Part 2 Vote 2013

Good afternoon and welcome to the BBC's election Centre. In the next

couple of hours, we are expecting the bulk of the local election

results, 20 declared now, with 50 to go. The contest was yesterday. 34

councils in England, one in Wales, the biggest electoral test of the

year. The biggest celebration so far has been in the UKIP camp. Their

leader, Nigel Farage, has been celebrating in his usual style.

There was a big surge in UKIP support. Dozens of games. Most of

the councils have yet to declare, and we have 15 to go. What about the

Conservatives? David Cameron was on a visit to Oxford University today,

but he is due to respond to the results within the next hour or so.

He will have something to say about the Conservative performance and may

be about the other parties, too. But the Conservatives lost overall

control of several councils. At the moment, six of them. They are

hanging on to 11. That was South Shields last night, the

Parliamentary by-election, which Labour retained. But UKIP took

second place, with a strong performance. Labour's share of the

vote was coming -- constant, but there vote was halved. And Lib the

Lib Dems did badly in South Shields. All parties were affected by the

UKIP search. Nick Robinson is with me, the BBC

political editor. More analysis to come. We now have a rush of results.

With no further ado, here is a news update.

The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, has claimed

that the results of yesterday's local elections have sent a

shockwave through the establishment. Many votes have yet to be counted,

but so far, UKIP is winning about a quarter of the vote in the wards

where it has candidates standing. The party also pushed the

Conservatives into third place in the South Shields Parliamentary

by-election, which was held by Labour.

They don't have any MPs. They don't run any big councils, but this is a

big moment for UKIP. So far, they have won around one in every four

votes cast, making them impossible to ignore. The campaign has flowed

for the party once described by the prime minister as loonies,

fruitcakes and closet racists. have been abused by the

establishment, and now they are shocked and stunned that we are

getting over 25% of the vote everywhere we stand. This is a real

sea change British politics. Labour did hold the one Parliamentary seat

up for election, a seat they have held for generations, South Shields.

Labour won here as well north Tyneside, where their campaign for

mayor beat the Conservatives, but both victories were most wins.

Overall, the party's performance has been mixed. Some who have not voted

before have come out and voted UKIP, but it is a party of protest, not a

party of government. The Conservatives lost control of

Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire of UKIP's gains, posing questions for

the Tory leadership. We hear you, we get what you are saying. We

understand that people are impatient for change. We appreciate that

people are anxious to see problems fixed in this country. All the big

parties now have to decide how to face up to the UKIP threat. Already,

the insults have gone. There is unease about how politics is done in

this country. Nigel Farage, in a way that Boris Johnson does as well,

connects with some of that unease. These elections will be remembered

for UKIP's breakthrough, as small as the party still remains. The Nigel

Farage, there has only ever been one way to celebrate.

Now the rest of the day's stories. The jury in the trial of Mark

Bridger, accused of murdering five-year-old April Jones, have been

shown CCTV footage of his movements around the time sheets of bid. Mark

Bridger is shown buying alcohol in a Spar store and his Land Rover is

seen outside his home and being driven around the area. He denies

murdering April Jones, who disappeared in October in north

Wales. The Royal Bank of Scotland returned to profit in the first

quarter of this year. The bank, more than 80% owned by the

taxpayer, made a pre-tax profit of �826 million. That compares with a

�1.5 billion loss in the same period last. The chairman of RBS says the

bank should be ready for a return to the private sector by the middle of

2014. A man who provided security

protection for Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News

International, is being charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of

justice. David Johnson is accused of concealing a computer and other

items and will appear before Westminster magistrates next

Wednesday. The charge comes as Scotland Yard continues its

investigations into phone hacking and payments to public officials.

The special prosecutor in Pakistan investigating the murder of the

former prime minister has been shot dead in Islamabad. Men on motorbikes

attacked him in front of his home. He died later in hospital. He was

also the main lawyer in a case related to the terrorist attacks in

Mumbai in 2008. Now let's return to the team at

Westminster. We will have more news later. In the

past hour, we have had a flow of results after a slow morning. We had

a few overnight and a couple this morning, but suddenly, we have had a

flow of results. Let's go to Emily for the latest. Yes, they are coming

in thick and fast. These are the places where we have had results.

This is the most dramatic result. Norfolk has been taken out of

Conservative control. No overall control is shown by this grey.

Lancashire has gone into no overall control as well. So has East Sussex.

Derbyshire is the first take in red for Labour from no overall control.

The others have stayed within Conservative control. Let me show

you the result in Norfolk. They have not quite finished the final

counting in the wards, so bear with us. We do know that it cannot be

taken by the Conservatives. UKIP are in second place, as we saw in

Lincolnshire. Norfolk has been held by the Conservatives for nine out of

the last ten elections, so it is a real shock to see them out. Let me

show you the share of the vote. This is not the number of seats, because

it has a first past the post system, but it shows you how it breaks up.

The Conservatives are still ahead in terms of share. Let me show you the

result of the result of a Parliamentary marginals here. Plenty

more results coming in. Well, we certainly want to talk

about Norfolk, as that is very significant. Lancashire, too,

because that opens up a couple of other arguments for us. Let's go to

Preston for a live update. What has happened there? It is a good result

for Labour, but not as good as they were hoping for. Labour are now on

39 seats. The Tories have 35. That means Labour gained 23 seats in this

county council election. A lot of games from a very low base, but not

the magic 26 they needed for control. They are three seats away

from control, leaving the Liberal Democrats and others with the

balance of power. And we are hearing from the Conservatives that they are

not conceding. They are hoping they will remain in control in

Lancashire, so there will be some political horsetrading going on over

the weekend, with news emerging of whoever will lead Lancashire.

Since we were on air earlier, we have also had results from Devon

among other places, let talk to our political editor in the south-west.

In Devon, the Tories, who controlled the council, stayed in control. They

have not just held off the challenge from their traditional rivals, the

Lib Dems. The Lib Dems have had their worst showing since the 1970s.

But UKIP were the big story. They are second in terms of vote share

and they have ended up with four councillors. Doesn't sound much, but

compared to the flatlining they have done in these local elections

previously, it is a significant breakthrough. When we look at the

balance of the other parties, go through a couple of the performances

for us. Who is happy and who is disappointed? Labour have done

reasonably well. Traditionally, their support ends to be focused in

a number of small areas in Devon. A Green councillor was elected. A

Green councillor was also elected last time, but she defected to

Labour. So clearly, it was a Green vote rather than a personal vote

which held an in that area. Nick is with me and my guests are in

the studio as well. Michael Gove, so far, you are hanging on to 13. You

lost control of six. But Norfolk is one of the most notable ones that we

need to talk about. We have to remember that these are local

elections and there were specific local factors in Norfolk which may

have had an impact. But it is striking that while UKIP are picking

up votes across the country, they seem to be the beneficiary of the

anxiety and discontent that voters feel in the middle of a coalition

government's term, and not the Labour Party. I was struck that

Labour were not winning in Lancashire or Cumbria. When Michael

Foot was opposition leader in 1981, these were councils that Labour took

control of. So it is striking that Labour are not doing as well as they

did when Michael Foot was their leader. There are Conservative

supporters who probably would like to vote for you, but they feel that

UKIP are offering what Mr Farage told us was a more direct option.

You don't recognise that? There are a host of reasons why people have

chosen to vote for UKIP, and we respect the choices that individuals

make. We have to make an effort to understand what led people who in

many cases might have voted Conservative in the past and might

in the future, not to support as now. It is too simple to say there

is one explanation for UKIP's popularity. Do you think it is now

time for the prime minister to apologise and say they are not

loonies, fruitcakes or closet racists? We will be hearing shortly

from the prime minister and I don't want to pre-empt what he will say. I

think you just have! I think he may un-say some of the things he has

previously said. Tom Watson, what do you think so far? Labour made some

gains and there will be people celebrating in some parts, but it is

nowhere near the level, not even back to 2005. So if you are looking

to 2015 on the basis of some of these results, it is not great.

have not had all the results in yet, but in these areas where we were

challenging, 80% returned Conservative MPs in 2010, so these

are the deepest and parklands in the cycle of elections. For me, I am

looking at whether battleground seats are, so I have not seen the

re-dash-mac results for Norfolk yet. But in Norwich, we have two strong

Parliamentary candidates who are leading a renaissance in our

campaigning. I have looked at our results in Hastings and the south

coast and some of the Lancashire seats that we need to win back.

These are the building blocks of a general election victory. We have

done well in those areas despite the overall results in the shires, and

that is because of the work of our members, who have worked hard and

are up for the fight in 2015. disappointed I used that

Northumberland has come through as a hung council? We wind -- wanted to

win all the Shire elections, even in deepest booking. We won a seat

there, which is nice to see and won a seat in Whitney Central, which is

nice to see. We have to be realistic as a party about where our

strongholds are. We were very ambitious in our targets. When we

have had time to reflect on the figures, we will be quietly

satisfied about the gains we have made in those battleground seats.

The most shocking result, the Conservatives have held onto sorry,

you will be glad to know! Yellow beanie to the reassurance. One thing

that might be less reassuring, a Labour Party member has been elected

in the Prime Minister's hometown of Whitney. The Conservatives came

third. May be the prime Minister will say something about that as

well. You are hearing labour and to a certain extent the Liberal

Democrats redefine the test and it is how we are doing in Parliamentary

constituencies. It is clearly true that really, if you are in Labour

HQ, if you work for Ed Miliband, that is what you want to know, how

close are you getting to a winning margin but there are places like

Lancashire that they have controlled for year after year and they have

not quite managed to pull it off. am going to go to Mark Denton,

because Mark is in Northumberland for us. He has the latest on the

result that flashed on the screen just now. Tell us about it? Since

2008, Huw, Northumberland county council has been with Lib Dems as

the largest party, just short of an overall majority. They have been

running the council, putting them policies into operation. What has

happened in the last half an hour, it has been confirmed that Labour

are the largest party. They are just agonisingly short of a majority,

just two seats short of an overall majority but what a turnaround. The

Lib Dems, who were the largest party, 25 seats, reduced to 11 seats

and reduced to the third party on the council. The Conservatives will

be the official opposition with 21 seats. Swathes of Lib Dem seats lost

on this council, but surprisingly in that context the Lib Dem leader

here, Jeff Reed, did survive, just. He is a very relieved man today.

Thanks for the update in Northumberland. Lord Newby, that

clearly is quite a blow, taking 14 seats away from your tally in

Northumberland. Some other areas not looking too healthy for you? It is a

mixed picture. Northumberland is slightly unusual for the Lib Dems,

because in a lot of the seats we were facing the Labour party. Last

time, we were the party picking up protest votes against a Labour

government. We are not picking up protest votes now. In somewhere like

the Southern Northumberland seats, that is why we have lost there. The

key thing for us, getting back to the earlier point you made, those

seats in the county elections which form part of our Parliamentary

constituencies, we have tended to do very well and we have picked up

additional feeds in some of our parliamentary constituencies.

Obviously, doing well in parliamentary constituencies is not

the only thing that matters to us. It is very important as we look

forward to the next election. joined by John Redwood. What is your

reading of white your party has been quite vulnerable over night and

yesterday to UKIP's campaign? are a very large number of those who

feel we cannot govern the country any more because Europe simply has

far too much power and many others resent the way in which our

government can't decide who to extradite, if there are people who

ought to stand trial somewhere else, can't decide the welfare benefits

because the European Court of Justice thinks it knows better,

can't decide our energy prices and energy policy, cannot decide quite a

lot of our criminal justice and borders policy, cannot control

migration, and some others carry on voting Conservative because we

accept the Prime Minister wishes a new relationship with the European

Union, but others are very impatient. They are saying we want

the borders sorted out now, energy sorted out now, the economic

recovery now. You are not able to deliver it, any of you three big

parties, because you are not renegotiating this dreadful

relationship with the European Union. What is the answer to that,

Michael Gove? To elect Michael Comer at -- to elect Cameron as the

election leader next election and put the choice to the people in a

referendum. Were that the David Cameron who is pushing forward with

the policies as opposed to someone under pressure from some corners of

the party to adjust significantly? I assume -- assuming you would like

today to signal that he is listening and changing, not? I want him to go

further and faster on this issue and I still do. The fact that a lot of

people agree with me, some of them have voted Conservative some have

voted UKIP, is a reinforcement of that message. I am glad more of them

voted Conservative than UKIP, but a lot of people are so frustrated

because they know that our government ministers in many

departments are simply unable now to do what they might wish to do and

what the public want them to do. It is high time we sorted out this

deeply unsatisfactory relationship, at a time when our partners are

renegotiating, to take even more power to Brussels and do even more

things that British people would object to and fight deeply damaging.

Is this the time for the Conservatives, if they can, to

engineer a vote in the House of Commons on a future EU referendum,

or receive and that too much like kicking it into the long grass for

you? We have done that once already and not enough of our colleagues

decided to vote with us. We are looking for the Prime Minister to

make a proposal. I think a majority of Conservative MPs want faster

progress on the new relationship with the EU. We were pleased with

the words of the Bloomberg speech that he made not so long ago. He

said in terms for the first time that the country needs a new

relationship with the EU. That is what Conservative and UKIP voters

are trying to get across in these elections. We are saying please, now

the elections are out of the way, let's go further and faster. Let's

get on with it and if the Liberal Democrats don't like it, they will

have to vote against. That is the question following, there is an

obvious obstacle or restriction which is the coalition partners. I

will ask Lord Newby and a second. You are saying that approach needs

to be more brutal? I think it has to be modified. I think the Labour

Party, facing the disappointing results they are facing today as

well and hearing the same message with their voters going off to UKIP

in some cases, will want to stand against us. I think if we had that

mandate referendum to start the renegotiation, if ministers started

the renegotiation from the Conservative side, I think the

Labour Party would have to go along with that. Your thought on that, Mr

Gove? The most effective way we can ensure that David Cameron is in a

position to negotiate a better position for Britain, is to win the

next elections. We have the case where Conservatives cannot get

everything they want and we need to make sure that the position at the

next election is clear and I hope and expect that David Cameron will

secure the majority necessary to make the changes we want to see.

political difficulty is this, there may be people watching this

programme who voted UKIP who say the best way to harden up Tory policy is

not to vote Tory, it is to vote for UKIP. After all, he did not make

that promise until there was the prospect of UKIP doing well. We hear

Conservatives pushing to go further and there may be many Conservatives

who may not switch back to the Tories but carry on voting for UKIP

because it puts the heat verities wanted. Even Nigel Farage concedes

he is not going to be the prime minister. It will be either Ed

Miliband or David Cameron. Therefore, the choice for anyone who

puts Europe at the top of their list of issues is whom would you rather

have standing up for Britain in Europe? Ed Miliband, who has been

weak in the face of European integration in the past, or David

Cameron, who has been strong. A related point is that as I mentioned

earlier, there are a host of people why people will have voted UKIP.

Some will be concerned about the pace and nature of European

integration, but others will have had concerns that we need to take

into account. We will hear from UKIP in a moment. You mentioned further

and faster, but spell it out. In policy terms and promises as you

approach the next election, the next European election which is equally

relevant, what do you want? I want the Prime Minister to say in terms

what he does want future ministers to have the power to settle our

borders, to settle our immigration policy, to decide our welfare

policy, to decide our tax and energy policy and our current relationship

with Europe prevents all of those things. I hope he will say to all

the people who voted UKIP that he wants them as part of his coalition,

part of his army, because we need to unite to fight the European Union

and we need to unite to fight the Federalist party is, so David

Cameron I hope will be reaching out all voters who feel very strongly

that the things they want on immigration, on tax, on benefits, on

the kind of country they want to live in, are being thwarted by the

European Union. Mr Redwood, and Cuba joining us. John Redwood, in Oxford.

24 councils declared, 11th to come. We talked about UKIP, we talked

about the Conservatives. We will come back to Labour in a moment. I

want to think about the Lib Dems, because we haven't discussed their

particular case for a while. Let's rejoin Jeremy, who will take us

through the Lib Dem performance. Have a look at them at first because

it is getting busier. We are seeing the blue that we started with being

washed away and we have saw the show stunning result. We are looking at

the Liberal Democrats and listening to the conversation in the studio is

-- it is apparent that the Lib Dems' defence of their performances

to say they have not dropped that many seats so far. Let's see if

there is truth in that. If I put up on the graphics behind us, let me

show you if I can change in key wards on 2009. We are talking about

percentages, looking at the drop for the coalition parties particularly

here. You can see that the Conservatives are down 9%. You have

discussed the amazing rise for UKIP, up 17%. Labour up 8%. The

Liberal Democrats, down 11%. In terms of the coalition partners

here, the Conservatives getting punished a little bit less than the

Liberal Democrats, down 11. The Greens are down one, others, -4.

When you look at the sure it is not good for the Liberal Democrats but

there is a line of defence. If you look at the number of seats they

have lost, it is a different story. This is not coming in in a logical

way, but Conservatives down 173. That will change as we go through

the day. Labour up 149, the Lib Dems down minus 60. Far fewer Lib Dem

seats shed so far than conservative, even though their drop in terms of

their percentage of the vote is greater. What is the reason for

that? Let's look at the Lib Dem seats and focus on the political

make-up, how the parties are arranged. If you look at the Lib

Dems, you see one thing absolutely clearly, which is this. In nearly

all of their seats, 80%, the Conservatives are in second place in

those Lib Dem seats. What has happened here is that in lots of Lib

Dem seats, the Lib Dems have been weakened, they have been vulnerable,

but nearly all times it is a Conservative who has challenged and

these coalition partners are both hurting at this election. The

Conservatives are putting up a less effective challenge and in some

cases the Lib Dems are not losing the seat. That is why they are able

to say the percentage has gone down but so far, our count of seats is

looking more robust than you might who say the Lib Dems will be wiped

out as a result of this, it is not the case. They are not going to be

wiped out in local government or Westminster. What we are learning is

that they can hold on to members of Parliament and councillors with far

fewer votes in the country as a whole. That has implications. If

they are seen as the fourth party of British politics rather than third,

UKIP will compete for attention, they will compete for the claim to

be a national party as well. It depends if you think the glass is

half full or half empty. If you dream of the Liberal Democrats

becoming the fourth in British politics which would replace Labour

on the centre-left, it is not going to happen, but if you had a

nightmare going into government is not -- is done to destroy you, it is

clear it is not. Most Liberal Democrats are natural optimists.

When I look at the UKIP vote share, remember a huge number of votes that

the SDP and the Alliance racked up and one -- and one is virtually no

seats. British politics is a cruel business and the key question in

Westminster is can you have concentration of votes that enable

you to win seats and I think on the basis of these results, we are

pretty confident we will be doing reasonably well compared to where we

start off in terms of seats at the next election. First past the post,

it would be a disaster if you had proportional representing --

representation. We would not have quite as many. Result the Isle of

Wight. Look at the arrangements of the parties. The independents are

the largest party. We don't know if that is a group of independents, or

if they are different people who have to work together. UKIP fielded

29 candidates and have picked up two. Let's look at what happened

overnight. I am sure we will find out more about these ten

independents later. The Lib Dems have also taken a hit. That is

strange, because the Lib Dems used to dominate in this part of the

world. They had 70% of the councillors in the Isle of Wight not

long ago. That result will need a bit more unpicking. Michael Gove,

what do you think of that? I don't know the Isle of Wight in the detail

that that beautiful part of England deserves, so I don't know what the

independents who have won have as their visible issue. I suspect there

are factors there. It is not great for the Lib Dems either. You have

traditionally been strong in the Isle of Wight. We have. The

independents have clearly done very well against us. But like all

islands, it is a very particular ecology. Nick, we will be talking

more in a minute or two. But at this stage, what are we now looking out

for? With ten to go, we are moving towards people making firmer

conclusions that we were making this morning, because we are well over

half way now. Are we certain that the Lib Dem performance has been

disappointing? Yes, but it is a glass half full or glass half empty

question. Certainly disappointing, because the pain does go on. They

are losing, but not at the same speed that they were last year or

the year before. For Labour, the news looks rosier than it did

overnight. The results we were just talking about in knocking on show --

Nottinghamshire and Lancashire, they are not quite there, these are

places where they did better in 2005. Tony Blair, opposed the Iraq

war, struggled to win that general election and they are still not

matching up performance. On the other hand, it was terrible under

Gordon Brown and they have taken shrines in those areas. But they

will worry about the parts of the country like Lincolnshire and Essex

where we have synagogue in the Labour vote. Actually, in Essex and

Lincolnshire, yes we have not won the county, but we have done well in

Harlow and Lincoln. So you need to go below the surface to see how

these results matter for Westminster. The test we set

ourselves was 200 gains in the 45 battle seats. I hope we have made

progress in most of those. Let's bring in the Conservative MP Adam

are free. You have been critical in some ways in the weather Cameron

government is run -- the way the camera government is run. Does that

impact on things like this? I have been looking at the future of our

country and the future nature of government, because government is

too big. But overall today, I have a feeling of sadness because we have

lost councillors and the activists have worked hard. And more than

that, the British people will have Labour run councils and councils

with no overall control, which means that council tax will go up and

services will go down. Why has your party been so vulnerable to UKIP

appeal? There is no getting away from this. People are just fed up

with the political class. And so am I, to a certain degree. There is a

Westminster bubble. Everything sounds the same, and people do not

feel that what is said is credible. In coalition government, we need to

take action so that people go actually, they didn't just say that,

they did it. What is David Cameron saying that is not credible? This is

not about David Cameron, it is a plague on all our houses, if you

like. In Italy, people were so desperate that they voted for a

comedian. So in the UK, it is not surprising that when the political

class has not connected with the public, we are suffering in this

way. It is not the Conservative politicians who will suffer, it is

the British people, because without a holy Conservative government, we

will not get the Britain we want. am not clear on what that means in

terms of practical changes? We have some great immigration policies. We

have a brilliant position on the European Union which says we will

renegotiate and then give people a say. But even when we say those

things, people think, whatever. I have been on the ground around the

country, and people don't really believe what the political elite are

saying. So we have to reconnect. In some ways, you have to get rid of

the spin doctors and talk to people directly. Does that make sense,

Michael Gove? Adam is right to say the Conservative position on

immigration is effective. We reduced immigration by a third. He is also

right that David Cameron has been effective on the European stage. And

a third point which is well made is that the political classes do

sometimes seem like pasteurised cheese on the cheese board, and UKIP

is the rich more ripe, stinking alternative. And people think they

would not mind a slice of that! is the stink that may bother people.

That is sometimes how I like my cheese, although it is not good for

my waistline. The thing is, Nigel Farage is a very effective and

charismatic figure. He can articulate the anxieties that people

feel and their exasperation with the political parties. What Adam says

has a lot of merit. Let's bring in the former leader of Lancashire

Council. I am still the leader of Lancashire Council! That is a very

important correction which I am happy to go along with. Tell us what

happened. How did your party for? lost overall control, but no party

has overall control. And why did that happen? Because the voters in

Lancashire voted more for other parties than my party. Yes, thank

you very much for pointing that out. I just wonder whether you have any

thoughts on why that might have happened? I have answered the

question. There can't be any more straightforward answer. What are you

trying to get me to say? I am not trying to get you to say anything.

Why were people not voting for you this time who were not voting for

you before? What are they telling you? That is a different question

from what you asked before. I can answer that. We fought a campaign on

our local record as to what we have achieved over the last four years.

But I suspect that many voters in Lancashire have looked wider than

what has been happening in Lancashire when they decided how to

vote. That gets us into an interesting area. So if I can ask

the question in a different way, what are the factors which were an

helpful to you in this election? don't know the answer to that. You

need to ask people who voted as to why they voted the way they did. I

can only tell you what we campaigned on. Thank you very much. Do we have

some more results in, Emily? We do. The ones which have just slipped in

our Oxfordshire, which has gone into no overall control from the

Conservatives, and we also understand that West Sussex has some

interesting results. We can't go into the full result for Oxfordshire

yet. For now, let me bring you this one. They are still counting, but we

know that it has been safely held by the Conservatives. It is a big

result for UKIP here. They did not have any representation here last

time round. This was a place where the coalition partners were fighting

it out, and the Lib Dems came off considerably worse. Remember, we are

a first past the post system, so this does not have much resonance in

seats, but look at this, UKIP pushing the Lib Dems and Labour into

third place. That is a dramatic result for UKIP in a part of the

world where they have not previously been. We have talked a lot about the

UKIP surge today. We should also talk about a party who in the past

have been in a position where they have been threatening lots of the

others. And they picked up one or two macro seats as well. We are

talking about the Greens, of course. Natalie Bennett became

leader of the Green party about six months ago. How have you done?

have had a very good day. We have a net gain of 11 seats. We won our

first two macro seats in Warwickshire and two macro seats in

Worcestershire. Two macro seats on Essex county council, our first seat

in Kent. We have doubled are present nation on Bristol Council. And I

have just heard we have our first set on Surrey county council. Our

aim was to spread around the country and reach out beyond our heartland

areas like Brighton Pavilion, where we hold the parliament receipt.

Oxford and Norwich are our traditional strongholds, and we have

spread around the country. So for viewers wondering whether you have

achieved your goals and performed according to your expectations, what

would you say? You could look at the tape of me on the Daily Politics a

few days ago saying that I was expecting gains of double figures,

so gains of 11 fits what we expected. What happened in Norfolk,

where you lost three seats? I have not looked at the detail, but we

have seen a very varied picture in different parts of Norfolk. Local

issues may have arisen. Which result were you most proud of? I would have

to put the West Midlands together. Two years ago, we had three

councillors in the West Midlands. I think we are now up to 19

councillors on seven councils. It is very much a growth area for us.

old enough to go back to 1989, when there was talk of the Greens really

becoming a major force in politics in Britain in terms of

representation. In the European elections, there was certainly a

surge that. It has not quite happened since then. Now that UKIP

are on the march, has that chance for you to step in disappeared?

much not. We have seen a breakup of the traditional two macro or three

party system in Britain. Fewer and fewer people regard themselves as a

lifetime Tory, Labour or Lib Dem supporter. People are looking at the

policies and voting that way. That will throw into at question our

first past the post electoral system. That is another topic

altogether. Thank you for joining With me is down James, -- Diane

Jones, who stood for UKIP in Eastleigh. You have been

celebrating? Phenomenal result. A lot of people are very tired. I am

sure that applies to other party activists as well. But at the

moment, it is just positive after positive. The Conservatives lost in

Cambridgeshire. I will ask Emily about that in a moment. One of the

issues today which Mr Farage was discussing earlier with us is to do

with credibility and policy. People are possibly, after this result,

going to be even more keen to take a magnifying glass to some of the

things you are talking about, like immigration policy. Are you ready to

be offering the kind of comprehensive list the platform that

can withstand the kind of scrutiny that these parties are used to?

Firstly, it will be a two-way street. We have been subjected to a

huge amount of Puccini over the last few weeks, along with all the

insults. But we have been the only party to issue a fresh national

manifesto. That is obviously in development and we are happy to keep

looking at that. All of our candidates were then able to use

that manifesto and translated into a local one, and the results speak for

themselves. That is why the candidates have won on a local

basis. Why is your party saying UKIP have a black hole in their plans?

Well, as Diane said, there is increased scrutiny of UKIP's

platform, and UKIP have been saying they want to increase spending on

defence and also lower taxation. Initial scrutiny of the UKIP

position is that it didn't add up. But of course, as Diane says, when

we come to the election, it will have its policy platform refined and

they will come under greater scrutiny and we will debate with

Diane as we do in a civilised fashion. We will pause there for a

second. This is an important moment for us where we imagine that these

elections have been taking place in all areas, because that will really

give us a sense of where these shares are. Yes, a big moment now,

where we are ready, with the map looking a lot busier than a few

share, the share we believe our parties would have got, had the

local elections in certain areas been spread out across the whole

country. This is what we believe the parties would have got in the BBC's

to go back to 1997, a period of Labour opposition to see them

scoring around there but even then they were not that low. The

Conservatives on 25% of the worst ever Conservative share in a local

election since we started doing projected national share, which was

1982. UKIP, the first time they have had a column in this projected

national share, showing here, so the purple column is 23%. You have

talked about how sensational that is. Here, we have the Liberal

Democrats on 14%. This showing for the Liberal Democrats

notwithstanding the reasons we discussed why they have held onto

some of their council seats where they were threatened, this showing

of 40% is the worst Liberal Democrat showing ever in a local election. --

14%. Those are the percentages if it was to be held across the country,

29% for Labour, poor. 25% for the Conservatives, record low

territory. 23% for UKIP, a stunning arrival in the top four for them.

Pushed into fourth place, 14% for the Liberal Democrats. You will

notice have we ever had, we can't remember a time when the three main

parties were pushed, all of them, below 30% in a local election. I

will give you some history, so we get a sense of how this fits into

previous local election performances. We have UKIP out of

this because they do not have a back story and these local elections. It

is not possible to do a graph for them. Just with the Conservatives,

Labour and Lib Dems. In 2006, Labour had won their third election.

Conservatives, 36%, this is in local elections. Lib Dems, 10% behind and

Labour starting to show a lot of the attrition that you get in local

government if you have won three elections, 24%. Then, we go to the

year these county seats and council seats were last fought, 2009. Very

significant, Gordon Brown scored only 20% in those elections and the

Conservatives lead on 35%. This is the comparison year for the purposes

of these council elections. Let's follow the sequence. You see under

Ed Miliband the recovery starting for Labour and you can see 38%, 31%,

Labour with a substantial lead over the Conservatives and the Liberal

Democrats starting to grind away a bit down at the bottom because of

the presume that -- should be because of the fallout from

coalition government. Look at the extraordinary effect when I input

the results from these local elections. All the main parties are

given below 30%. Labour are leading, they will cling to that but only by

4% over the Conservatives. The Lib Dems are having as I mentioned

earlier a very poor night and day, driven lower than they ever have

been as the Liberal Democrats. We will untangle as the hours and days

go on, work out exactly how much voters have been taken from which

party by UKIP, but this extraordinary election has seen the

pattern of the poll change. Labour are still in the lead, not by much

John Curtice, who has been crunching the numbers all day for us to come

up with this. First of all, Jeremy there stressing what a startling

range of figures there is an obviously within the context of UKIP

was Mac performance, by the way Staffordshire has come in, the

Conservatives are holding onto that. Talk is through, that is

remarkable, we will come to it. John, your thoughts on that share?

think in a sense it underlines the story we have been telling the story

since one o'clock in the morning, that is that UKIP are putting in a

remarkable performance and inevitably, given that UKIP are in

our projected national share at around 23%, it was going to be very

difficult for any party to pass the 30% mark. The fascinating question

is, will this proved to be a blip, an exception, or do we have to

accept that the days of 2-party politics in Britain which arguably

were already beginning to look a bit thin now that we have a coalition in

charge at Westminster rather than a single party government, do we now

have to accept those days are over and that we are now looking at a

very different kind of politics for the future of Britain than we saw in

the past? As Nick has emphasised, we don't know the answer to that

question yet but we are very clear it is a central question to be asked

about what happens in the weeks and months ahead. What is your take,

Nick? It is for party politics. We are likely to get for party politics

when the European elections happen, UKIP have done impressively. We

simply do not know whether that will feed through to a general election.

Clearly, the system makes that very hard for UKIP. Much as the Liberal

party as old used to be, much as the SDP, much as the Liberal Democrats

have been over the years, if you spread your support thin as UKIP are

doing, roughly evenly right across the country, you can get hundreds,

thousands of votes and still get no seats at all in a Westminster

election but what this result will signal is a desperate search from

other political leaders of the established parties for the formula

that reconnects with those people, reconnects with UKIP supporters, who

have given them all a bloody nose. Here in the studio, Lord Newby, I

will start at the bottom of that table. 14%, Jeremy really underlined

how dire that was. Do you accept the figure? I accept the figure. That is

the figure. It is clear what has happened to our vote. It has

happened since we went into government. We have stopped being

the party of protest. That is reflected in the polls and reflected

here. What can you do about that? What we are doing is we are digging

in where we have got MPs, where we have got counsellors, working very

hard. What we are going to be doing as we get towards the general

election is working very hard to explain what we have been able to

achieve in government, raising the tax threshold, the pupil premium,

the whole raft of things that have benefited ordinary people because

the Lib Dems are in government. That is the job of all politicians, to

explain their policies, like they are effective and why we have been

effective. We have a vast number of votes as Liberal Democrats from

people who were fed up with Tony Blair about the Iraq war, we got

people who were fed up with Gordon Brown because they thought he was

lacklustre. Those reasons that have gone. We have got to make our case

is a party of government and we are in the process of doing it. It was

inevitably going to take time and be hard going. You have a couple of

years to make the case in a better way? Absolutely, we are focused on

that. It will be on the basis of specific things that we can say to

people we have achieved this would not have happened without the

Liberal Democrats and if you vote for us next time you will get more

than that. 29% of the national share, Tom, you are not at the kind

of level, anything near it, where you can look with confidence to

2015? Take success when we can bank on it. We have got the highest

national share. There was a discussion amongst some of the

academics before polling day about whether this set of elections would

give is that projection, but we have to accept as soon as they're four

parties in, everybody's share is going to go down. I am not sure that

is a useful tool of projecting what will happen that in the future. I

imagine the results at a general election will be different to that.

It is an interesting message and... A snapshot, not a forecast or

prediction. Michael Gove, 25% on that projected share. What does that

tell you? It is an interesting arithmetical exercise and it gives

Professor John Curtice and lots of clever professors a chance to

speculate, but the surprising thing is I agree with Tom. Look at the

results on the ground. Just before we had this discussion about future

projections, we had a real result from Staffordshire. Earlier this

week I went to Newcastle under Lyme, so did Ed Miliband. It was going to

be the battleground area that Labour were expecting to win. The

Conservatives have held it with seats still to declare. The truth

is, the Conservatives and the coalition parties, have been

surprisingly resilient and there has been no roof towards Labour. I

mentioned just after two o'clock, Michael foot. When he was leader of

the opposition in 1981, Labour won Staffordshire, Cumbria and

Lancashire. They are not winning them now. If people are voting UKIP

because they express a sense of exasperation with the government, I

can understand that but what is really striking is that no one is

voting for Labour in anything like the numbers they need to have in

order to be on course for government. Tom is a fighter and put

a good spin on it, I am sure, but he must be disappointed. We are into

the spin. When Michael foot was leader, we had not got the unitary

authorities so it is a bogus comparison. In Staffordshire, we

knew it would be hard going for us to win Staffordshire. We wanted to

win it but if you drill down into those figures again, look at cannot,

where there is 11% swing from the Conservatives to Labour that would

deliver a Labour MP in 2015, so Newcastle under Lyme already has a

Labour MP, so let's hope... Here's a nice guy, I am afraid he is not

going to be a Labour MP at the next election. The Conservatives are

doing so well in Staffordshire. you are banking on defeating him at

the next election you need another argument. If I can just override,

look at the UKIP result, 23%. I came in with just short of 20% in

Eastleigh, South Shields last night just short of 20% -- 24%, Corby,

22%, we are doing very well and that is reflecting what will happen in

2015. Nigel made a very good point, which is we have yet to find --

fight true marginal and when that happens that sort of result and if

we take the result from the local council elections, that really does

give us a chance. No one is saying that UKIP is necessarily going to

field the next full government but what we are is now a very, very

major player. Men are going to pause. Who do you think would be a

better prime ministers standing up for Great Britain, Ed Miliband or

David Cameron? Neither, unfortunately. You have to choose

one. No.Nigel gives a straight answer to a straight question.

Neither is the answer. We are going to pause and take a break. If you