directly elected mayor, and the leaflet was very very outspoken,

:27:55. > :28:00.and it gave the very strong indication -- favour. That it was

:28:00. > :28:05.racist who were in favour of an elected mayor in Nottingham. What

:28:05. > :28:09.do you make of that? Well I am not sure I would have put out a leaflet

:28:09. > :28:14.like that. I am sure you wouldn't, what do you make of the Labour

:28:14. > :28:19.Party doing it? I wouldn't have put out a leaflet like that myself. I

:28:19. > :28:24.am much of the same view as Eric, I do think that as to whether you

:28:24. > :28:29.have mayors or not, it is, it has to be a decision for local people.

:28:29. > :28:33.I am keen of them myself, I am a London member of Parliament and I

:28:33. > :28:37.have seen what a London mayor has done for our city. But I certainly

:28:37. > :28:44.wouldn't put out something like that. What do you make of it?

:28:44. > :28:48.thought it was a shoddy piece of work, I am very pleased that Chuka

:28:48. > :28:51.Umunna is disowning it. It seems people have lost out from this

:28:51. > :28:56.decision almost certainly the people of Nottingham, it would have

:28:56. > :29:00.been good to have had a debate on the merits of having a mayor,

:29:00. > :29:07.rather than on the suggestion it was going to cost a lot of money,

:29:07. > :29:11.but we will still continue to try and ensure that cities have a big

:29:11. > :29:14.say, whether they are Conservative stoirs Labour cities or Liberal

:29:15. > :29:24.Democrats, in term os being a powerhouse of the region. It makes

:29:24. > :29:28.Louise Stewart, what is the story from Hastings? This was a key

:29:28. > :29:32.target for Labour. They already hold this council. They wanted to

:29:32. > :29:35.increase their majority and they have done that at the expense of

:29:35. > :29:38.the Conservatives. They have made four gains from the Conservatives.

:29:38. > :29:43.They have also made one gain from the Liberal Democrats and that

:29:43. > :29:46.means there are now no longer any Liberal Democrat councillors on

:29:46. > :29:52.Hastings Council. They have done well here tonight, Labour. The

:29:52. > :29:57.Conservatives admit it's been a bad night for them. I spoke to the

:29:57. > :30:01.Hastings and Rye MP. She said they couldn't buck the national trend.

:30:01. > :30:07.There seemed to be a feeling of unease with policies at a national

:30:07. > :30:11.level that had been reflected here. So Labour have done well. The

:30:11. > :30:17.Liberal Democrats - very bad news for them. Their vote is right down.

:30:17. > :30:22.Overall, the turnout has been pretty low, in the low 30s. That's

:30:22. > :30:27.affected the big parties. We have got a slight glitch with our

:30:27. > :30:31.computers. What news are you picking up about other councils?

:30:31. > :30:37.The Labour Party are celebrating a win in Chorley in Lancashire and

:30:37. > :30:42.pointing out when the Conservatives won that in 2006 they said, "This

:30:42. > :30:47.is the beginning." Labour are asking the question, "What is it

:30:48. > :30:52.now?" In Eric Pickles' own seat in Essex, in Brentwood, you had one

:30:52. > :30:59.Labour gain in Brentwood? What happened in Brentwood speaks for

:30:59. > :31:09.what happened in the country. In the marginal ward, the Lib Dems won

:31:09. > :31:15.that. In the southward, which was a Labour seat, they took it back.

:31:15. > :31:19.It's returning to a position before it begins. There are seven Lib Dems

:31:19. > :31:24.on the whole council now. Are you in any way dismayed by what's

:31:24. > :31:29.coming through tonight? Are you confident three years from now the

:31:29. > :31:36.Tories will win the election, or at least lead another Tory-Liberal

:31:36. > :31:41.Democrat coalition? I hope I'm too wise to ever be complacent. You can

:31:41. > :31:46.speculate? Maybe I'll move a little bit towards that. The level of

:31:46. > :31:49.losses are exactly roughly the kind of losses that I was saying we

:31:49. > :31:54.would have this year. I can remember being on this programme

:31:54. > :31:57.four years ago and I think you said we would have difficulties

:31:57. > :32:02.defending these gains this four years' time and I said, "I will

:32:02. > :32:06.deal with that problem when it arrives." Indeed, it has arrived.

:32:06. > :32:15.Do I say this is an indication of what the result of the general

:32:15. > :32:20.election is? No. Labour have gained Norwich. Given the swings that we

:32:20. > :32:29.have seen - 9% in Wirral and in Southampton. There's been a big

:32:29. > :32:33.battle in Norwich. The Greens are represented heavily in Norwich.

:32:33. > :32:39.interesting thing is - for us, this is incredibly significant, to be

:32:39. > :32:45.taking seats away from the Conservatives in these areas, this

:32:45. > :32:50.is key for us as to whether we can form a majority in 2015. It is

:32:50. > :32:55.interesting listening to Eric talking about the general election.

:32:55. > :33:05.The Conservatives haven't won a general election since -- won a

:33:05. > :33:07.

:33:07. > :33:10.general election since 1992. David Cameron does not seem to be closer

:33:10. > :33:18.to sealing the deal with the British people. This is a party,

:33:18. > :33:22.the Conservative Party, which still It is stimulating a debate within

:33:22. > :33:28.the Conservative Party, that. There are Tories who will say to you,

:33:28. > :33:35."Which have been where you are now." William Hague made big gains

:33:35. > :33:40.and it didn't do him a lot of good? We approach this with humility.

:33:40. > :33:44.are joined by Rhodri Morgan from Cardiff, the former Labour Leader

:33:44. > :33:52.of the Assembly. What has gone on tonight in Wales? Has Labour made

:33:52. > :33:57.the kind of advances that the party was hoping to make? Yes, I think we

:33:57. > :34:01.did receive a drubbing in 2008 and the pendulum has swung back quite

:34:01. > :34:07.strongly to Labour. Whether it's strong enough to take control of

:34:07. > :34:11.the capital city of Cardiff, I can't tell you yet because there

:34:11. > :34:15.are glaciers in Iceland that move quicker than the count in Cardiff.

:34:15. > :34:25.It is looking good. I don't know whether it is good enough to take

:34:25. > :34:26.

:34:26. > :34:30.control. We did so badly in '04 and again in '08. We are hopeful. We

:34:30. > :34:33.have made big gains. We are still the default option. When people are

:34:33. > :34:36.cheesed off with a Conservative Government in Westminster, they

:34:36. > :34:44.will penalise the Conservative Government. They will vote Labour.

:34:44. > :34:49.The Lib Dems are seen as Cameron's cronies and they are in "crash and

:34:50. > :34:53.burn" mode. How well Labour will do is too early to say. It is just

:34:53. > :34:58.Cardiff where the count is slow? Yes. There are some goodish results.

:34:58. > :35:08.They are the results that you would have expected to see on the reverse

:35:08. > :35:09.

:35:09. > :35:12.swing of the pendulum. We are back in that mode where the default

:35:12. > :35:16.option is people want to protest against what the coalition is doing.

:35:17. > :35:20.They may vote SNP in Scotland, I don't know what the picture is up

:35:20. > :35:25.there. They vote Labour in droves in Wales. We have won back the

:35:26. > :35:32.councils we should never have lost, like Blaenau Gwent and others we

:35:32. > :35:36.have improved our position. taken Wrexham? Well, you know, that

:35:36. > :35:42.is the kind of thing I'm worried about may happen in Cardiff. We may

:35:42. > :35:47.be the largest party, but short of full outright majority control,

:35:47. > :35:52.then you have to look for partners. Would you look for the Lib Dems

:35:52. > :35:58.because they are in power in Westminster? Would you look to

:35:58. > :36:03.Plaid Cymru or to the independents? We don't know yet. It is very early

:36:03. > :36:08.days especially in the big cities. They are our big targets. They were

:36:08. > :36:16.captured by the Liberal Democrats. We want to win them back. Rhodri

:36:16. > :36:25.Morgan, thank you very much. We are in a fix here on results. Where are

:36:25. > :36:30.you getting the results from? Contacts! The latest figures we

:36:30. > :36:35.have are that Labour have gained 214 extra councillors, that the

:36:35. > :36:42.Conservatives have lost 142 and the Liberal Democrats have lost 62.

:36:42. > :36:47.Those are the figures that we had at about two or three minutes ago.

:36:47. > :36:55.I have different figures. I have down 152 the Conservatives and 22

:36:55. > :37:02.7-Up for Labour. These figures have gone in-- 227 up for Labour. These

:37:02. > :37:08.figures have gone in reverse. Confirmation Labour has gained

:37:08. > :37:13.Southampton. Yes. Let's join Jeremy Vine. What have you got for us? Are

:37:13. > :37:18.you abreast of all the latest you abreast of all the latest

:37:18. > :37:23.results? We are waiting for our machinery to get back on track. It

:37:23. > :37:27.doesn't affect this graphic. I want to show you from within our virtual

:37:27. > :37:36.lobby of the Houses of Parliament something about the issues going

:37:36. > :37:41.with Tim Montgomerie - how are the issues affecting the race and the

:37:41. > :37:49.parties' position? Let's have a look. Behind me you can see a graph

:37:49. > :37:56.with three issues on it. Education is one. Hospitals, the NHS and the

:37:56. > :38:00.economy. 1998 this is. The really fascinating thing is this. Look at

:38:00. > :38:04.the economy, bouncing along the bottom. People are asking what is

:38:04. > :38:08.the most important issue? Very few are saying the economy. They are

:38:08. > :38:15.saying schools and hospitals. During the Blair years, hospitals

:38:15. > :38:19.go through the roof. It comes back down again. Then we get to the

:38:19. > :38:23.economic crisis, the banking crisis, sub-prime, all of that. You see -

:38:23. > :38:30.this is how fascinating politics is! The economy shoots through the

:38:30. > :38:36.roof here. You get to 57% of people saying the economy is the key issue

:38:36. > :38:41.and it's above and beyond schools and hospitals - it leaves them

:38:41. > :38:44.trailing. That is where we are right now. We will look now at

:38:44. > :38:48.which party has the lead on the economy. Of course, this feeds

:38:48. > :38:53.through into the votes we have seen in council elections in years gone

:38:53. > :38:58.by and tonight. Here we go, the party with the lead on the economy,

:38:58. > :39:02.going back to 1998. You can see - this is the heyday of Tony Blair,

:39:02. > :39:06.Gordon Brown as Chancellor. Labour had a substantial lead. The

:39:06. > :39:10.Conservatives in second. Worth pointing out the Lib Dems down the

:39:10. > :39:16.bottom here, they are quite a long way down, 4%. They are trailing on

:39:16. > :39:18.the economy. And then you see the pattern here. So you go through.

:39:18. > :39:21.The Conservatives are trailing Labour with Tony Blair in power and,

:39:21. > :39:25.again, there is this junction here where the Conservatives come

:39:25. > :39:32.through and Labour go behind and it's all to do with the crash, all

:39:32. > :39:35.those events put together the crash. The Conservatives don't get into

:39:35. > :39:38.stable first place position. They come back down again. Labour push

:39:39. > :39:44.them close. We leave them ten points ahead of Labour on the

:39:44. > :39:48.economy, 33 to 23. What do we know about their performance now? This

:39:48. > :39:51.is 2011. What do we know about the Tories' performance, the Coalition

:39:51. > :39:56.Government's performance now on the economy, how it's fed through into

:39:56. > :40:03.the voting that we are seeing? Well, let's have a look at two polls for

:40:03. > :40:07.you, two graphs, going to 2011 and 2012. First column is the people

:40:07. > :40:11.who think the Coalition Government is managing the economy well and

:40:11. > :40:17.the second is those who say they are managing it badly. In 2011,

:40:17. > :40:21.this was the gap - 42% said the coalition were managing it well,

:40:21. > :40:28.57% said badly. That would be worrying enough, but look at 2012,

:40:28. > :40:33.look how the gap has widened. So now you have 34% of people saying

:40:33. > :40:38.they are managing it well, 63% saying they are managing it badly.

:40:38. > :40:43.So it may be that as part of this whole movement you are seeing away

:40:43. > :40:47.from the coalition parties, it's because of this, it is because on

:40:47. > :40:51.the economy they are starting to falter. As we saw from our first

:40:51. > :40:53.graph, it is far and away the graph, it is far and away the

:40:53. > :40:58.biggest issue for voters. Thank you. We will talk about that. We have

:40:58. > :41:04.news that the Conservatives have held Peterborough and you have

:41:04. > :41:07.another one? No, I'm bringing you a summary here of the key ones. The

:41:07. > :41:12.Conservatives have lost Great Yarmouth and Harlow to the Labour

:41:13. > :41:19.Party, they have lost to no overall control Gloucester, Hart, Worcester

:41:19. > :41:23.and the Labour Party have gained control from councils that were in

:41:23. > :41:27.no overall control, Cannock Chase, Carlisle, Exeter, North

:41:27. > :41:33.Lincolnshire and Thurrock. Liberal Democrats have lost

:41:33. > :41:38.Cambridge. It might be under the controlling vote of the Mayor. Not

:41:38. > :41:44.sure of the detail yet. That is possible. We will let you know.

:41:45. > :41:49.have taken control of Cheltenham, so I understand. Can I say

:41:49. > :41:59.something about the economics? was going to ask you. You saw the

:41:59. > :42:04.figures. An increasing disaffection with economic policy. Perhaps you

:42:04. > :42:10.would start, Eric Pickles? reasons that the coalition came

:42:10. > :42:14.together two years ago are just as strong, which was to deal with the

:42:14. > :42:18.appalling economic legacy that we inherited, to deal with the deficit

:42:18. > :42:24.and to start that process of rebuilding the British economy. Now,

:42:24. > :42:29.nobody said it was going to be easy. Nobody said, "We will get it

:42:29. > :42:33.through quickly." If you talk on the doorsteps, and you suggest the

:42:33. > :42:37.Labour alternative of continuing to borrow our way out of debt, I think

:42:37. > :42:43.there is still a lot of resentment for how Labour got us into this

:42:43. > :42:48.mess and the fact that Labour doesn't really have a coherent plan.

:42:48. > :42:53.Chuka Umunna? I disagree with that. In May 2010, unemployment was

:42:53. > :42:58.falling, growth was rising and the recovery was settling in. Since the

:42:58. > :43:03.Government's Spending Review, we have seen a contraction of 0.2%. I

:43:03. > :43:08.think two years into Government, it won't do to carry on saying, "It's

:43:08. > :43:10.Labour's mess." What I was going to say about that graphic - usually

:43:10. > :43:14.historically, the Conservatives may have delivered economic policies

:43:14. > :43:18.which aren't necessarily seen to be fair. But have got away with it, if

:43:18. > :43:22.you like, because they have perhaps been seen as efficient and

:43:22. > :43:26.competent. I think the lethal mix for them now - and I have no doubt

:43:26. > :43:31.that this is behind the poor results that they have today - is

:43:31. > :43:37.that mixture of not just being out of touch and being seen to be

:43:37. > :43:42.unfair, but also seen to be incompetent of two. That was lethal

:43:42. > :43:45.to John Major's Government and helped lead to the Labour victory

:43:45. > :43:49.in 1997. Competence and efficiency are something which is seen, if you

:43:49. > :43:55.look at the recent polls anyway, to be lacking and I think it will not

:43:55. > :43:58.do to say, "Oh well, we inherited this mess." People do look when you

:43:58. > :44:03.have been in power for you to resolve those problems. Eric talks

:44:03. > :44:13.about borrowing. The whole of this strategy was predicated on reducing

:44:13. > :44:19.the borrowing. That forecast had What do you make of the potential

:44:19. > :44:23.arrival in France of a socialist President who holds views more

:44:23. > :44:28.along the lines of Ed Ballss? Do you think that will be a game

:44:28. > :44:34.changer? Europe? Do you support the proposals he has of spending?

:44:34. > :44:37.No, I think he is proposing a marpbgal rate of tax and that is

:44:37. > :44:40.certainly something I wouldn't entertain here. I think the more

:44:40. > :44:44.worrying thin S I was nervous for the prospects of our economy,

:44:44. > :44:49.because you know, I am pleased that our sister party in France is doing

:44:49. > :44:54.well, but I think the prospects of reaching agreement to resolve the

:44:54. > :44:58.issues in the eurozone are probably reduced with different party, you

:44:58. > :45:01.know, centre-right party, with Angela Merkel and obviously a left-

:45:01. > :45:06.wing party in France, and of course, it was this feeling that the

:45:06. > :45:09.eurozone crisis was going to resolve itself that brought back

:45:10. > :45:12.business confidence, and I think given there will be more

:45:12. > :45:16.disagreement, perhaps at European level, I think that is going to

:45:16. > :45:21.dent confidence. That is coming on top of a domestic situation here,

:45:21. > :45:24.where before the effects of that have fed through, we have an

:45:24. > :45:29.economy which has gone back in to recession, that is deeply worrying.

:45:29. > :45:33.The question is, will they change course? That is what the results

:45:33. > :45:40.seem to be saying. Do you want to comment on that Chris? I am

:45:40. > :45:43.following some of other news round and seeing Conservatives deeply

:45:43. > :45:48.disappointed with the results. Saying things like gay marriage is

:45:48. > :45:56.the sort of thing that perhaps the Conservatives should be distancing

:45:56. > :46:01.themselves from. T -- from. It is wrong to be appear to prejudice. I

:46:01. > :46:05.hope the Conservative leadership will mot take any notice of some of

:46:05. > :46:11.the right-wing backbenchers. Let us leave the coalition. We have now

:46:11. > :46:17.got some more council results in Emily. Yes, I will take do you the

:46:17. > :46:20.score board first. We have had 71 of the 11 councils throughout the

:46:20. > :46:24.of the 11 councils throughout the UK back now. Labour is on 37, and

:46:24. > :46:27.they have made 15, gains of 15 tonight. Conservatives have 17,

:46:27. > :46:33.they are down nine. The Liberal Democrats have lost one tonight,

:46:33. > :46:37.that is Cambridge, look at that in a bit more detail soon. 14 are hung,

:46:37. > :46:41.but five there, if you make sense of that numbers have slipped out of

:46:41. > :46:45.no overall control, and we will see where the gains have been.

:46:45. > :46:49.Southampton, a very interesting result here for Labour. Let me show

:46:49. > :46:53.you what has happened. The Conservatives been knocked off the

:46:53. > :46:57.top spot. You can see this red line has pushed the blue to the edge.

:46:57. > :47:01.There was a dispute between the Conservative-run council and the

:47:01. > :47:05.unions over cuts in council pay, this is what happened overnight.

:47:05. > :47:09.The Conservatives down ten, Labour making those very very strong gains

:47:09. > :47:13.of 11, at the expense of both partners in the Government. Let me

:47:13. > :47:16.take you to some more results now. What about Wirral? This was

:47:16. > :47:20.controlled by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats since

:47:20. > :47:24.February, when Labour lost a vote of no confidence over a Social

:47:24. > :47:28.Services report, so it has slipped out of their control, but look what

:47:28. > :47:32.has happened now. They have I had a so lil performance, they are on a

:47:32. > :47:39.majority of eight. Labour's up seven, Conservatives are down five.

:47:39. > :47:44.The Liberal Democrats are down five too. Cambridge, the one I mentioned.

:47:44. > :47:49.This is a pretty good result for Ed Miliband, because the Liberal

:47:49. > :47:53.Democrats were looking OK in Cambridge, they had a majority of

:47:53. > :47:57.round eight here, Labour took four seats from them last time. This

:47:57. > :48:00.time they have finished off the result. So the Liberal Democrats

:48:00. > :48:04.losing four, Labour gaining four. What this means is not they have

:48:04. > :48:08.taken the council, but they have pushed the Liberal Democrats off

:48:08. > :48:12.the top spot there, the council is now in no overall control. One more,

:48:12. > :48:16.which we were talking about earlier but I couldn't bring the full

:48:16. > :48:19.result, is Plymouth. This was a very tight Westminster race, I

:48:19. > :48:23.guess you could say, the Conservatives and Labour. It was

:48:23. > :48:26.Conservative at the start of the night. It is now Labour. Labour on

:48:26. > :48:29.31, the Conservatives on 26. This is something we were watching with

:48:29. > :48:35.particular interest to see what happened to the UKIP vote here.

:48:35. > :48:38.They were fielding a full slate of 19. If I show you what has happened,

:48:38. > :48:44.they haven't made any gains here. We will look a bit more widely at

:48:44. > :48:48.the share of the vote when we get more of the UKIP places in. We did

:48:48. > :48:53.see that gain in North East Lincolnshire but in Plymouth where

:48:53. > :49:00.they had high hopes they failed to secure any councillors. Thank you.

:49:00. > :49:08.Let us go to Swindon, and join ball tarl trop. Swindon had all seats up

:49:08. > :49:16.today, didn't they. What happened. As they did. They had boundary

:49:16. > :49:19.changes, which meant this council had an entire election o the

:49:19. > :49:25.Conservatives knew they had to fight hard. They are going to come

:49:25. > :49:28.out of night with a one seat majority, they have survived in

:49:28. > :49:33.sole control by a whisker t it was a battle that the Labour Party

:49:33. > :49:38.fought very hard. Lots of senior Government ministers had come down,

:49:38. > :49:41.lots of senior Labour figures had and campaigned, but attend of the

:49:41. > :49:45.night, the Conservatives have managed to retain their imaginety,

:49:45. > :49:49.one other interesting foot note to add, the Liberal Democrats who are

:49:49. > :49:54.a small party here they started with four and managed to retain

:49:54. > :50:00.four. They might be pleased at that. So that is one of the few councils

:50:01. > :50:06.completely fresh voting right through. Nick, you economy comment?

:50:06. > :50:16.Sorry I was briefly distracted. You have to tor give me. What were you

:50:16. > :50:19.

:50:19. > :50:25.distracted by? By finding out where Chris Rennad was calling for --

:50:25. > :50:28.talking about a menster who was calling for -- we have moving from

:50:28. > :50:32.a Conservative backbencher calling for a change of strategy, to

:50:32. > :50:36.Conservative ministers calling for a change of strategy, that is

:50:36. > :50:41.significant. And what is your bet on it happening? Well, my bet is

:50:41. > :50:44.there will be huge pressure on those sorts of small liberal issues

:50:44. > :50:47.where it is House of Lords reform, where it is plans for gay marriage,

:50:47. > :50:51.and there will be pressure to do things that satisfy the

:50:51. > :50:54.Conservative base, one little example the Daily Mail and Sun have

:50:54. > :50:58.been told that the Prime Minister is about to announce that he will

:50:58. > :51:03.after all, after quite a lot of pressure, put pressure on to the

:51:03. > :51:07.internet service providers, to make it easier for parents to block

:51:07. > :51:10.pornography. I think what you will just see is a shift in the sort of

:51:10. > :51:14.announcement Governments make which are in the direction of

:51:14. > :51:18.announcement that please their base and away from things that don't.

:51:18. > :51:23.And the reform of the House of Lords? Well that flb the Queen's

:51:23. > :51:27.Speech. It has to be. It is a one of the crucial things the Deputy

:51:27. > :51:30.Prime Minister has asked for, but I think you will see a shift in the

:51:30. > :51:36.language, away from delivering House of Lords reform, more towards

:51:36. > :51:42.a language of giving the House of Commons the opportunity to consider

:51:42. > :51:46.the possibility. How cross do you think the Prime Minister will be?

:51:46. > :51:52.We are seen over the Jeremy Hunt business, an angry side of daibg,

:51:52. > :51:56.that hadn't before been going rather easy, and he was famous for

:51:56. > :52:01.being calm and easy and sunly -- suddenly he is turning on Denis

:52:01. > :52:04.Skinner and saying go and take retirement. I think he was angry.

:52:04. > :52:07.But I think it was a calculated anger. I think in part there was

:52:07. > :52:11.anger and people who know him behind the scenes have seen flashs

:52:11. > :52:14.of that, but I think he was trying to rally his party in the House of

:52:14. > :52:18.Commons. He was trying to say them over there, they are the opposition

:52:18. > :52:21.they are the hen any, they are trying to make hay of this, so I

:52:21. > :52:26.think David Cameron was also, and I think again you will see more of

:52:26. > :52:32.this in the weeks to come, the Prime Minister saying to his own

:52:32. > :52:38.party, "I am a Tory, would you like to remember that?" that is what he

:52:39. > :52:44.was saying. Are you saying this is a kind of back to basics strategy.

:52:44. > :52:49.No, this was John Major's phrase, the back to basis but there is no

:52:49. > :52:53.doubt that there is pressure on the Prime Minister to not move, be talk

:52:53. > :52:57.about when the Prime Minister moves forward, in terms of liberal policy,

:52:57. > :53:00.for example introducing gay marriage or goes slower. So Nick

:53:00. > :53:06.Clegg will be shrinking in his seat during Prime Minister's Questions

:53:06. > :53:14.as the Prime Minister comes out with more and more. Is that your

:53:14. > :53:17.view? He He tends to get abusive when he is losing the argument.

:53:17. > :53:21.That kairbl ageism demonstrated towards Dennis skin e it is one of

:53:21. > :53:24.the moments where you can see people on his side cringing. What

:53:24. > :53:30.we needs to do is focus on the argument, don't get into the abuse.

:53:30. > :53:37.It is hard, because it is a circus. I think we need to overhaul the way

:53:37. > :53:41.it is done. Before we come up to the news Eric, what is your view?

:53:41. > :53:47.know it is half past two, but I think Nick is getting a wee bit of

:53:47. > :53:52.ahead of himself. These results are entirely predictable, we are

:53:52. > :53:55.predictable at the beginning of the eve neng, they are a result of

:53:55. > :54:01.going deep into Labour territory, four years ago and eight years ago,

:54:01. > :54:07.and they are not of a magnitude that would suggest that kind of

:54:07. > :54:10.thing. Let us see are Labour going to be in control of Glasgow? Is Ken

:54:10. > :54:16.Livingstone going to be the Mayor of London? Are the Labour Party

:54:16. > :54:22.going to be in control of Cardiff? These are really big issue, and for,

:54:22. > :54:30.to have the kind of breakthrough they need to take London. In 2000

:54:30. > :54:36.when we lost round 4 35 seats Eric said it is heading to the rocks.

:54:36. > :54:41.Now it is OK, it is expected.. You were down to rock bottom. You had

:54:41. > :54:51.lost a lot of seats. I love the way you can remember what you said four

:54:51. > :54:52.

:54:53. > :54:56.years ago at 2.30:. Interestingly, David, Gerald didn't just cite gay

:54:56. > :55:03.marriage as a problem for the party but House of Lords reform and he is

:55:03. > :55:06.a minister. On that point we take a a minister. On that point we take a

:55:06. > :55:09.pause. Let us have a news update. Thank you. Labour is on course to

:55:09. > :55:13.make significant gains following the local election in England

:55:13. > :55:15.Scotland and Wales. In England there have been large swins to

:55:15. > :55:19.Labour, with both the kphithvingsver Conservatives and

:55:19. > :55:23.Liberal Democrats losing councillors. The Conservatives have

:55:23. > :55:28.lost Southampton Harlow and Great Yarmouth to Labour, who have gained

:55:28. > :55:32.control of Norwich, Exeter, Derby and Carlisle. UKIP appears to have

:55:32. > :55:36.made gains bs, initial figures suggest the lowest turn out in

:55:36. > :55:41.England for more than a Dick Ade. In Plymouth the Conservative MP

:55:41. > :55:45.Gary Streeter said the party was taking a bit of a beating and

:55:45. > :55:50.predicted the council would fall to Labour. The interesting thing for

:55:50. > :55:55.me was that doing a lot of work on the doorstep was that people were

:55:55. > :55:58.unhappy, obviously about the last two months of our Government, and

:55:58. > :56:02.many of them said we can accept many things from the Conservative

:56:02. > :56:05.Party, but we expect them to be competent. That is one of the

:56:05. > :56:08.messages coming across. The first 1 months of the coalition Government

:56:08. > :56:14.we have done very well. The last two months not so good. We have to

:56:14. > :56:18.regain our sure footedness if we are going to capture lost trust and

:56:18. > :56:22.confidence. Dr Evan Harris said many of his party were tired of

:56:22. > :56:25.being the fall guys within Government, and that more needed to

:56:25. > :56:29.be done to differentiate them from their Conservative coalition

:56:30. > :56:32.partners. We do want to see increasing efforts, to make clear

:56:32. > :56:36.that not everything that a Conservative-led Government does,

:56:36. > :56:40.is something that Liberal Democrats would not be seeking to undo, in

:56:40. > :56:44.the next Parliament. Obviousry there are joint things we share,

:56:44. > :56:47.but these are two different party, and that needs to get across.

:56:47. > :56:52.Liverpool and Salford have been choosing their first directly

:56:52. > :56:55.elected mayors but Nottingham has voted against having one. 57% of

:56:55. > :57:01.voters rejected the idea in a ballot which drew fewer than a

:57:01. > :57:04.quarter of voter, the city was one of 11 to stage a referendum on

:57:05. > :57:08.whether or not elect a mayor. There are reports of a low turn out in

:57:08. > :57:11.Scotland as well. Councils will begin counting ballot papers

:57:11. > :57:15.tomorrow morning, where attention will focus on the battle for

:57:15. > :57:24.control of the country's biggest cities. Every seat on Scotland's 32

:57:24. > :57:31.authorities has been contested. All Welsh councils exceptage --

:57:31. > :57:35.Anglesey have held elections. Reresults not be announced until

:57:35. > :57:39.this afternoon. In the capital voters have been electing the mayor.

:57:39. > :57:47.Results will be announced on Friday evening. Those are the latest

:57:47. > :57:52.headline, now back to Vote 2012. Well, can we look at Wrexham,

:57:52. > :57:58.because we have had a result in. is the first one in from Wales and

:57:58. > :58:01.the the largest town in North Wales. It stayed hung, this was going to

:58:01. > :58:04.be a pretty tough mountain to climb for Labour, but look what they have

:58:04. > :58:09.done overnight. They are on 23, Conservatives on five, the Liberal

:58:09. > :58:14.Democrats now on four, look at that, Plaid Cymru on one, this collection,

:58:14. > :58:18.this group of other, sort of a curious combination of people who

:58:18. > :58:21.don't necessarily agree, will make it an interesting one to watch.

:58:21. > :58:24.This was Conservative and Liberal Democrat, sorry Liberal Democrat

:58:25. > :58:27.controlled and it is now left the Labour Party as the largest one

:58:27. > :58:32.they have made extraordinary gains, they are up ten, the Liberal

:58:32. > :58:36.Democrats have taken a hit, down seven, not so good for Plaid Cymru,

:58:36. > :58:40.they are down two, and that is the first one we have had in from Wales,

:58:41. > :58:45.if they can show that kind of picture David, in places where they

:58:45. > :58:55.won't see anything change colour, they could never have take then

:58:55. > :58:55.

:58:55. > :03:03.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 46 seconds

:03:03. > :03:07.outright, they might have to have a Chris Rennad, you said that the

:03:07. > :03:11.Liberal Democrats had made gains in Winchester. Our figures show you

:03:11. > :03:21.lost two seats there and the Conservatives gained two? We have

:03:21. > :03:26.gained two including Martin Todd. He is now Councillor Martin Todd.

:03:26. > :03:35.There have been two Lib Dem gains in Winchester... So you may have

:03:35. > :03:43.lost four? I haven't got the total figures. I had noticed for

:03:43. > :03:48.Eastleigh a complete clean sweep... So everything is rosy? I'm not

:03:48. > :03:55.saying that. Where we have a Lib Dem MP and council, we win every

:03:56. > :04:00.single council seat today. We have a new minister here. Damian Green,

:04:00. > :04:04.the Immigration Minister, has joined us. He was asking what the

:04:04. > :04:09.current state of the parties in the key wards was. So let's have a look

:04:09. > :04:12.key wards was. So let's have a look at that, Jeremy.

:04:12. > :04:19.We were talking about the strength of Labour in the North and their

:04:19. > :04:22.problems of breaking through in the South. If we bring the map on and

:04:22. > :04:26.see where we are at the moment. This is the battleground of the

:04:26. > :04:31.councils up for election. If I make them flash, you will see where

:04:31. > :04:36.there have been gains. You flash, the flashing colours are the gains.

:04:36. > :04:42.Carlisle, where I am now, has gone to Labour from no overall control.

:04:42. > :04:51.The same with Birmingham, here in the Midlands, flashing red. And

:04:51. > :04:54.then on the South coast, Exeter has gone to Labour, they had

:04:54. > :04:57.councillors there before, but they didn't have control. The same with

:04:57. > :05:02.Plymouth. We will keep looking to see whether we can make that

:05:02. > :05:05.journey from London to Land's End without meeting a single Labour

:05:05. > :05:12.councillor. Looking at London, looking at the country and Labour's

:05:12. > :05:17.performance in the South. We can show you what the key wards say.

:05:17. > :05:21.Then we will break it down. We are looking first here at key ward

:05:21. > :05:26.change since 2008. This is the overall figure here and I will give

:05:26. > :05:36.it to you. So far on what we have got, since 2008, the Conservatives

:05:36. > :05:39.down 10%, Labour up 18%, Liberal Democrats down 9%, the others up 1%.

:05:39. > :05:43.2008, as has been said on this programme, was a very good night

:05:43. > :05:46.for the Conservatives, a very bad night for Gordon Brown's Labour at

:05:46. > :05:51.the time. So you would expect the Conservatives to come down a bit,

:05:51. > :05:58.Labour up a bit. What happens if we ask the computer to split this into

:05:58. > :06:05.regions? Let's do that. Let's look first of all at the North.

:06:05. > :06:08.Conservatives down 12%, Labour up 21%, a huge rise in the North for

:06:08. > :06:13.them. So regaining seats in their heartlands. Down 11% for the

:06:13. > :06:17.Liberal Democrats and up 2% for the others. Remember that figure, up

:06:17. > :06:21.21%. Have a look at the South. Interesting to see what in-roads

:06:21. > :06:30.Labour can make in what is not their natural territory.

:06:30. > :06:33.Conservatives down 10% in their own heartlands, Labour up 13%, Liberal

:06:33. > :06:37.Democrats down 7%, others up 4%. So you are seeing them doing well in

:06:37. > :06:40.the South and well in the North, Labour, but they are not doing

:06:41. > :06:44.quite as well in the South of England as they are in their

:06:44. > :06:53.heartlands. They are regaining their heartlands and some. We will

:06:53. > :06:58.have a look at one more graphic for you. It is this. Key wards change

:06:58. > :07:02.since 2011. This is with last year. The council elections last year

:07:02. > :07:06.were more problematic for the Conservatives. They are still down,

:07:06. > :07:11.5% here on last year's performance. Last year, they told us they were

:07:11. > :07:17.amazed to be holding steady. That is a retreat on last year's

:07:18. > :07:21.position. Labour up 2% so far. These figures may be unstable at

:07:21. > :07:25.the moment. They will stabilise through the night. Then you see the

:07:25. > :07:32.Liberal Democrats, who had a terrible night last year, are

:07:32. > :07:37.pretty much level-pegging. And the others 3%. So that is the situation.

:07:37. > :07:40.If you look across our key wards and compare with last year, the

:07:40. > :07:45.comparison, which is impacting on the seats and wards that are

:07:45. > :07:49.changing hands, is with 2008. It is interesting to see Labour regaining

:07:49. > :07:53.its vote and the differences between the way it's doing it in

:07:53. > :07:56.the North and the way it is doing it in the South. Later, we will see

:07:56. > :08:02.how much of this map down here has got red on it.

:08:02. > :08:12.How soon is it before we can give a projected national share, in other

:08:12. > :08:12.

:08:12. > :08:17.words how this reflects the opinion of the UK as a whole? We need our

:08:17. > :08:27.key wards to stabilise further. I hope in the next hour we can do

:08:27. > :08:29.

:08:29. > :08:33.that. I think in the next hour, we would hope so. We had this glitch

:08:33. > :08:37.earlier on, which has slowed us down a bit. By that stage in the

:08:37. > :08:41.night, you would hope to see the ballpark figure for the parties and

:08:42. > :08:45.then you can work out what advance then you can work out what advance

:08:45. > :08:51.Labour is making here. John, you had the same problems as

:08:52. > :08:55.everybody else did? We did. What is your take on this projected

:08:56. > :09:01.national share? How near are you to getting to that? The truth is, I

:09:01. > :09:06.would hope we will be there within an hour or so. The truth is we are

:09:06. > :09:10.still bouncing around what the exact figures should be. You will

:09:10. > :09:13.be able to see from the figure Jeremy has shown that certainly we

:09:13. > :09:17.are not going to be looking at figures that were as good for the

:09:17. > :09:21.Conservatives as they were last year and we should be looking at

:09:21. > :09:26.figures for Labour that are rather better than last year. That is a

:09:26. > :09:32.key part of the story. Eric Pickles disliked the fact I was comparing

:09:32. > :09:35.the results with last year. So let me give him a couple of other

:09:36. > :09:40.comparisons that he may be happier with. One is that while the Labour

:09:40. > :09:45.Party has made a substantial advance on 2008 and has made

:09:45. > :09:51.further progress on last year, what is also true is that if we go back

:09:51. > :10:01.to the results in 1996, the last results before Labour came to power

:10:01. > :10:30.

:10:30. > :10:34.in 1997 - they are more or less the In contrast the Conservatives are

:10:34. > :10:38.down about four or five points. It is a fair point that Eric Pickles

:10:38. > :10:41.has that in a sense, so far, at least, putting two things together

:10:41. > :10:46.the drop that the Conservatives are suffering tonight is pretty much

:10:46. > :10:49.not unusual for a party in Government. However, the extent of

:10:49. > :10:53.the drop in the Liberal Democrat vote, which effectively is a

:10:53. > :10:58.halving of support in the local elections in 2010, is not simply

:10:58. > :11:02.the norm of a party and that we're seeing a repetition tonight of the

:11:02. > :11:07.message of last year, which is that the coalition is costing the

:11:07. > :11:10.Liberal Democrats seriously, well and beyond the disgruntlement of

:11:10. > :11:14.some voters you might expect because it's a party of Government.

:11:14. > :11:20.How do you distinguish between mid- term blues as you might say, though

:11:20. > :11:25.I'm never clear what that actually means, because it suggests people

:11:25. > :11:28.are feckless with their votes, but mid-term blues and a trend that can

:11:29. > :11:33.predict a result of an election three years from now? Two points.

:11:33. > :11:35.The point is that for a Government party to lose five points as

:11:36. > :11:40.compared with the position at the time of the general election in a

:11:40. > :11:43.middle of a Parliament is not unusual. In contrast, a party

:11:43. > :11:46.losing half its vote since the position of the last general

:11:46. > :11:49.election is unusual. That's the reason why making a distinction

:11:49. > :11:54.between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. That Liberal

:11:54. > :11:57.Democrat loss looks an awful lot more serious. The second thing, yes,

:11:57. > :12:01.none of us can predict the future. There's nothing inevitable in

:12:01. > :12:08.what's going to happen in three years' time. For a party that's

:12:08. > :12:11.going to convince the comaentary, but it looks on course for an

:12:11. > :12:17.election, that it looks that it will be difficult to reverse the

:12:17. > :12:22.tide, the Labour Party are in that league. They're doing well, but not

:12:22. > :12:26.doing so well that we couldn't conceive of the possibility of the

:12:26. > :12:31.Conservatives recovering. Thank you. We're joined by Bernard Jenkin, the

:12:31. > :12:33.MP for north Essex, who has been patiently waiting there. Good

:12:34. > :12:43.evening. Good evening. Are you alarmed by these results tonight?

:12:44. > :12:46.

:12:46. > :12:50.No. I think Professor Curtice puts everything in perspective. The

:12:50. > :12:56.Labour Party aren't making the gains they would need to make to

:12:56. > :13:01.put them in an election winning position. I was also list tong what

:13:01. > :13:09.Jeremy Vine was saying about the importance of the economy. That's

:13:09. > :13:13.the issue that the coalition needs to address. And the coalition is

:13:13. > :13:17.still ahead of the Labour Party in terms of support and understanding.

:13:17. > :13:21.David Cameron still polls significantly ahead of the Labour

:13:21. > :13:25.leader, which suggests we're not at some kind of tipping point moment,

:13:25. > :13:29.but there's a clear message that we should talk about the economy and

:13:29. > :13:33.the things that matter to voters rather than drifting off onto

:13:33. > :13:39.subjects that are dominating the Queen's speech. What kind of drift

:13:39. > :13:45.would that be? I think the coalition will look completely out

:13:45. > :13:51.of touch if we follow through with House of Lords reform. I just

:13:51. > :13:54.correct Nick on one thing, the House of Lords reform is not a

:13:54. > :13:58.coalition, in the coalition agreement. At agreement was that

:13:58. > :14:02.the committee should look at a drift bill. That obligation has

:14:03. > :14:08.been discharged. Our manifesto said there should be a consensus.

:14:08. > :14:11.There's clearly no consensus. To jam up the legislative system with

:14:11. > :14:15.House of Lords reform, when really the Conservative Party and indeed,

:14:15. > :14:18.the country, want the Government to concentrate on measures to help the

:14:18. > :14:22.economy, I think, would be the coalition getting out of the touch

:14:22. > :14:26.with the public. Would you like to see the House of Lords reform

:14:26. > :14:30.dropped for the Queen's speech? I've always been in favour of House

:14:30. > :14:38.of Lords reform any way. It seems to me to vai largely democratic

:14:38. > :14:44.second chamber, actually increasing -- increases legitimacy. But he's

:14:44. > :14:49.right, the economy is the central issue. Trying to analyse politics

:14:49. > :14:52.without saying the economy is a central issue, is missing the point.

:14:53. > :14:58.As a Government we have to show more competence, against a

:14:58. > :15:05.background of a strong economy, governments can have rocky patches

:15:05. > :15:09.and nobody notices. I can't tell you how many worst weeks ever Tony

:15:09. > :15:14.Blair had when he was winning election after election. Margaret

:15:14. > :15:17.Thatcher kept winning because the economy was so good. The fact

:15:17. > :15:23.you're concentrating on getting the economy right, as we are, doesn't

:15:23. > :15:28.mean you can't do other things as well. We've done welfare we form,

:15:28. > :15:32.we have the first innovation cap ever. This idea that we've been

:15:32. > :15:37.getting from Conservatives tonight that the party is insufficiently

:15:37. > :15:44.Conservative with a big "C", you don't subscribe to that? I take the

:15:44. > :15:49.point that we have to appeal across a broad front. Of korves? Well of

:15:49. > :15:54.centre -- Of Conservatives? Well of centre right opinion. Are there

:15:54. > :16:04.ways that isn't happen sning think those to the right of where I

:16:04. > :16:10.am, they want to hear more of the issues. There's more of the Ann

:16:10. > :16:15.theory. It is possible to be in control of keeping immigration down

:16:15. > :16:22.and also keeping up overseas aid. That isn't incoherent. That's what

:16:22. > :16:25.the message that the Government has to get across. In politics they say

:16:25. > :16:29.the opposition is in front of you and the enemy behind you. I think

:16:29. > :16:32.some of what we're seeing tonight is that some of the David Cameron's

:16:32. > :16:36.enemies on the right of the party are emerging. They were angry with

:16:36. > :16:42.him for not winning in the general election. They're angry for

:16:42. > :16:47.Conservative losses tonight. The response they should be anti-

:16:47. > :16:51.democratic and not reform the Lords or should go back to ending

:16:51. > :16:57.discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, things like

:16:58. > :17:01.that. It's not playing well for previous leaders and I don't think

:17:01. > :17:06.it will be the right approach now. There are divisions opening up on

:17:06. > :17:12.these issues. Do you agree with that Bernard Jenkin?... People he

:17:12. > :17:16.would call right-wing. I'm one of the people that might well support

:17:16. > :17:19.the gay marriage proposal because I've always been on the liberal

:17:19. > :17:22.wing of the Conservative Party. So I think this narrative that the

:17:22. > :17:26.liberals are trying to run to split the Conservative Party is in the a

:17:26. > :17:30.very coalition minded way of approaching this. I think the

:17:30. > :17:34.coalition has got to concentrate on what matters to people. People are

:17:34. > :17:37.worried about levels of taxation. They're worried about

:17:37. > :17:41.competitiveness, worried about lack of job creation in the economy. The

:17:41. > :17:45.Government ought to bring forward measures to tackle these things.

:17:45. > :17:48.The liberals would call them right- wing. Most people would call them

:17:48. > :17:53.common sense. We've heard the liberals say this about so many of

:17:53. > :18:00.the measures that the Government has sought to put through, has put

:18:00. > :18:10.through and people like Chris have voted for them. Chris who? Chris

:18:10. > :18:13.

:18:14. > :18:20.Rennad. It's an attempt to stir up division, show a different shaigs -

:18:20. > :18:23.- differentiation. Can I say something about what Damien said

:18:23. > :18:28.actually. David Cameron is not Tony Blair. That's the first point. The

:18:28. > :18:32.second point is a lot of this talk and Bernard mentioned it, about

:18:32. > :18:34.whether or not this is the kinds of results we're seeing today are good

:18:35. > :18:38.enough for Labour to form a majority, I don't think we're

:18:38. > :18:43.getting ahead of ourselves. I think the results that we have seen in

:18:43. > :18:48.the south, in the east, in the south-west, particularly in the

:18:48. > :18:52.east actually are quite significant. We only got ten constituencies out

:18:52. > :18:56.of 196 in those three regions. Unless we change that we can't form

:18:56. > :19:00.a majority. But equally, we're not going to be the only one of the two

:19:00. > :19:04.main parties seeking to form a majority. The Tories, who haven't

:19:04. > :19:07.formed a majority since '92, will be looking to do the same thing.

:19:07. > :19:11.That should be a measure against which people look at this thing in

:19:11. > :19:18.the round and look at how the major parties are doing. Let's go to

:19:18. > :19:22.Manchester, Mark Ramsbotham, you lost your Council seat tonight I

:19:22. > :19:29.believe? Yes, that's correct, yes, I did. What's the reason for that

:19:29. > :19:33.in your view? I think it's a combination of two factors, one

:19:33. > :19:37.we're mid-way through a Government and all governments experience a

:19:37. > :19:41.degree of unpopularity mid-term. And I think allied with that this

:19:41. > :19:44.particular Government having to take really unpopular decisions,

:19:44. > :19:48.difficult decisions in very difficult economic circumstances.

:19:48. > :19:54.We've got a double whammy really. In cities like Manchester, which

:19:54. > :19:58.are really in Labour heart land, Liberal Democrats will take the hit

:19:58. > :20:04.on that. How many seats, you had 12 I think were being voted on, is

:20:04. > :20:09.that right? You were defending 12 seats? We were defending 12 and we

:20:09. > :20:13.lost all 12 seats here. Now we're town to nine seats on the Council.

:20:13. > :20:17.We're still the only opposition party, but a much depleted

:20:17. > :20:24.opposition. What do you think the impact of that on a general

:20:24. > :20:27.election would be and on non-Labour MP candidates in the Manchester and

:20:27. > :20:32.Manchester area? Is this just a, we're two years into a difficult

:20:32. > :20:36.stage in the Parliament or is there something more profound happen

:20:36. > :20:42.sning I think the difficulty for the Liberal Democrats is going to

:20:42. > :20:46.be maintaining morale, when you lose Councilors and so forth in

:20:46. > :20:49.cities like Manchester and other places. You lose activists, you

:20:49. > :20:52.lose foot soldiers. And obviously, you know, that's going to be

:20:52. > :20:57.difficult in terms of maintaining morale, so that by the time the

:20:57. > :21:00.next election comes, clearly the worry is that we won't have enough

:21:00. > :21:03.people to be able to fight an effective general election campaign.

:21:03. > :21:06.That's the worry that we have certainly here in Manchester and I

:21:06. > :21:16.dare say, in other cities as well. How long have you been on the

:21:16. > :21:20.Council in Manchester, as a matter trf? -- interest? I've been a

:21:20. > :21:28.Councillor for 12 years here in Manchester now representing the

:21:28. > :21:31.city centre ward. How do you feel about losing your seat? Well, I'm

:21:31. > :21:35.obviously disappointed. I believe I've done a good job as a

:21:35. > :21:38.Councillor. I've really hard to serve the people of Manchester and

:21:38. > :21:42.disappointed to lose. But at the end of the day, you can't argue

:21:42. > :21:47.with the ballot box. The people will decide and have you to go with

:21:47. > :21:52.that and move on and get over it. Do you feel you've been swept awi

:21:52. > :21:55.by Nick Clegg's decision to go into coalition? You'd have done much

:21:55. > :21:58.better if there hadn't been a coalition, wouldn't you?

:21:58. > :22:03.certainly feel that there's nothing we could have done locally to

:22:03. > :22:08.change the results here tonight. We worked really hard over the last 12

:22:08. > :22:12.months. We took a pounding last May. That took us a bit by surprise and

:22:12. > :22:20.caught up off guard. The last 12 months we've been united as a team

:22:20. > :22:23.here. Very focused and ruthless in terms of maintaining our seats. I

:22:23. > :22:27.don't think we did anything wrong on the ground in terms of how we

:22:27. > :22:30.went about that. We're just battling goodness a tide in

:22:30. > :22:34.difficult circumstances. You're a supporter still of coalition

:22:34. > :22:39.Government, you're always in favour of that? I was and I still am. I

:22:39. > :22:45.think that Nick's decision to go into coalition was the only

:22:45. > :22:49.decision to be made at the time. I think it's regrettable that

:22:49. > :22:52.unfortunately people are voting on national issues and not looking at

:22:52. > :22:56.the record of perhaps local Councilors, such as myself or

:22:56. > :23:02.others, in sufficient numbers. That's just the way that it is at

:23:02. > :23:05.the moment. Thank you very much. That exactly makes the point you

:23:05. > :23:10.were making, if you lose Councilors like him, you lose strength when

:23:10. > :23:13.you come it a general election. Indeed, that's the pattern. I feel

:23:13. > :23:16.extremely sorry for Mark and my friends in Manchester and Liverpool,

:23:16. > :23:20.where it's clearly very tough for the Liberal Democrats at the moment.

:23:20. > :23:30.Next door to Manchester is Stockport. We've been doing very

:23:30. > :23:31.

:23:31. > :23:36.well. Lib Dems have lost every seat on Rochdale Council. --, in the

:23:36. > :23:41.past. Striking that Liberal Democrats are coming on and not

:23:41. > :23:49.bleeting about it. They're saying that's how it is. The Conservatives

:23:49. > :23:54.are saying, they're not happy. They did rather better last year.

:23:54. > :24:01.Let's have a look at how the councils are stacking up now.

:24:01. > :24:04.How many have we had in? 86 of 181 declared. Labour on 43. They've

:24:04. > :24:10.gained 18 councils. The Conservatives have 26. They've lost

:24:10. > :24:15.eight. The Lib Dems are on three. They've lost one. And independents

:24:15. > :24:18.have lost one as well. I'm going to show you some of these remarkable

:24:18. > :24:22.gains for Labour. Birmingham, which we're watching closely at the

:24:22. > :24:26.beginning of the night. Labour on 77. The Conservatives on 28. The

:24:26. > :24:31.Lib Dems on 15. You're seeing big numbers here. This is the biggest

:24:31. > :24:35.Council in the UK. Last year, Labour made gains of 14. They never

:24:35. > :24:39.thought they'd better that, but they have done. They're up 20

:24:39. > :24:43.overnight. The Conservatives are down 11. The Lib Dems are down nine.

:24:43. > :24:48.Why this is important because this was governed in a microcosm of

:24:48. > :24:52.Westminster with the krches and Lib Dems. No longer, one assumes.

:24:52. > :24:58.Labour is in charge now and they'll be pleased with that. Norwich,

:24:58. > :25:01.similar picture here. Labour on 21. The Greens on 15. Let me show you

:25:01. > :25:06.what happened overnight, pretty comfortable gains for Labour up

:25:06. > :25:12.three. And Reading, the last one I'll show you in full from Labour

:25:12. > :25:15.on 26. The Conservatives on 12. What happened overnight there?

:25:15. > :25:19.Labour's up four. They've taken from both the Conservatives and Lib

:25:19. > :25:24.Dems, the two parties in Government. I want to show you a trend as well

:25:24. > :25:27.with the Conservatives. They have gained Winchester. They have taken

:25:27. > :25:37.that from no overall control. They've done that at the expense of

:25:37. > :25:41.Labour not so much in play in this part of the world. One other thing

:25:41. > :25:45.that is going on - places where the Conservatives have held on but look

:25:46. > :25:49.at what has happened beneath the surface. They are down in Basildon,

:25:49. > :25:53.down in Amber Valley, down in West Lancashire. They have held on to

:25:53. > :26:00.these seats by the skin of their teeth. Although you won't see the

:26:00. > :26:05.colour of the council change at all, you will see that sense of unease

:26:05. > :26:11.with Conservatives rippling beneath the surface. One last one - this is

:26:11. > :26:17.Wales. Merthyr Tydfil, it used to be very strong Labour heartland, it

:26:17. > :26:22.went independent in 2008. They have taken it back. Now they are on 23

:26:22. > :26:26.to the independents' nine. Overnight, they gained 13 seats

:26:26. > :26:30.here. It is the start of the here. It is the start of the

:26:30. > :26:33.fightback in Wales for Labour. Thank you very much. We are joined

:26:33. > :26:38.by the Shadow Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain. Did you hear that

:26:38. > :26:43.result, you are beaming with pleasure so you probably did?

:26:43. > :26:47.In Merthyr Tydfil you gained 13 seats. What is going on, are you

:26:47. > :26:51.satisfied with the progress Labour is making? More than satisfied. It

:26:51. > :26:56.is turning into a cracking night for Labour in Wales, not because we

:26:56. > :27:00.are winning Merthyr Tydfil and Caerphilly where we have inflicted

:27:00. > :27:03.damage on Plaid Cymru, but also because we are taking seats from

:27:03. > :27:09.the Tories in Newport and we are pushing the Tories back in Cardiff

:27:09. > :27:14.and these are areas which are going to be key election battlegrounds at

:27:14. > :27:18.the next general election. Where we are advancing is right across Wales

:27:18. > :27:22.- north, south, east and west - into Conservative areas, winning

:27:22. > :27:27.support from the Tories for the first time since the last general

:27:27. > :27:32.election. That is very significant in terms of the future. The Lib

:27:32. > :27:35.Plaid have taken a battering. We have won seats from the

:27:35. > :27:40.independents. All in all, this bodes very well for the future.

:27:40. > :27:44.What is the impact going to be on Ed Miliband as Leader of the Labour

:27:44. > :27:48.Party who has come in for a lot of criticism since he was elected

:27:48. > :27:53.leader? Ed made a very popular visit to Wales. He is very popular

:27:53. > :27:57.in Wales. This is a big vote of confidence in Ed Miliband and his

:27:57. > :28:01.leadership. We had the best ever Labour result in the Welsh Assembly

:28:01. > :28:06.elections last year. We are having a better result under Ed Miliband

:28:06. > :28:10.in Wales in the council elections. I think that his leadership showing

:28:10. > :28:13.that Labour is changing, that we are winning back trust, not just

:28:13. > :28:18.from the progressive vote that we lost to the Lib Dems and to Plaid

:28:18. > :28:22.Cymru in Wales, but also from Conservatives who are fed up with

:28:22. > :28:26.the incompetence of the Government - that is what has been very

:28:26. > :28:32.interesting, David. It is on the doorstep, I have noticed a real

:28:32. > :28:42.change. The feeling amongst Tory voters, many of whom didn't bother

:28:42. > :28:43.

:28:43. > :28:50.to vote, they are very upset. You have a feeling the Tory Government

:28:50. > :28:54.amongst Tory voters is just seen to be incompetent, not just unfair,

:28:54. > :28:58.but incompetent and that is when it starts to hit home to any

:28:58. > :29:01.Government, as we learnt as a Labour Government. Are you

:29:01. > :29:07.enthusiastic about the news that Tony Blair is thinking of coming

:29:07. > :29:13.back to play a part in British politics? Of course. We need all

:29:13. > :29:20.hands to the pump. We are climbing a very steep and difficult mountain,

:29:20. > :29:25.to come back two years after a very bad defeat to start winning on this

:29:25. > :29:32.scale. The Tories didn't win for a very long time after they lost in

:29:32. > :29:36.1997. We have already begun to come back. Tony Blair would be a great

:29:36. > :29:44.asset, as would all Labour figures. What about David Miliband?

:29:44. > :29:50.course, David Miliband has been since he lost the leadership

:29:50. > :29:57.election. He has stayed loyal to the party. What you will now see is

:29:57. > :30:05.Labour is making gains in the South, left, right, North South East and

:30:05. > :30:09.West. People will now start to look at Labour and start to look at Ed

:30:09. > :30:14.Miliband's leadership in a different light. Damian Green is

:30:14. > :30:19.looking a bit dubious? Peter is perhaps being overexuberant about

:30:19. > :30:22.this. I think there are two significant things. One is take

:30:22. > :30:26.Amber Valley. Amber Valley was one of those seats that was a Labour

:30:26. > :30:29.seat throughout Labour's time in Government. They have not won the

:30:29. > :30:36.council. That is very significant. That shows they are not winning

:30:36. > :30:40.there. Of the... Look at the other areas... Hang on, of the 21

:30:40. > :30:45.councils where Labour didn't hold a single council seat, we have had

:30:45. > :30:50.the result of 12 of them and Labour has won one councillor. So there

:30:50. > :30:53.are still huge no-go areas, not just in the South, but in other

:30:53. > :31:00.parts of the country as well where the Labour Party doesn't exist at

:31:00. > :31:03.all. Let's go to Bradford. We were going to join Len Tingle there

:31:03. > :31:08.earlier, but we can now do it. People will be wanting to know what

:31:08. > :31:15.has happened in Bradford itself. You may have other stories for us

:31:15. > :31:22.as well? What we are hearing here is that Respect have made a few in-

:31:22. > :31:26.roads into Labour. Labour have already said that Respect have

:31:26. > :31:31.taken a couple of seats from them, they have taken one from the Tories,

:31:31. > :31:35.one from the Liberal Democrats - that's four. George Galloway

:31:35. > :31:44.reckoned they would get eight. There is a fifth one that is having

:31:44. > :31:52.a recount. That is quite a crucial one. It's the ward, Little Horton

:31:52. > :31:57.where Ian Greenwood has been the councillor there. Bradford is run

:31:57. > :32:02.by Labour, but as a minority administration. It was expected to