Vote 2012

Hello and welcome to the BBC's election night centre. The polls

closed at 10pm of course. There's nothing more the candidates and

party leaders can do now, except bite their nails and wait. When we

had local elections a year ago, the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed.

Nick Clegg's party was pummelled in England and Wales and in Scotland

fell to Alex Salmond SNP. David Cameron, on the other hand, defied

the pundits to gain council seats last year, mostly in the south of

England. But the last month has seen his poll ratings taking a turn

for the worse. Ed Miliband, Labour leader since 2010, hoping tonight

to prove he is a man with momentum, who can inflict severe damage on

his opponents at the ballot box. Over the next 24 hours, we'll meet

some of the victors and vanquished and finding out who's triumphed and

Soon we'll be getting a flow of results. We've got some first

indications. What we're looking at tonight is how people have voted in

the English and Welsh Council elections. Tomorrow we'll hear

what's happened in Scotland and in London, the result of the battle

between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone and nothing this year

from Northern Ireland. A lot of different signals from complex

competitions, results that are going on, elections going on, all

of which need careful interpretation. We'll try and

explain to you what has happened and what the implications are for

the next general election. Come into our studio here, where we have

a number of political guests. Good evening ladies and gentleman, thank

you for coming in. We'll talk to them in a moment. We'll try and get

as many of the particular results as we can explained by Emily

Maitlis who is here with her grand chart.

Yes the touch screen is back. I'll use this to bring you the results

of the night. Let's go into England and look at the interesting

councils that the Conservatives are defending tonight. This blue tells

us the Conservatives have controlled here. The red arrow

tells us that Labour is in the tells us that Labour is in the

second place. Ed Miliband would love to see this slate turn red by

the end of the night. Will he do it? They start easy on smaller

majorities. They get harder going down. What about the hung Councils?

This time the grey tells us no one party has overall control here.

There's big prizes for Labour tonight, places they ought to pick

up. What about Birmingham? They did well here last time around, they

got 14 seats, a similar result would deliver Birmingham safe live

home. Ed Miliband would love that and he needs to have that. It's the

biggest in the UK. All that affects local Government

which we tend not to talk about. We tend to talk about the results as

though they only mattered for the national picture. What happens

matters to people living in those areas. On the other hand Jeremy

Vine will be looking at a national picture, building up those results

no a portrait of the political mood of Britain.

Yes, our graphics will show you the lay of the land. Let me bring the

map on with all the English councils on and colour them in in

the colour that controls them and then show you the 128 being

contested tonight, nearly half of them Conservative. What happened

last year? It was a very close result in the council elections in

2011. These are the percentages. 36 for Labour, just a hare's breath

behind them the Conservatives, Lib Dems on 16 and the others on 13%.

Before the night is done we'll see which parties are up and which --

are down. We will be back-and-forth to you right through the night.

We'll be all over the country hearing from our political editors,

hearing from reporters. We'll be at the counts. There are counts, like

the general elections, doub in Southampton for instance. If it's a

very good night for Labour in Southampton, there say pont they

could take control of Southampton from the Conservatives. We'll also

be in Cardiff. Almost all Wales is having elections tonight. Cardiff

is a hung Council. It's hotly contested. We'll be in Liverpool.

Now Liverpool is tonight elected a mayor. Ten other places are voting

on whether to have a mayor. Liverpool and Salford have decided

they are going to. They will be picking their mayor tonight. Those

are some of the places we're going to. I said we had people round the

table. I better introduce them to give their reaction to whatever

verdict the voters have provided. I should just say that the first key

ward results we're getting in tonight from Sunderland, Basildon,

Hull, show a very large swing to Labour and a big drop in

Conservative and Liberal Democrat support, compared to 2008, when

these Councils were last fought. Now, to field the questions beside

me here Conservative co-chairman Baroness Warsi. For Labour the man

who ran Ed Miliband's campaign, the shad Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan

and for the Liberal Democrats their Deputy Leader Simon Hughes. And

even more familiar face, the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson who

will tell us what he thinks the significance is and perhaps you'd

shoot in straight away with what you think the three parties are

expected to happen tonight and what the significance is. They're

expecting a good night for Labour, expecting a good night for Labour,

of course they were. It was a miserable night four years ago. The

signs from those places, Sunderland counts very quickly. Even though

it's a safe Labour area, it's often an indication of what's happening

in the next of the country. Extraordinarily good results for

Labour n. Place that's matter to them much more than that, in terms

of winning MPs from the Conservative Party, in Essex, in

particular, Essex-man our old friend, Basildon and Thurrock

really good swings to the Labour Party. They're expecting good news.

Maybe not such good news with the London Mayor tomorrow, we'll see.

The Conservatives were preparing themselves, bracing for losses.

They're already talking of losses of around 450 Councilors, worst

than their worst predictions just a few days ago. And we're talking of

the Liberal Democrats crossing their fingers and hoping, it's

going to be bad, but not as bad as last year, which was gruesome for

them. As you say, yes, this is about local people electing their

local representatives, but with so many people in the country voting,

most of Wales, not Anglesey, all of Scotland, large parts of England,

all of London, these are the foundations of electoral victory in

2015. Checking on this, you're actually saying that the Tories are

saying 450, they're not doing that in order that when it becomes 350

they'll say it's a triumph. You think they're genuinely... What a

thought! Eric Pickles, who knows about these things of course, knows

a little bit about expectations management too. He has now said on

the record 450. He may hope to get that number in tomorrow's morning's

papers, when people wake up and discover it's only 400 or 375 it's

not so bad. It's bad. Sayeeda Warsi is raising her eyebrows. It's going

to be a tough night. This is not something we've been saying today

or this week. I've been saying this for months. If you look where we

were in 2008, Nick will say this, this was about six months after

that election that was never called by Brown. Gordon Brown was doing

very badly in the polls at that time. There had been that 10p...

know all that. We're just interested in what you think is

going to happen. We want to go to Jeremy Vine. It's going to be a bad

night for the Conservatives. We have to look at where we started

off in these elections. Jeremy, throw a little light on this, and

set the night in context. The context is crucial, David,

The context is crucial, David, absolutely. I'll give you the map.

You can see the 128 councils coloured in. Let's go back one year

to 2011 and remind ourselves of Councilors won and lost. Here we

go: You Conservatives up 86 last year. Labour up a huge 839. The

Liberal Democrats down a very painful 748 and the others down 207.

That's the big figure, Councilors won and lost. Lots of pundits

saying how.Conservatives put on seats? Let me explain. Go behind

the headlines and look at the regional results: These are

Councilors won and lost in the north. The Conservatives and the

Lib Dems both losing. 357 extra Councilors for Labour in the north.

In the Midlands, Labour put on 380, again the Lib Dems and the

Conservatives lose. But have a look at the south. Can you see the

Conservatives in an area where they were strong any way, put on 187.

Labour put on rather fewer. The Lib Dems it was just a horror show for

them whichever way you look at it. The point about that is, the point

about the gains in the south is that they covered up Conservative

losses elsewhere. For Labour, they made the result a bit more modest

as a performance than it might have been if you'd just looked at the

Midlands and the north. It took the shine off their advances somewhat.

Fascinating to look at the parties going head to head. Let us see what

happens when we put the Conservatives against Labour. We'll

go back to 2005. We're looking here at the Conservative leader, Michael

Howard. What was happening between those two parties, the

Conservatives were down 2%. They were behind Labour in 2005. Spool

forwards, Gordon Brown comes in. David Cameron gives the

Conservatives a bit of uplift. Here we are in 2008. Now this is the

critical year to look at, as Baroness Warsi was saying. This is

the year the Council seats were last up. The Conservatives with an

18% lead. They had roughly 40% of the vote. Gordon Brown was really

struggling as Prime Minister. David Cameron was getting into his stride

and this is the year the seats were last up. Anything less than this

18% lead, as you were just saying, and the Conservatives lose seats.

Look at what happens here? The trajectory goes right down for the

Conservatives. Labour change their leader. 2011 we see they're 1%

behind the Labour Party. You're actually looking, when you look at

what happens tonight, at the gap between their present-day

performance against Labour. If it's anything like that, it was in 2011

and the 2008 performance against Labour. I'll show you another graph

now. Two parties, which two shall we choose? Let's look at

Conservatives versus the Liberal Democrats. Fascinating story,

because they're now in coalition together. In 2005 they were

opponents. The Conservatives under Michael Howard, 3% ahead. Then we

spool forward to this year of 2008. You can see the Conservatives

putting on quite a lead here, under David Cameron, 16%. Nick Clegg was

struggling at this point. Watch what happens when they go into

coalition. There's a moment as you approach the election where the Lib

Dems gain a bit here and then fascinating, isn't it, you can see

that if you're measuring the Conservatives against the Liberal

Democrats, both of them in the same Government, the Conservatives are

posting a really healthy lead, 19% over the Liberal Democrats. That

was last year, 2011. Again, you have to say, if this performance is

anything to go by, the Lib Dems are going to struggle against the

Conservatives. It makes one wonder in light of

what Baroness Warsi was saying what has happened between this year and

last year for the Tories sudden throi have sunk back again. What's

going to happen for the Liberal Democrats against Labour in vur

view? Lets -- let's see that graph. Again we remember Tony Blair as

Prime Minister. He was the Labour leader in 2005. Charles Kennedy the

Lib Dem leader. What was happen sning Mr Blair was in a good

position against the Liberal Democrats. Things get tougher for

him. Gordon Brown comes in. Where are we now in 2008? Again the base

year, the year these seats were last fought, the answer is that

Labour were 2% behind. The Lib Dems were actually leading Labour.

You'll remember David that night we were talking about the Labour Party

being in third place. But just watch what happens next. You have

these events that follow, the coalition Government, the Lib Dems

going into power with the Conservatives, Ed Miliband

replacing Gordon Brown. Watch this. You see the problem the Lib Dems

have. Bear in mind this is 2011 and this is head-to-head Labour against

the Liberal Democrats. You can see Labour in a 20% lead. You put that

together with the previous graph where the Liberal Democrats were

19% behind the Conservatives and you're thinking, whichever way they

turn, they've got a serious problem. Just before we get any more figures,

we have some coming from Emily in a moment, Simon Hughes do you want to

comment on the position of the Liberal Democrats as Jeremy show

today there? And what your fears are for tonight. We've heard the

Tories coming up with the figure of 450 losses, what do your experts

say? The strange thing about last say? The strange thing about last

year was we did badly. That wasn't to be unexpected, because we were

in Government and governments... The Tories were in Government and

they went up. They didn't do badly. That was it. The unexpected thing

last year was that the Tories in Government were doing well. That

was the unexpected thing. You normally expect governments to lose

in local elections mid-term. I would expect both Government

parties tonight to lose in mid-term. I would expect that. I expect we

will and the Tories will. The interesting thing is do we lose in

a similar way? Do we lose in similar places? Obviously, when

we're head to head against Labour it will be more difficult for us

than when we're head to head against the Conservatives. I know

from colleagues I've spoken to around the country, places like

Portsmouth, for example, where the battle is principally between us

and the Tories, it looks as if we may actually made progress. This is

not a universal thing. You're both taking comfort in the scale of

Government parties are hammered in local elections mid-term, whoever

is in Government. Therefore, you have to expect that. It is never

pleasant and opposition parties do well. I will come to you in a

second. Let's go to Birmingham and join Patrick Burns. What is the

story in Birmingham going to be? There is this vote about whether

they should have a Mayor for a start? Well, there's been a lot of

speculation about that already. Of course, we are not going to know

until tomorrow because that is when the count takes place. There is a

lot of speculation in these parts that it is a very close-run thing.

I can tell you that those campaigners in support of a

directly-Elected Mayor have been nervous as the last few days to

polling have ticked down. There are suggestions from some sources that

it's going to be a no-vote. The real votes don't get counted until

tomorrow. That will unsettle those who think this city needs someone

to thump the tables at Westminster and Whitehall on behalf of this

city. In terms of the council, do you have any idea of how things are

going? Yes. Well, Labour sources, as you might expect, are supremely

confident. I have been talking to one official. They feel that it is

not going to take them very long to pick up the four extra seats that

they need for an overall majority here, regaining control for the

first time in eight years. The attraction for Ed Miliband is that

this city has been run by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat

coalition so he would love to get the message across from Birmingham

that it signals a turning of the tide against Conservative-Liberal

Democrat coalitions everywhere. Mr Miliband was here to launch his

campaign. He was here a couple of days ago as the campaign reached

its climax. I wouldn't bet against the possibility he will be back

here very soon. Let's go to Plymouth and join Martyn Oates. The

story in Plymouth is that Labour might take control directly from

the Conservatives. Is that on the cards, do you think? Yes. Plymouth

is a very unusual place because there are no Liberal Democrat

councillors here at all. That is pretty much unique. Labour need

just four more seats to take it from the Tories. They are pretty

confident and senior Conservatives have indicated to me they are

preparing for defeat. They are preparing themselves for defeat in

the sense of losing control, or of it going straight to Labour?

think they are probably preparing themselves to lose control. Exeter

is another peculiar place in the South West. That is under no

overall control at the moment. They need two seats to take Exeter. I

think in Exeter, Labour are confident as well. Sadiq Khan, when

we talk about these big gains, big losses, we are talking about an

attempt to say that if Labour is doing what the polls show it is

doing, these are the results you would expect to get? It depends

which people you listen to. How do you work it out? The share of the

vote nationally depends on where you put candidates up. There are

some parts in the country where we don't put candidates up and we

don't have any councillors. In those parts of the country where we

used to have MPs, can we start winning back councils? What places

are you thinking of? Exeter is a good example. We have a very good

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

where we have no Labour MPs. Can we take control of the council? I will

need to find out the name of that Labour official who said they were

supremely confident of winning Birmingham. That is not on the

script! They are trying to reduce expectations on the amount of

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

to 2010, we secured 29% of the national vote. Last year, we

managed to have a 7% increase to 36%. If we do more than 36% of the

national share of the vote, we will be very pleased. To extrapolate

national share versus council seats is more difficult. Some parts of

the country - if we get a council elected, it is a great result. If

we win Birmingham, it is a major achievement. We lost MPs in that

midland area. A brief point? results show big swings, 13% in one

ward, that the Labour Party is making gains against the Liberal

Democrats. That would mean that the Labour Party are doing well, not

just in the North against the Liberal Democrats, but starting to

do well in the South. That would be very significant. We do have a

first real result in, Emily? Yes, the first result of the night is in

Sunderland. The North East seems to be the fastest at counting. A very

be the fastest at counting. A very strong Labour stronghold here. They

were never expected to do anything other than win this. You can see

what's happened. They have consolidated their gains here at

the expense of the Conservatives. Let me show you what happened

overnight. This is how things have changed. Labour is up eight, the

Conservatives are down six. The Lib Dems have lost their only

councillor in Sunderland Council. If this is a pattern they can

repeat not just in the North East, but in other parts of the country,

the South East, they will be very pleased. Jeremy, can you throw a

bit of light on that Sunderland bit of light on that Sunderland

result? Does it tell you things? will try to. We were thinking is

there any way of looking at how the Sunderland result matches with

national share? Let me show you this graph here which is the

Conservatives' performance against Labour in Sunderland and nationally.

If I come down here, to explain what these lines are. You can see

this is Sunderland, the Conservatives over 30% behind

Labour. At the top, it correlates with them being about 4% behind

Labour nationally. The point about this is - let's see the whole graph

- look at the way these lines correlate. This is the figure from

Sunderland. This is the national share. Actually, there's barely a

moment where the gap either widens or narrows. It stays consistent

throughout. We are just thinking that these wards in Sunderland,

although they come in a particular Labour area of the country, they

can give us some sense of the national picture. Let me show you a

similar graph that is Labour's lead over the Liberal Democrats, again

in Sunderland and again nationally. Here the two lines are the other

way around. Down the bottom here you've got the Labour lead

nationally, here. At the top, you have this huge lead over the

Liberal Democrats in Sunderland of about 50%. Again, look at these

lines. The way the gap between them stays - it narrows a bit there -

but it stays consistent throughout. You see this big incline, the

Labour lead against the Liberal Democrats going up in Sunderland,

going up nationally. So we ask ourselves what can we learn about

the Sunderland - the national result from what's happened in

Sunderland? Here we go. Bear in mind we did this extrapolation - we

will find out as the evening goes on. The Conservatives are down five.

Labour up 2%. Liberal Democrats staying where they were last year,

but that was a bad result anyway. The others up three. So if the

calculations that seem to have worked in the past stay true for

tonight, you will see something like this repeated nationally. We

like this repeated nationally. We will only know as the night goes on.

Jeremy, thank you. This correlation between what happens in Sunderland

and what happens in the rest of the world, Simon Hughes, do you accept

it? I have been caught out on this sort of question before on general

election night. The early exit polls showed we would get 57 seats.

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

seats. It probably - we have to assume that the BBC is normally...

Jeremy Vine is a genius! There are geniuses behind him! Interesting in

local elections, there are sometimes local factors which will

change an individual result. Let's take Birmingham. Birmingham used to

swing between Labour and the Tories, then Labour lost control and then

it's been run by a Liberal Democrat-Tory coalition. That's the

sort of seat where because both our parties are in Government, there

could be a very big swing - there could be a big swing against us if

people wanted to protest against the Government. That may not be the

case. You are protected from that because these are one-third, one-

third, one-third. Of course. There are very few all-out councils.

councils which change colour are very important. They show a trend

and these councillors who win aren't important because they

improve the quality of life for local people, they organise

communities and they can be tomorrow's MPs and help build the

party locally. We have lost our councillor in Sunderland... You are

fielding fewer candidates this time. I saw somebody doing an

extrapolation that if things went badly for you, you wouldn't exist

by 2020 - that was on ITV? People have written us off on many

occasions. If it is a bad night for you tonight, and the Liberal

Democrats - we will bring you in a moment - will there be lessons

learnt from the result? Last year, we ended up with 16% share of the

vote. We lost something like seven out of ten of our seats in the

North and four out of ten of the seats we were defending. We will

not do as badly as last year because people have got used to the

idea that we are in Government taking very difficult decisions. It

is a slow climb-back for me. I won't read any great implications

for the coalition. It will be about some very good councillors losing

their seat. Nick? What the two coalition partners will be looking

at is how they are doing against each other in the South of England.

The Conservatives gained last year because of the Liberal Democrats'

weak performance. The Lib Dems are unlikely to have anything they can

cheer about tonight. If they hold on a bit better in some of those

South and South West seats, they will start to think, "We might not

lose those MPs in a couple of years' time." That will be

important to them. UKIP, not running in many places. They have

only 720 candidates out of 5,000 nationally. Where they are running

they are doing extraordinarily well. We have only counted up in six

wards. They have averaged 21% of the vote in those wards. They are

likely to run where they are already strong. For UKIP to get 21%,

that is quite... They are just wards? Exactly that. It is a

strikingly high figure. They are fielding something like 14% more

candidates this time than they did last time. Interestingly, the

British National Party are fielding 14% less candidates this time than

they did last time. Whether there is a link between the two parties

I'm not sure. Sadiq Khan, before I go to Emily... I thought the

chairman of the Conservative Party was suggesting there was a link

between UKIP and the BNP? percentage fall in the number of

candidates fielded by BNP is the same as the percentage increase of

those candidates fielded by UKIP. lot of UKIP people are former

Conservatives? There are members of the UKIP Party that come from all

political parties. Emily? If you want to follow tweets from our

correspondents, #bbcvote2012 is our hashtag. If you want all the

results, go to bbc.co.uk/vote2012. Nick was mentioning the battles

between the coalition partners in Government. It's quite an odd

situation for the Lib Dems tonight. This is the sum total of councils

that they're actually defending this time round. We'll get four

results tonight. We'll get three tomorrow. Let me take you to

Portsmouth. They have a majority of four. They just lost one Councillor

last time round. It wasn't as bad a last time round. It wasn't as bad a

result as in other places. If the Conservatives start to have a worse

night, funnily enough perhaps the Lib Dems will not fare too badly

there. We don't know who will take the bigger hit. Cheltenham is

interesting. Sadiq Khan saying that most Councils are voting by thirds,

but here it's voting by half. It allows for more volatility, more

movement, more could happen there. The Lib Dems on 25 and

Conservatives on 12. Let me take you into a couple of others. These

are one that's we're going to see tomorrow, I'm going to ignore those

for now. Eastleigh, Lib Dems can sleep pretty easily tonight with a

majority of 32. The Lib Dems on 30 and the Conservatives on four. The

point I want to make, the caveat is that even if you don't actually see

these councils change colour tonight, it's important to watch

the Councillor numbers. There's going to be a lot of movement there,

ripbling -- rippling beneath the surface which might not show

immediately. Thank you. Let's per sue this Liberal Democrat story a

sue this Liberal Democrat story a bit more and go to Grimsby. Tim

Ardell is there. What is the state of the Liberal Democrats there as

far as you know at the moment? shortage of glum Lib Dem faces here

tonight. The Lib Dems are defending just four seats here, but it looks

like they've lost all four. Labour need to gain just two seats to win

outright control of north-east Lincolnshire, this authority that

covers the industrial former fishing town of Grimsby. It looks

like Labour are romping to victory here. Just two years ago, the 2010,

the year of the general election, the Liberal Democrats were the

largest party here. They controlled this authority in coalition with

the Conservatives. But times have certainly changed here tonight.

It's a similar picture across this eegs. Over the Humber, in Hull, it

looks like there are heavy Lib Dem losses to Labour. As there were

this time last year. One Lib Dem activist here said a few moments

ago, it's looking like melt down mark two. Thank you for that. We

now go to Manchester and join Annabel Tiffin. We just heard that

the Liberal Democrats are not doing well in north-east Lincolnshire.

How's it looking for them in Manchester? Well, it's not looking

any better for them here either, I'm afraid. Last year, it was

nothing short of a bloodbath for the Liberal Democrats. They lost

all the seats that they were contesting. This year, they have 12

out of their remaining 21 up for grabs again. Obviously, they'll be

trying to hold on to as many of those as possible. A few moments

ago I was speaking it a senior Liberal Democrat who looked very

glum, like in Grimsby, and said he thought it was as bad as last year

and that they were likely to lose all their seats. If that did happen,

that would leave the Liberal Democrats with just nine seats on

Manchester City Council, which I think is the fewest number of seats

they have had there since 1992. Of course, the other big vote here is

the mayoral referendum. Voters are being asked whether they want to

keep what they have now or whether they want an elected mayor. Voters

were surprise whd they saw what was on the ballot paper, because

there's been really no campaigning here at all either for a Yes vote

or No vote. Having spoke ton a Council source this evening, he

says it's looking quite close, which no-one was expecting.

Possibly the Yes vote might just have it.

Thank you very much. We'll hear more about that a bit later on.

We've got two place that's are only voting on whether they should have

a mayor. I don't know how many people will bodger to turn out for

that. We shall see. Another result, knowsly, again grim news for the

Liberal Democrats Emily? This is an extraordinary visual picture.

Knowsley is now a one-party Council. The Lib Dems have been wiped out.

The Lib Dems have been wiped out. The Conservatives were never in

play. Let me show what you happened overnight then. Labour has gained

four, completely at the expense of the Lib Dems. They've consolidated

their gains in the north, as we saw in Sunderland, a similar result in

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

Lib Dem on four, the Conservatives on two. And this is what happened

overnight. So both the Lib Dems and their coalition part nerds, the

Conservatives, down. Labour then showing these consolidated gains.

The point we've been making is it's Notts that these results are any

big surprise. What we're looking at is to see how that swing, that

shift towards Labour is happening and whether it can be replicated

more widely further down in the south of the country as well.

Thanks very much. Sadiq Khan, what about the other big battle that

we're not going to hear about till tomorrow, we've had a poll on, your

candidate for Mayor of London against the Conservatives candidate.

Do you think Ken Livingstone is going to win? I'm not sure. I can't

read the tea leaves. You've read the polls. Why do you think he's so

far behind, the figures suggesting the same as four years ago?

confident that Labour will do well in London. That wasn't what I was

asking you. The Assembly is one thing. I deliberately chose to

answer the way I did. The difference between the two has

difference between the two has turned into a personality contest.

I think the contest in London will be about the bigger personality.

You know... Ken is the lesser personality? Ken has always been

the underdog. It's been difficult for us to get our messages across

and Boris has been very successful, again in the media, to get aacross

-- across his personality. The campaign he's run has been

effective in portraying Ken Livingstone is a negative manner.

What did the effect of the tax, income tax have on this? Boris has

health a leady lead for two years. Ken Livingstone reduced the lead in

the last four, five months. At stages it's been neck and neck. It

was neck and neck a couple of weeks ago. Why didn't Labour choose a new,

fresh candidate to take on Boris Johnson rather than the old face?

Ken Livingstone is a good canned dai. He's run a good campaign. I'm

keeping my fingers crossed that he might win. He was up against a

formidable opponent in Boris Johnson, who's run a very good

campaign. It's effective because he's got across the negative points

of Ken Livingstone. We think we've done very well in London. I think

Labour will make gains on the Assembly. I think the Labour share

of the vote will be healthy. I'm quietly confident that Ken

Livingstone will beat Boris Johnson. The polls suggest not. It makes one

wonder why Boris Johnson should do so much better than the Tory party

appears to be doing? Well, these are two different types of

elections. First of all, like I said in relation to local elections,

we're starting from a very, very high base. We're starting from a

point where we won a huge amount of seats in 2008 and we won them at a

time when Labour were very, very low in the polls. With Boris

Johnson he's run a fantastic campaign. He's had the whole

machinery behind him. He was in HQ a couple of hours ago. He's run a

clear campaign. He's had nine very clear points upon which he fought

that campaign. Ken was a man of the past. We'll see what the result is

tomorrow. One of the problems that Ken had, is that even the Labour

Party couldn't get behind him. Whereas you had the Conservative

Party behind Boris Johnson at all levels. Ken was constantly

haemorrhaging Labour support. we're on the point of mayors, you

ran for mayor once for the Liberal Democrats, perhaps you should have

run this time instead of Brian Paddick. Maybe you could have seen

off Ken Livingstone. What knows. Brian ran a more confident and

effective campaign than when he did four years ago. You are both right.

The mayoral contest is entirely different as a concept in politics

than the conventional Council fight. Councils are fighting and they will

reflect the view of the Government of the country, bluntly. In the

north, we saw the figures, many of the places, the Liverpools, the

Manchesters, the Knowsleys and so on, there are no Tories. We are the

only sign of Government there for people to kick. The Tories have

been eliminated ages ago from any of these places. We take the

kicking. Mayoral contests are different. They are personality

contests. One of the reasons why people are not keen on the directly

eleked mayor is that it is in danger of becoming a personality

contest not a policy contest. That's why local Councilors are so

jealous about not having a mayor? Yes, our party has referred

collective Cabinet local Government. So it's a Conservative idea you're

saying to have mayors in areas of the country where Labour dominates

and they hope to get a Conservative mayor in to rule the roost? I've

been to several of these places where they're have referenda and

mayoral contests. There's all sorts of interesting stuff. Manchester,

for example, in Manchester, it is conceivable that if there is a

directly elected mayor, a non- Labour person could win, because

they would be the personality who would be Mr and Mrs Manchester,

whereas Labour are in a very strong position traditionally in running

the Council. For Liberal Democrats and Conservatives and others,

actually, having a directly elected mayor amounts to a good idea

because they might be able to get a chance of winning. More news, this

time from Harlow. Our reporter there is Andrew Sinclair. Harlow, a

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

They do. The Conservatives hold this Council at the moment with

just one, with a majority of one. Labour have made one gain here this

evening, it looks as if they're about to take control of the

council here. Labour are feeling very confident. Looking across the

whole of East Anglia, Labour have a lot of ground to make up after

disastrous losss in recent years. They seem to be doing it this

evening. They seem to be winning back seats in their old haunts.

They have made gains in Basildon, four gains in Great Yarmouth.

They're making about notable gains in Cambridge later. The party seems

to be fighting back in East Anglia. Harlow we think will go to Labour

in the next few minutes. Would that be a worry Sayeeda Warsi

for the Conservatives? Because your Parliamentary majority is not very

high in Harlow, is it? It isn't. It is going to be a marginal seat. It

will be a battleground at the next election. Like I said, this is

going to be, there are going to be losses across the night for the

Conservatives, across the country for the Conservatives. Even

independent predictions are we're going to lose about 450 seats. And

predictions are that Labour are going to win between 800 to a

thousand seats. The Mirror, your newspaper predicted a thousand

seats on the 30th of April. Givover everyone. Nick? Remember where you

heard that, the co-chairman of the Conservative Party has massively

increased the gains for the Labour Party. It was the Mirror! It was

700, now it's approaching a thousand. That seems to suggest

that iPad is sending the odd message from Tory HQ that things

aren't too good. It's from the Mir or. We've had a ward in from

Southampton where Labour have a swing of 10% that. Would be enough

to take the Council. Derby, Labour expect to get victory there. The

significance of these places takes some -- take somewhere like Harlow,

it might be a signal of what's to come in a Parliamentary election,

but it will alter the debate within the Government and within the

Conservative Party. There will be people in the Tory party who look

at them losing in Essex, who will say, hold on, we know why we're

losing, because our leader, our Prime Minister's a bit too small

"l" liberal. We need tougher, more Euro-sceptic. This will reinforce

the battle, will it have an effect? Absolutely. Crucial to David

Cameron's success until six weeks ooing, was that he could say to the

doubters in his party, look it's working, I'm doing fine. Look at

the polls. If tonight confirms that what we saw in the opinion polls,

what we saw after six weeks of the omni-sham bldz, become a reality on

the ground, albeit people say mid- term blues and Mrs Thatcher

recovered from positions like, that others inside the party say we know

how to recover and it's not your way. Let's join Jeremy Vine and

look at another country, Wales. Yes and elections for every Council

Yes and elections for every Council in Wales bar one, Anglesey. Now the

map from 1997. I will give you a sense of the direction of travel

for the parties here. A strong tradition of independent Councilors

in Wales. This is Powys here, if it's black that means no overall

control. Plaid Cymru in green in the North West. The main impression

of this map is in the south, all these Labour councils. Look at the

power Labour had in Wales in 1997. That was when Tony Blair was in his

pomp and what has happened since? The answer is they've been hemmed

in by the black on our map, by no overall control. They've lost

control of those southern councils. The question is is there any sense

of whether Labour are heading up or down from recent events? Let me

show you some graphs here. Let's see what they tell us. Over here,

Councilors in Wales and we're going back to 1995 to the mid-90s. You

see the dominance of Labour here, 726. If you look down, see how far

story the map told, where you see the red hemmed in and replaced by

black. You can see the attrition in Labour's vote here, gradually

coming down. This is the reason Labour were ruing the result last

time. They came behind the independents. The other parties are

bunched down here. We will see exactly what is going on here. You

can see the bunching, you can see that Labour was being pulled down.

The Conservatives were saying they were on the rise. Is there any way

of finding out what's happened since then, since those councillors

were elected? Yes, there is. We have results for the Assembly.

Let's look at these. Again, we are looking at the trajectory between

1999 and 2011. The constituency vote in the Assembly. You can see

here - 38% Labour, Plaid Cymru 28%. You see Labour strengthening for

the second Assembly vote. For the third, 2007, they are coming back

down a bit. And then let's look at the result last time. So this was

the 2011 vote, 42% for Labour in the Assembly. A very, very powerful

performance for Labour. Have a look again, down the line here, you will

see the other partys who have shown a clear pair of heels. If Labour's

recovery has started in Wales, if they went as low as they were going

to go, maybe the map would be showing quite a bit more red when

showing quite a bit more red when we get the results later tonight.

Let's see if that is confirmed by Betsan Powys. Does Labour expect to

make that kind of progress tonight? They absolutely do. They are only

going one way tonight - that is up! It is a question of whether they

are going to have a very good night or a great night. They had a

devastating night in 2008, where they lost swathes of the country.

Rhodri Morgan was here tonight talking about them having "taken a

belting from the electorate" but they have been rebuilding since

then. Not only did they lose Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr

Tydfil, the sort of places you would never have expected Labour to

lose their grip of. They are hoping they don't just regain those and

they go further by taking Wrexham from the Liberal Democrats, by

taking Swansea from the Liberal Democrats. The prize they want?

Cardiff. They want to be the largest party in Cardiff. They

would love to have a clear majority in Cardiff and take it out of Lib

Dem control. I have spoken to the Lib Dems who are very worried.

Wherever we are taking on Labour, they are losing. They are blaming

the national picture. I have spoken to the Conservatives who are

talking about it being a difficult night for they will. There is talk

of them losing their majority in Monmouthshire which would point to

a disappointing night. Plaid are expecting a disappointing night,

too. How well does Labour perform? Certainly no belting for them

tonight. The belting looks like it is going to the Liberal Democrats.

To what extent is this a reflection of the workings of the Welsh

Assembly and to what extent of the coalition at Westminster, in your

opinion? Well, the Labour message was fairly clear - send David

Cameron a message. They have talked about the vicious UK coalition. If

you have feelings about that, they said send a message to Westminster.

Of course, the other three parties say, "Hang on, who is in Government

in Wales? Labour. What about messages about how things are going

in those issues that have been devolved for quite a long time? Why

don't you talk more about local issues?" Labour will not accept

that. They say they have run a positive campaign. But there is no

doubt that they saw an opportunity to ask an electorate that was

disillusioned with them in 2008, but they now feel wants to come

home in droves to Labour because they are disillusioned with the UK

coalition. We did have a visit from Ed Miliband. We have had all the UK

leaders here and the message has been, "If you are fed up with the

coalition, tonight is the night to tell them so." It looks like the

electorate in Wales has done that. The Conservatives have lost control

of the council of Hart in North East Hampshire. Let's now have a

look at Scotland, can we, Emily? look at Scotland, can we, Emily?

Let's see what the picture there is. I wonder if there will be a

different narrative here. A lot of these are hung, as you can see,

because the voting system they now use - have used since 2007 - seems

to favour the smaller parties more, it breaks up the bigger monopolies.

I'm going to start with the ones that are really the stories of the

night. Glasgow, which has been Labour since 1977, since the Silver

Jubilee. They lost one councillor in March through in-fighting and

defections and now they haven't got control of the council. So the

battle here will be to see whether the SNP, which hasn't got any

councils under this system, can make enough of an in-road to take

that Labour spot knocking Labour off that top position to dominate

the council itself, or take it outright. That will be quite an

interesting one to watch. A lot of talk about that. What about

Edinburgh? The Lib Dems are the largest party here. They are short

by 14. It is quite a difficult picture. It is a four-horse race

here. Last year, the SNP won five out of six of those Scottish

parliamentary constituencies. Are we going to see the SNP become a

resurgent force here? The other one is Aberdeen. We saw a 16% swing in

this part of the world at the Scottish Parliament elections

towards the SNP. This is the North East of Scotland, Salmond territory,

Alex Salmond territory. It is possible that they could take this

one. At least, they are going to have a look at Dundee, Perth and

Kinross, Angus, these are the places that the SNP should be

feeling fairly confident of taking out of no overall control. I will

show you some of the other ones show you some of the other ones

later. Thanks. The chairman of the SNP is in Glasgow, Derek Mackay.

You were saying in January that you thought the SNP would take Glasgow.

Is that still your view? We will make progress in Glasgow. We will

have a good result across Scotland and it will be interesting to see

what happens. Remember, we were 18.7% behind from the 2007 election

which is what we have got to compare with. We are confident we

will have progressed within the city. Of course, Scotland is very

different because of your voting system there. You have a vast

majority of hung councils? That's correct. The proportional

representation system will throw up results that are more proportionate

to the traditional first past the post system, which is essentially a

good thing. That said, we are predicting across the country that

the SNP will make progress. Do you have any indications from your

people on the ground? Of course, we won't have any results until

tomorrow. We have heard good news from the cities in Scotland that

progress will be made in some of the cities, in Dundee, Edinburgh,

Aberdeen, Perth and Stirling. It is possible the SNP could form our

first majority administration in one of those cities. Right across

the country, as the national party, we are looking for progress across

the country. On the issue of Alex Salmond, there was a flurry about

his relationship with Rupert Murdoch. Has that been damaging to

the SNP? No, this election has been about local issues and who is best

placed to run local services. Those issues haven't impacted in this

campaign at all. That is not what people have been talking about in

Scotland. It has not been about independence? This was a campaign

fought on local issues and who was best placed to run local councils

and not for independence. The people of Scotland will be asked

the question of independence in the autumn of 2014 as outlined in our

campaign last year. Would it be fair to say you are sounding a wee

bit more cautious than you were in January about the outcome? Simon

Hughes was saying that governments get a hammering mid-term. This

Government, the SNP Government, is getting more popular and we look

forward to progress at these council elections. That stands out

quite differently to what is happening with the UK Government.

We will get progress across the country and we are looking forward

to some good results tomorrow. Thank you very much. Sadiq Khan, if

he is right and they take councils, that will be bad news for Labour?

Yes. They are doing very well. Derek articulated some of the

popularity they have as a party. The challenge for us is - bear in

mind the disappointing results last year - can we win backseats we have

lost? Can we gain popularity? We are the biggest party. If we stay

the biggest party, that will be fantastic. It is difficult there

because we have lost members. We had a terrible result last year.

The SNP are very popular. We better pause there. I want to thank you

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

Deputy Chair, Tom Watson. He of course of the Murdoch Committee.

And the Transport Secretary, Justine Greening for the Tories.

Jeremy Browne will be here for the Liberal Democrats. First, we have a

full news update. Counting is under way after local

elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The contests are an

important test of support for the coalition two years into the

Parliament and for Ed Miliband's effort to lead Labour back to power.

In England, early indications suggest large swings to Labour in

wards in the North and the South. Several areas are reporting low

turnout. More than 4,700 English council seats have been fought over

T there are reports of a low turnout -- fought over. There are

reports of a low turnout in Scotland, too.

The SNP hope to build on their Holyrood election victory last year.

Every seat on Scotland's 32 unitary authorities have been contested.

All Welsh councils except Anglesey have held elections. Some 1,200

councillors are being chosen. Most areas are expected to declare

during the early hours. In the capital, voters have been

electing the Mayor and choosing the new London Assembly. Electronic

counting will begin early this morning. The winner of the mayoral

contest will be announced on Friday evening.

Liverpool and Salford have been choosing their first directly-

elected Mayors. Ten other cities have held referendums to decide

whether they should elect a Mayor, areas. Others will wait till the

morning. Doncaster has held a referendum to decide whether to

abolish their mayoral elections. The US military says newly-released

documents obtained from Osama Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan show he

was intent on attacking President Obama and that he was frustrated by

his diminished standing among Muslim radicals. Nearly 6,000

documents were seized during the raid on the compound where Bin

Laden was killed. The UK Border Force missed its

targets for processing passengers last month.

The Governor of the Bank of England has said the UK economy will see a

steady rise later this year. Those are the headlines. Now back to Vote

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 46 seconds

Don't forget Labour's fortunes in Wales were terrible the last time

these elections were fought in 2008, they lost 124 councils. They had a

bad night. They should be on the up here. In Swansea they're short by

here. In Swansea they're short by ten. Let's see what they can do

here. This is the Lib Dems and the independents controlling the

Council. Labour then, ignored. Last year at the Welsh Assembly, the Lib

Dems were hammered by Labour. Labour are continuing that

direction of travel, they hope to take Swansea. Newport, Caerphilly,

all the places Labour should never really have lost in 2008. They'll

hope to pick those up. Ceredigion, Plaid Cymru are in the top spot.

This is their best chance of a gain under their new leader Leanne Wood.

They're short by two. If they can get the rest of the councils to

stop ganging up against them, this council is controlled by everyone

by Plaid Cymru, they'd like to take that.

Thank you. You may have spotted various people around the table, I

will introduce them now. Otherwise they're sitting them. Justine

Greening, the MP for put any, the familiar figure of Tom Watson,

deputy Labour Party chair, campaign coordinator, God knows what for the

Labour Party, everybody says he's doing too much and Jeremy Browne,

the Foreign Office minister for the the Foreign Office minister for the

Liberal Democrats. That's what the said! We'll come to you in a moment.

Let's go down to Cardiff and join Sian Lloyd.

We can pick up now on some of the points that Emily was making with

my guests Allen Michael the -- Alun Michael. A lot of talk already

about Cardiff, where we are here this evening. Carwyn Jones, the

First Minister, said at the beginning of the campaign, he

thought that Labour Party could take it outright. That's a rather

large mountain to climb, isn't it? It's a very long stretch. I think

to move from merely having some 12 successful candidates at the last

local government elections to having a majority would be a very,

very big climb that. Would be a real triumph. I think we will have

moved forward massively. It's very clear that in general people are

coming back to the Labour Party not just because they're frustrated

with what the Liberal Democrats are doing locally or the Conservatives

are doing nationally, but because they're chairing our view of the

way that the future of the city ought to go. Byron Davies, we've

heard a tweet from David Davis that the Conservatives could lose

overall control in Monmouthshire. That would be a devastating blow,

wouldn't it? It would be disappointing. But it's something

we would have to live with. It's a difficult time for us. We are mid-

term in Government. We would hope not to lose it. But we'll see.

Labour has been asking voters to send a message to the UK coalition

Government, to the vicious UK coalition Government, you've said,

that's been a negative campaign. that hasn't been the essence of the

campaign on the doorsteps. I've campaigned in areas right across

South Wales. What I've heard is candidates saying to people on the

doorstep what they want for their area. As I say, it's a question of

restoring people's confidence that Labour has a vision of what we want

to do, not just protecting people against the impact of central

Conservative actions, which are pretty devastating, but also having

a positive vision of what we want to do for our communities. I'd like

you to respond to that. This has been a campaign for us, hard-fought

campaign. We fought it on local issues. I think when Carwyn Jones

mentioned sending a message to central Government at Westminster

he was quite wrong. There are issues here in Wales to be dealt

with. We fought them with council tax, for example, with lowering

business rates, those are the issues. Gentlemen, Alun Michael and

Byron Davies thank you for joining Vote 2012 indeed. We'll catch up

with some of the results we've had in Emily if we can, even though

it's early in the night. This was the board you might remember, I

started with at the beginning. These are some of the interesting

ones we're watching. The blue means that the Conservatives control them.

Look what happens when I update the button, this is the result of what

button, this is the result of what we've seen so far tonight. Harlow

has gone Labour. Let's have a look. This was a very tight Essex

The Conservatives were on a majority of one here. The Labour

have taken that. This is quite interesting in a Parliamentary

Westminster level as well. It will be a feather in the cap for Ed

Miliband. Look at where it is as well. It's in the south-east. These

are the kinds of places, that sort of territory is where Ed Miliband

will really want to feel that he's pushing back. I'm going to show you

one other one, Worcester and who can forget that target voter,

Worcester woman from the 1997 election. She was supposed to have

swung it for Tony Blair. Last year, the Conservatives took it from

Labour. We're seeing possibly the reverse of that. The Conservatives

have been knocked off the top spot. They had Worcester. It's now grey,

which means no one party controls it. It's a no overall control. It

was not possible for Labour to take this outright. You can see what

they've done, they've taken the Conservatives out of overall

control of that. The Conservatives are down win. Labour has made three

gains. The Lib Dems are down one and there's also a gain for the

and there's also a gain for the Greens here.

In the chaos, or the anarchy of the British electoral system it's worth

remembering that we have different kinds of elections going on all

over the place. The things that Emily's talking about, there's only

one third of the Council being changed. Some places do half. Some

places do the whole because they've changed the boundaries, Scotland

has a different system. It's difficult to extrapolate from it

what the mood of the country is. However, we do still have key wards,

which are -- our psephologists look at carefully and produce from it a

portrait of the country as a whole. Jeremy has the first stab at doing

Jeremy has the first stab at doing this tonight. Yes, we take about a

thousand wards dotted around the country as a way of sampling,

getting a clue as to what the main vote, the share of the vote is.

We've got about 190 in so far. Let me show you the change on 2008.

First of all, Conservatives down ten. 2008 was a very, very good

year for the Conservatives. Cameron was in opposition. Gordon Brown was

the Prime Minister, really struggling. Down ten. Labour up 19.

Again similar thing in reverse, very, very bad results for Labour

in 2008. But a big jump since then. The Liberal Democrats down ten. And

then the others you can see up one. That's the change since 2008. Again,

we say the significance of that year is that is the year the

council seats we're looking at tonight were last fought. Very good

year for the Conservatives. What about the change since 2011? Let us

about the change since 2011? Let us look here at the key wards. This is

the change since last year. Here we go: The Conservatives down 4%.

Labour up 3%. Liberal Democrats down 2%. And the others up 3%. Now

we showed you the graph earlier, which showed the Labour and

Conservative vote roughly 35%, 36%. You can see this, it's too early to

do this, we won't see the share stabilise until later. You're

seeing Labour heading into the high 30s. The Conservatives heading

towards the low 30s. Let's clarify this, so we're clear, that is the

change, people around the table here are asking, that is the change

since 2011 is it? That is the change since this time last year

when we were looking at Council seats in 2011. Repeat those

figures? Conservatives down four, Labour up three, Liberal Democrats

down two and the others are up three. We showed you earlier on a

graph which gave Labour's vote last year as a total percentage at 36

and the Conservatives at 35. I don't like to do this. But the two

figures, if they stabilise, you'd add the three to the 36 and take

the four from 35, so you get 31 and 39. But it's way too early about

talking about national share. You can see how those figures fit

together. We'll talk to John Curtice in a bit and see what he,

whether he agrees with that. Maybe you are being a bit rash. Maybe you

aren't. Tom Watson, the deputy Labour Party chairman and the

campaign coordinator, might have a comment on it. He's here on my

right. Beyond him Justine Greening, Secretary of State for transport.

And Jeremy Browne, Liberal Democrat Foreign Office minister and of

Foreign Office minister and of course, Nick Robinson. Tom Watson,

we heard Sadiq Khan sort of cautious about how many seats

Labour were going to take, 700 or so. What do you think it will be?

Tories think it will be a thousand tonight? It won't be a thousand,

that's a ridiculously over optimistic figure. There's only

3600 seats up for grabs in England and Wales alobe. -- alone. We

predicted we wanted 350 gains in England and 100 gains in Wales.

That would consolidate our gains from last year, which would put us

in a strong position in quite a few of the key seats. It's great to see

the Harlow result tonight. I did a lot of listening in Harlow. There

was a lot of people on the doorstep that were in two minds about where

they were going a month ago. They've been hit by these Budget

hits. They put their faith in David Cameron two years ago. They thought

they voted for change. They, you could hear it on the doorstep, we

voted for change and there hasn't been any. They've decided to go

with Labour tonight. That's encouraging for us. It's looking

dire for the Liberal Democrats at the moment, isn't it? As long as

I've been interested in politics, it has always been the case that

the parties in Government have difficulty in mid-term elections.

And the parties in Opposition do well. Of course, the Lib Dems are

in Government for the first time in pretty much living memory, we are

in a difficult position compared to compare sons of four and eight

years ago. And last year. We'll see. I think it's early in the night to

look at that. I think we'll do better than the opinion poll rating

overall. I think we might do better than last year when all the results

are through. But I think the fundamental point is this. F.

You're trying to look at a national picture, I think people across the

country in their heart of hearts, know when they see what's happening

in Greece and elsewhere, that we have to make difficult decisions.

And they look at the Labour Party telling them there are no difficult

decisions to be made. Why aren't you getting the support then?

see why it's superficially attractive... So the electorate are

superficial? Let's go back to the first Blair Government. Tony Blair

lost something like 2,000 Councilors in his first term as

Prime Minister. 2001 general election, he won a massive land

slide majority again. People in mid-term elections vote against

governing parties, but... You're switching your argument now.

I'm not. You started by saying people understand what needs to be

done. But you said they're not voting for it. People do understand

there are difficult decisions to be made, but in the council elections

in mid-term they feel they can exercise a protest vote and Labour

Party which aspires to be no more than a party of opposition and

protest is a good short-term vehicle for expressing that protest.

When it comes down to it, they still have a fundamental belief

that the Government is doing what is necessary and in the national

interest. Why are people not voting in support of a Government doing

the right things? I think the first thing to say it's really early on

in the evening. We've had a few results. I think it's too early to

say you can draw too many conclusions. As Sayeeda Warsi said

earlier, we all expect it's going to be a tough night for the

Conservatives. When we went into fighting these seats the last time

in 2008, we really were doing incredibly well in the polls. We're

in a mid-term Government at the moment, but what will be

interesting for all of us, is to see how we all fare in particular,

how Labour fare, even the Conservatives two years into an

incredibly popular Tony Blair Government then, we took 1300 seats

in 1999. I think local election results are probably a ref DMon how

well Ed Miliband is doing. They are a referendum and let's bring in

John Curtice, on how accurate the opinion polls are in the terms of

the popularity of the party. You've been listening to what Jeremy Vine

was saying and what's being said round the table. What light can you

throw, at the moment? And how Justine Greening saying it's early

day. How early are the days? They are early days, but the truth is

from the first few results coming in from Sunderland, as early as

11.30pm, we were seeing remarkably consistent numbers. Quite

remarkably from the very beginning, we were getting results ward after

ward showing the Labour Party yes, enormous swings since 2008, but

doing better than the local elections in the same wards this

time last year and the Conservatives doing worse. That is

in dramatic progress for the Labour Party. But it is progress and it is

progress in line with what we would expect given where the national

opinion polls are now as compared where they were 12 months ago. So

certainly good reason for Labour to take heart. But this isn't the kind

of performance the Labour Party was putting in local elections before

its success in the 199 7jebl e lection. But -- 1997, general

election. When Justine Greening says things could be different

later on, could they be different? You feel this pattern is new a well

established pattern fortnight? could be different, yes, true.

We've only got around 150, 200 of the 900 or so results we're going

to collect. But they have been remarkably consist enter. I would

say one other word of warning to both the coalition parties, the

Labour advance looks as though it's strongest, and particularly the

decline in coalition support seems to be greatest in those wards that

they're trying to defend. Particularly the Liberal Democrats,

as last year, are going down by far and away the heaviest of all in

places where they're in competition with Labour. The results in north-

east Lincolnshire, where they've lost badly, absolutely typical.

Equally crucially, the Labour Party is doing relatively well and

Conservatives relatively badly in those wards where Conservative and

Labour shared first and second place before. The Conservatives

seem to be losing ground, where hitherto they have been strong. If

that continues, the Labour gains overall may be towards the high end

of our expect aigsz. Being roughly what? We were expecting 700 or so,

maybe, I don't want to push it too far, maybe we'll end up with

slightly more than 700, because of the fact that the Labour Party is

gaining and the coalition parties losing in the place where's it

This isst gin room of the election. We have put it on the screen, but

John Curtice is the big brain of all the brains, apart from Nick

Robinson who is is a big brain. Nick, you wanted to comment on it

Every viewer thought we knew all this stuff. There is a tendency

about this time of the evening for parties that are losing to say it

is of no consequence, don't worry about it, it has happened in the

past. We can all look back to periods in the Thatcher

administration, the Blair administration in which governing

partys have done badly. But, and it's a very important but, these

are troops that win general elections. Tom Watson will be

looking at Worcester and Southampton and ebgter sand say

they are the guys that are going to get my an MP. It has a real

consequence, secondly it has a real impact on the debates within party,

and what future direction and thirdly and crucially about what

John Curtice has done, the coalition parties are going to come

and clash over how they win their Parliamentary seats in three years

time. What John Curtice is telling uss, is that the Liberal Democrats

are losing again and again to the Labour Party. To hold on they have

to have a fight with the Tories, fight in the south and south-west.

As they get closer to a general election, that tension will

increase, because they will be at each other for those few seats they

need, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, to hold on, or the few

seats the Tories need to gain a majority, in other words what is

happening here will increase actual tension within the coalition.

said it will increase tension in the Conservative Party, because

people will be saying about Essex, we told you, you know, you are too

liberal, you are not Conservative enough. Will it threaten the

coalition or is it not as grave has the? I don't think it will threat

tn coalition because they are thrown together. They need to hold

on to each other. It is a kphuel battle for control of the...

problem is there are two alternative forces at work. And

that creates a deal of tension. On the one hand long-term, they

believe in each other still, they get on at the top, they still

believe in much the same thing, we will see David Cameron and Nick

Clegg do a big media launch next week, when the Queen's Speech. But

they will be listening to party advisers saying you have to draw

the distinction to win those seats. One last thought for you, I thought

he did a good job of, but Nick Clegg did say I sense as I go round

the country there is a significant change, there are a lot of people

flock back to vote for us I was his prediction matter of days ago.

is what you have to say! You would be a hopeless politician Nick.

take that as a compliment. One last thing, because Emily has more

results I want to get. Ed Miliband's position as a result of

this. Much strengthened because it endorses the theory. But of course

there will be his critic, much strengthened but he he will have

bad news in London and Glasgow, and of course what opposition parties

have to worry about, is they don't delude themselves, the classic

example you have heard raised there was William Hague who did well in

1999 won the European election, did well in 2000 in the local election,

didn't do very well when it came to 2001. Emily, let us have a bit more

hard news.. We have some of the results in Ed Miliband and Labour

will be pleased with this one, Great Yarmouth, two years ago, nick

was talking about the work of the foot soldier, in 2010 at the

general election this was somewhere the Conservatives took off Labour,

so now they are starting to show or so now they are starting to show or

suggest there is a reversal of fortunes. Labour in Great Yarmouth

on 21. The Conservatives on 1. No play here for the Liberal Democrats

at all. Let us see what happened overnight then. Labour up five, the

Conservatives down four. It is a pattern you are going to see

repeated. This seat, this council in the south-east. What about one

in the Midlands. Nuneaton, that grey as you can see has been pushed

off by the red of Labour, there on 25. The Conservatives on eight. If

I show you that change overnight. Conservatives pushed down, they are

down six. Labour is up eight and The Greens have made a gain of one

seat here. Lincoln this is somewhere where the Tories have

take an big hit. Let me show you again what happened overnight. This

was Labour in 1997. Last year, there was a gain, one from the

Conservative, and they have managed to move consolidate that direction

of travel. Labour is up seven here, the Conservatives down six, and the

Liberal Democrats, the coalition partners have also lost their seat

here. They are down one. So what we are starting to see. Let me take do

you Exeter that, was somewhere we heard Sadiq Khan talking about

earlier as being an important one. This has been taken by Labour, from

overall control. They are on 24. The Conservatives on 11. Liberal

Democrats on five. They have their MP Ben Bradshaw here but this is a

part of the world where they are not very well represented at a

council level. The south-west. Here you can see the picture. The

Conservatives on no councillor, the Liberal Democrat down four, and

Labour is up five. Sorry I should say the Conservatives have not seen

a change, the Liberal Democrats have taken a hit there and Labour

is up five, so a whole set of results there. It would be good

news for the Labour Party this far, still early days. Labour up five

councils at the moment. The Conservatives down six I think. So

Conservatives down six I think. So Albert Bore joins us. First of all,

you are going to win Birmingham? Are you going to be the new leader?

Without a doubt. We have not yet had many results phoned through to

the council house, but we have two gains so far that are official. I

am hearing there are substantial gains across Birmingham, both from

the Conservatives and from the Liberal Democrats. And you are also

voting in Birmingham on whether to have an elected mayor, aren't you?

Yes, it appears but I can only use the word appears. It appears there

is likely to be a "no" vote in Birmingham here tomorrow. There is

some areas who have voted considerably for an elected mayor,

but there are otherary areas which are heavily against. I think they

will win the day tomorrow, and there will be a "no" vote. Because

of course if there are an elected mayor and you were the new council

leader, you would be up staged by Liam Byrne or someone else? I did

myself consider standing for the elected mayor's role. I stood back

to allow one of the three to take that role, and I did so willingly I

felt I wanted to concentrate on winning Birmingham for Labour and

indeed putting together a Labour administration post May 3rd. Do you

think in principle that a leader of a council with a majority like you

say you will have in Birmingham, can do as much for a city as a

mayor? Are you yourself in favour of having an elected mayor or do

you think you will get along fine without one? I have always been a

proopponent of elected mayors and I think an elected mayor would be

good for the city of Birmingham, but if the people decide otherwise,

then that is the position we will have to work with. I think it is a

matter for the people of Birmingham to decide on the governance of

Birmingham, and if there is a vote, "no" vote registered tomorrow we

will carry on with the current system, where you have a council

appointed leader. So, just before we leave that, tell me about the

other areas round Birmingham, in the Midland, you got news about the

way Labour had done? It does appear that across the West Midlands

region there is a big swing to Labour. There are not many results

yet declared, but those that have been declared would indicate this

is a good night for Labour in the West Midlands. Thank you for

joining us. Maybe we will hear from you again when we get the final

result in on the mayoral referendum that you are having there. We go

down no to Plymouth I think, to Gary Streeter, how are thing

there's? Good evening. How are things? We are all right thank you

very much but we have taken a beating from the Labour Party. Not

unexpected but they will certainly be leading the council in about an

hour's time. How many council seats have you lost? Still a bit of

counting going on but between five and six. They only needed three or

four take the council. We have reverted back to Labour. This is a

bit of a swing city, but the interest thing was doing a lot of

work on the doorstep, people were unhappy, obviously about the last

two months of our Government, and many of them say we can accept many

things from the Conservative Party but we expect them to be competent,

that is one of the messages coming across, first two month we have

done well, the last two month not so good and we have to regain our

sure footedness. What are the particular issues of incompetence

that you would cite as being the cause of your defeat tonight?

can list them as well as I can. can't. I am asking you. I think you

probably K three or four things in the budget which have clobbered our

sport e a lot of unhappiness about one or two other decision, the fuel

skrie -- crisis, these are well- known. People say we expect do you

do better. A lot of supporters have stayed at home tonight. A lot of

supporters have switched across and voted UKIP, a huge vote in Plymouth

for UKIP tonight they have come to a whisker of taking seats here. We

need to work out a strategy for dealing with voters shuffling off

and voting gyp because they don't think our leadership is

Conservative enough. Would you like to see a reshuffle and would you

like to see ary re-assessment of policy within the coalition?

think it's a question of recapturing the confidence and the

decision making we were showing three or four months ago. I think

we have a tremendous team at the top of the party, no-one doubts

that. But we have had a couple of bad months and we need to get going

again and to show the sure footedness and decisiveness in from

the past. What about UKIP, that you mentioned? The news coming in is

that UKIP where they are standing have done really well. How would

you deal with that particular challenge from the Conservatives

point of view? I mean, obviously one option is to have a referendum

on our membership oif the EU. Maybe we will put it in our party

manifesto. That is one way we could tackle it. The UKIP vote is not

just about Europe. It is about a hard core of traditional

Conservative voters saying, we don't like the kind of the small l

liberal decisions the Government is beginning to tai, it offend our

values and we are going to protest and vote UKIP. How will you get...

How do you get rid of the small l liberal policies, in the coalition,

without losing the Liberal Democrats from the coalition?

know, the Liberal Democrat vote in Plymouth has just disappear. If the

tail has been wagging the dog too much, it doesn't need to do that

any longer. We can be tougher with them, we have to be much more small

c and big C Conservative on crime, law and order, some traditional

policies, that is what supporters are waiting, indeed gagging to see.

Let us hope in the next few months we can demonstrate we will be

robust in those areas and put right the misdeeds of the last two months.

Thank you very much. Do you want to comment on that? Can you see the

coalition being told in effect by the Conservatives, look, this is

going to fall apart if we don't act with less of our little l liberal.

The coalition is very strong, very cohesive at the centre, compared to

the Blair-Brown permanent Civil War, you have ministers working co-

operatively, intep -- intelligently together, which ever party they are

in. The second point I would make b even though it is not my job to

comment on the strategy of the Conservative Party, as distinct

from the Government, I would think the Conservatives would be making a

mistake if they sub scon tract all the liberal element of the

Government to Liberal Democrats and they become a hard-core right-wing

part they are in the market with UKIP competing for vote, rather

than on the centre ground of British politics. That is advice

for free, that is not my job to advice the Conservative Party, but

I think that the Conservative MPs who say the only reason that David

Cameron might entertain the idea of being liberal minded is to appease

the Liberal Democrats are shifting the Conservatives into a place

which is not a good place for them We're joined by Paul Nuttall of

UKIP, the Deputy Leader the MEP for the North West of England, but is

this evening, here in London. Our estimate at moment is that you're

averaging 14% of the vote in the wards you're standing in, which is

five points up since last year. Assuming that is correct, why do

you think you're taking these votes? Well, because people are

looking at UKIP as being a serious alternative nowadays. UKIP is in

the past couple of years has begun to take local elections seriously.

We're not just about Europe. We have sensible policies on crime. We

have sensible policies on grammar schools etc. These are policies

which should attract natural conservative voters they're

switching to over us in swathes. Which that transcends into seats,

we will have to wait. What are you going to do about that? Support

leeching away to UKIP? First of all, we need to continue to get on with

the programme that we've got in Government, which is sorting out

this huge mess that was handed over to us by the Labour Party. That

hasn't changed at all. It may be that we need to work harder on how

we get that message across about why doing that is so important. My

personal view is that we need to be a Government that represents the

whole country, not a fringe of it. I think that's really important. I

actually agree with a lot of what Jeremy said. So far the coalition

Government has worked well together. I think what's most important is we

continue to get on with that job that we've been given, which is to

sort out our economy, get public finances back on track. That's the

best way, frankly, if we want time prove our poll ratings is to get on

with the job people want us to do. This ways significant moment. Gary

Streeter is not one of the usual suspects, the MP we heard from

Devon. He's not someone that's been booked to come on the programme

because you can expect him to have a tilt to the Conservative

leadership. He was a minister under John Major. He has said the

leadership is not Conservative enough and the Liberal Democrat

tail is wagging the dog. Now that's at the beginning of the evening. If

there are many Conservative MPs thinking as he's thinking, looking

at that rise in the UKIP vote and thinking what do we do about it?

That will become big pressure on ministers like Justine greening and

on David Cameron to change what they're saying to the electorate.

The fear the Conservatives will have, we're a long way from this,

but the fear is of a split in their vote in the way that the Labour

Party suffered in the 1980s as they saw a split in the vote when the

SDP was created. If UKIP becomes not just a fringe group with

concerns about Europe, that does well in European elections but can

do well in other elections on crime, immigration or mainstream issues

thaz a big problem for the Conservatives. There are small

majorities up and down the country they could wipe ou. I was looking

at wards in Basildon and Thurrock, you had many hundreds of votes for

UKIP, and they were significantly higher than the majority Labour had

in those wards. You look at the impact of that vote is to allow the

party that those voters to be in control locally to get in control,

that is the Labour Party. How do you get them back then UKIP voters

have to think about the outcome they want. If it's getting rid of

the Tories that's one thing. If you end up with the Labour Party, most

of them would overwhelmingly say that's far worse. I hope we might

be able to hear Paul Nuttall's reaction to that. He's listening in

to this. We'll come back to you in a moment. Another Conservative MP

we're joined by Martin Vicers, Conservative MP for Cleethorpes.

What is your reaction to the news tonight and particularly about

UKIP's gains? Clearly it's disappointing. The UKIP have gained

the ward on north-east Lincolnshire Council that I represented for

about 15 years. It's permly very disappointing to see that happen.

But it's a -- personally very disappointed to see that happen.

There's an anti-Government vote, which is expected but there's a

very strong anti-European vote, particularly here in the Grimsby

area, where they still remember the sell out of the fishing industry in

the original negotiations. Is there a change of policy at the top that

you would like to see? On the basis of the results that are coming in

and the way that Labour has soared away and your votes, at least 14%

of the vote where UKIP stands, gone to UKIP. Do you think a change of

course is required on those fronts? Well, we've got to be mindful the

fact that many constituency that's we won at the general election two

years ago are like mine, predominantly working class

constituencies. We're not appealing sufficient live to them. The

aspirational Conservatives. I heard what Justine was saying about the,

delivering a clear message and I agree with that. We have to refine

the message a bit to maintain the support that we gained two years

ago. What's the refinement? Well, my own view is that for example, in

the Budget, there was no desire here for the 50p tax change, fuel

duty was far more significant to the people that I represent.

right, thank you very much. Paul Nuttall you were hearing two Tory

MPs, it sounds as if there'll be pressure on the Prime Minister to

change course a bit. That may diminish the appeal of UKIP. What

you find is that UKIP appeals to Labour voters as well. The news

from our strategists is that we're finishing second in a lot of Labour

seats as well. The Conservatives are running scared. You just had to

list ton what Baroness Warsi disgracely tried to do before link

us to the BNP. We are the only political party in this party which

has a blanket ban on BNP membership. What she did before was a sign that

the Conservatives are very afraid of UKIP and the fact we're picking

up a lot of Conservative votes. Thank you very much. Do you want to

comment on perhaps you didn't hear what Baroness Warsi said. No I

wasn't here. She pointed out there was a link between the places where

there are fewer BNP candidates running for the council and those

place where's there are more UKIP running for council. I pushed her

to say what was this link. She simply repeated the link that in

those places where the BNP is less active, UKIP is more active. UKIP

thought she was implying there's a link between their members.

Professor John Curtice is confirming UKIP is taking vote from

the Tories more than from others. Tom Watson let's bring you back in.

Campaign coordinator, the per suer of Rupert Murdoch and the man who

said of Ken Livingstone to Labour Party members, hold your nose, but

vote for him. Why did you tell Labour people to hold their noses

to vote for Ken Livingstone? It was slightly more contextual than that.

There is a section of voters in London who said that if there was a

general election tomorrow they would Vote Labour, but when it came

to the same question about Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone they

were considering voting Boris Johnson. What I reminded them was

that if they did that, they would allow David Cameron to try and

claim a victory on Friday and they didn't actually want to do that.

The form of words was if you vote, if you vote, hold your nose and

vote for Ken, you will help Labour and stop David Cameron. Obviously,

Boris Johnson is a charismatic guy. He's a potential leader of the

Conservative Party. He has reach into all three political parties

and I was making the point he would be helping David Cameron if he wins.

What was the hostility among your Labour voters to Ken Livingstone?

don't know whether there has been. You wouldn't have said it. You know

what the opinion polls say. We pick up on the doorstep. You've seen

prominent Labour writers, people like Dan Hodges, who appears to be

saying he's voting Conservative for the first time in his life today.

He was voting for Boris Johnson. I would disadepree with that, but

obviously, there's a section of Labour supporters who have decided

not to vote for Ken Livingstone. I was trying to get a wider context

to understand there are bigger issues than just the personalities.

We don't get this result until, it's probably the last result we

get tomorrow because of the... could be 8pm. Taize long time to

wait. Because of the polling system. Obviously the Labour Party have got

to say, losing the London Mayor is nothing do with the Labour Party,

it's everything to do with Ken Livingstone. They have to. We'll

take responsibility for it Nick. was going to say something helpful

to you. On the other hand, a Tory win in London is also in a funny

way a problem for the Conservative leadership, because people like

Gary Streeter and others say well why is Boris Johnson doing so much

better than our own party leader, that will in a curious way, it will

be worse for the Tory party if they lost London, but it will fuel that

debate about a brand of conservatism that's more successful

than that. The Labour Party will have to look hard about choosing a

candidate who might not win. might be hard to define what brand

of conservatism Boris Johnson has? Outspoken, charismatic and anti-

European. Gary Streeter hinted for the need of referendum on Europe.

The one thing they would be clear about is that Boris Johnson is

tougher on Europe than the Government. Councilors, we've had

one tenth of the Councillor results in. The Conservatives are currently

down 78, Labour up 117. Yes, and the Liberal Democrats down 33.

Let's look at the councils Emily. There have been changes there too.

Yes, just to remind you, we haven't got results in from Wales yet or

from Scotland. We've had 3 out of 128 councils in England declared.

Labour then on 19, they've gained seven tonight. The Conservatives

are on nine. They've lost seven. The Liberal Democrats have just had

one result, so no change there. Hung councils seven remain. There

aren't any I'm taking you into there. Let me show you what it

means in terms of the Councilors as means in terms of the Councilors as

well. If I show you the numbers there: Labour has gained 121

Councilors. The Conservatives down 83. Remember a moment ago you were

looking at the Lib Dem result, it looked as if there's no change.

They have lost a fairly significant number of Councilors tonight. You

won't see, you will see that UKIP gain, that's just come through in