Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a weekly podcast from Politics Home.

I'm your host, Alan Tollas.

I would be to discuss the fallout from last week's local elections, and where it leaves the Tories ahead of next year's general, is my colleague, Caitlinotti.

And I'm also delighted to say where I have James Sunderland, Conservative MP for Br James Sunderland, Conservative Henry Hill, Deputy Editor at the Conservative Home website.

So we're a week on from last week's local elections. We know the kind of the top line figure,

which the Conservatives lost a thousand seats. James, firstly, kind of how do you see it a week

on? Is it kind of a midterm blip? Is it people, you know, giving the Tories a kicking?

Is it people leaving you or going to Labour? How do you kind of see it a week on?

Well, the local election in Bratner last week, they were very disappointing the results for a whole variety of reasons.

What's interesting here, you've got one of the best-run councils in the country. By any metric, his performance is superb.

40 or 40 schools in the constituency are Ofsted good or outstanding. We've got full employment.

Lowest 10% rate of council tax in the country if any need to trade authority.

So the offer locally is really, really good. We're also solvent. We're free of unmanaged

debt. And if you look at neighbouring

councils in Berkshire, how they've gone, Bracknell is the beacon of hope. So why did it go to Labour for the

first time in 25 years then? Well, it's a perfect storm. I think you had a number of councillors

that have been there for a long time. I think that new ideas and vision and energy is now required. We didn't

work it perhaps as much as we could have done. A bit of complacency, perhaps. The national picture,

I think, also certainly played a part in it. But the soft conservative vote didn't turn up.

And what we have to do now locally and nationally is to get back to core conservative principles

and we need to convince people again,

why they need to vote for the conservatives?

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