How will the parties judge success at the local elections?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With just over two weeks to go until the May elections, the latest national polling suggests an almost three-way split between Reform, Labour and the Conservatives. But will this translate to the locals? And, given these particular seats were last contested in 2021 amidst the 'Boris wave', how will the parties judge success?

The Spectator's deputy political editor James Heale and More in Common's Luke Tryl join Lucy Dunn to discuss. Will the story of the night be Tory losses and Reform gains? Or will it be about the government's performance against opposition parties?

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
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0:11.2	Alongside that, you get a 20-pound John Lewis or Waitrose Voucher.
0:14.7	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:29.0	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots.
0:33.4	I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by James Heel and Luke Chil from Polster is more uncommon.
0:40.0	There are just over two weeks to go into the local elections in May and a number of councils and maralities across the country are being contested.
0:44.2	Nigel Farage's Reform Party is hoping to make gains after months of polling well.
0:48.7	And James, you were in Durham on Tuesday for Farage's election campaign speech.
0:50.2	What were your main takeaways?
0:54.7	So I think on my first thought from hearing the speech was, you know, we've heard this all before.
1:00.6	You can find on the BBC News an article from 2014 in which the then UKIP leader talks about parking his tanks on Labour's lawn and the fact he's leading the People's Army to these left
1:04.7	behind areas. Now 11 years on, of course, his chosen vehicles reform UK. But I do think on
1:10.3	reflection, and you know, wrote a bit about this yesterday, but. But I do think on reflection, and, you know, wrote
1:11.7	a bit about this yesterday, but I think I've strengthened this view, which is that there was a
1:16.1	nuance there. And let me explain, I think two particular areas in particular, the telegraph asked
1:21.1	him in the questions after the speech when he said, you know, do you blame the United Union for this?
1:25.6	And of course, in terms of the Birmingham Bin strikes.
1:27.9	And Farage, obviously, he answered with a bit of humour, saying that there are rats bigger than those seen on the Western Front, you know, but he also ducked the chance to attack the unions.
1:36.0	And so he was talking about unions, with the exception of the National Education Union, one of whose senior people has just a cold reform races.
1:43.9	But broadly, he was very
1:45.0	warm about the rights of trade unions, etc., which I thought was interesting. So that's an example
	...

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