Britain Elects | The 2024 Local Elections

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2,700 council seats up for grabs across rural and urban England. Key tests for the Conservatives and Labour in the last big electoral test for the general election.

Hosted by Ben Walker, Co-Founder of Britain Elects.

it is the second probably second busiest election night of the year for the UK and I have a cold and I’m rather yes I’m very ill so welcome to election night uh 2024 import deposits which we did in 68 had an effect upon the balance of payments for instance as as opposed to um um credit restriction at home but leave all outside I believe actually things if you want to do more in the community than you could in a free trade area and you have given no real indication no economic indication of tour as to what do we do except to say our position would be immensely powerful we tell them what sort of arrangement they wanted they campaigning us to do I think I just think that is a very complacent view to take indeed we sell 34% of our exports to the community and they sell 8% to ours of theirs to us and I think to you no doubt we would have a certain interest in trading ReliOn mutually even if we came out but the view that we are in immensely strong position every time begging for us is a very VI are you saying that the government would have all the freedom it needed to control the British economy to develop it to strengthen it in the way that Mr Ben Fields need streng inside the market you can do anything want I think that impa is you can do almost anything that you want and you can do as much as this as you can within a free trade era accepting rules within such free there any situation example that the biggest restriction I’ve seen in practice ased to theoreticals which are sometimes occurred when we were members of e and not when we were members of the community but of course what is of crucial importance in I was certainly agreed a level invest I invest in the market we decided to much worse position so far as is concerned but you see the basic difficulty of their argu is to in our own Democratic control our economic policy and you are really denying that PR exists now I don’t know what your current view on political Federation is but most of serious Union in move towards political union in emerging of control of our eon over a much wider range of policies now to suggest that entering the market will make no right I think that’ll do it um hello good evening everybody how are you doing how do you do uh welcome to election night of uh 2024 with myself Ben Walker uh from Britain Alex um yeah polls have just closed four minutes ago in uh hund and something Council areas across the country not to mention a whole host of of Marl and counties basically where we are having police and crime commissioner elections this is the 2024 UK local elections to where I say UK because it’s not just happening in England it’s also happening in Wales you are having police and crime commissioner elections across the whole of Wales interestingly enough there’s no council byelections I can see in Wales at all which is um and not what I expected to be honest with you but anyway we got a lot to get through tonight uh there are 2,000 Wards 2,700 seats up for grabs tonight which to be honest with you is quite quiet it’s not that much last year we had 8,000 and something um and the year before that it was about four five 6,000 I think and yeah this is this is actually quite quiet election wise but um you know we make do um let me just slow the uh turn the music down there but thank you very much for joining us if you want to join the discussion if you want to be able to contribute your words with me go to youtube.com/ Brit Alex you can see the stream here assuming you have a Google account a YouTube account who doesn’t uh you’ll be able to interact with the chat here today we’ve got uh 3,000 and something people watching on Twitter and uh 47 of you watching on YouTube today so uh thank you very much for joining us uh right so local elections this is big it’s the last major test before we get the general election this is it this is sort of the time in which there are no excuses now for underperformance or over performance this is it so uh quite a tough tough ask I think or rather eyes are on the labor party to do as well as the polls expect no there are no reasons otherwise I think um you have maril elections though in which uh such as the West Midlands and the teas Valley which by the way teas Valley doesn’t exist it’s Teasdale um you have you have elections there in which strong conservative personalities May hold hold the conservative um you know the B may hold may may make may keep it conservative basically um but we don’t know yet the polling indicates it wants you prompt for the candidates on the May will ballot yes they can when you look at which party they would vote for in a general election however completely different kettle of fish so anyway let’s get to it thank you very much for joining us if you want to join the conversation you can do so on youtube.com Brit Alex there you can give me uh all of your abuse and all such things instead of on Twitter I don’t really check my mentions that much definitely don’t check B Le mentions so yeah if you have any questions as well um yes it will be there already we’re getting some questions in um the way election night with Britain Alx works is this I do almost or try to do almost as many Ward results as possible a council area you know a small subset of Sunderland or parts of Brentwood in Essex or bason or thork that’s interesting will reform start winning Council seats is labor going to dominate in the areas it needs to dominate in 3 years ago in 2021 Labour got absolutely annihilated in hary poool the polls indicate that we’re almost likely to see a reverse of that and I’ll be showing you that through Maps as the night progresses you are able to find a lot of these results you’ll be able to find the ward byward results on twitter.com Britain Alex I’ll be posting them as I do as I’ve done for the past 11 years now and um you’ll be able to see the ward byw map that we have made popular this ele that last election the year before that and 2021 it is available this year as well it is available on sn. newstatesman.com and once you scroll down there you’ll be able to see Britain Alex the results enjoy no results yet though it’s only eight minutes passed and not even sundland counters are that good not even the mackam are that good really but anyway so yeah good Luke Taylor says good start for Tories no losses so far very true uh Damiano guastella says hello from Italy what elections are are there so so for the uninitiated anyone just joining in anyone just paying attention now these are council elections the bread and butter of local government this is about raising council tax one of the most unpopular taxes in the country it’s also about you know what kind of party do you want governing your local area and it is you know contrary to what some people may say it is a decent enough indicator as to how the country is feeling about their parties okay so a good example you know is if for instance you have a traditional battle ground seat in a general election such as B Bolton or you know Barry or another bit of Lancer like Burnley uh yeah they all begin with b um and you know in a general election labor needs that seat to get itself over the line to govern this country well the best indication as to whether they the vote there is healthy for labor I.E people already happy to go to labor is in council elections it’s a decent enough indicator um what else to pay attention to of course you have the maril election you have a large maral beastly election in London you have the mar election you have the Assembly election and in some bits of London you also have Council byelections so some bits of London today were going some people some londoners rather were going into the polling station and they had three ballot papers good for them I suppose um here in Chester in which where I’m based today we only had one election which was uh for the police and crime commissioner here and the likelihood is you know police and crime Commissioners it’s an elected institution introduced by the conservative liberal Democrat government in 201 was it 2011 first elections in 2012 turnout then was silly it was like between between 10 and 20% and 2016 it Rose to 25% 2021 it Rose to what 28% 30% almost but still poorer than a normal Council election for turnout all right um but yes so some people are having three elections some people are having two um but at least one at least in any corner of England and Wales you will have at least one election to partake in so potentially a decent enough indicator we’re having new Marl contests in the northeast of uh of England which is basically County Durham going all the way up to uh Beric upon Tweed then you have of course the new maril seat called yor North Yorkshire and York which should just be called North Yorkshire um what else do you have any new Marl seats uh there’s probably one or two others there’s the is Midlands one which is dar in Nottinghamshire this is the conservative government’s way of devolution that I think some of us may disagree with but um is a route forward to getting more power and money and we’re having the elections for them so could be good right anyway so uh let’s talk about the forecast I uh if many of you may have noticed we uh at the stroke of 10 uh I put out a uh tweet telling you basically how many seats we expect the conservatives to lose labor to gain the libdems to gain and others and let’s just take a look at that um if you have any other questions please do keep putting them in the YouTube I’ll get to them later but anyway let’s focus on the this not that uh let’s focus on where is it here it is I’ve worded it Tory tragedy so here’s the thing about council elections um you have counselors which are seats and then you have Wards so some seats some Wards rather think of them as constituencies have more than one seat in them but I want you to focus on the seats for just a minute okay because this is what we’re expecting uh over the course of tonight and tomorrow um we’re expecting the conservatives to lose near 500 Council seats compared to where they were a few short years ago we’re expecting labor to pick up 273 we’re expecting the liberal Democrats to pick up 129 the greens to gain 52 note how um small that is compared to their rather stunning breakthrough last year and other parties to pick up around about 24 um the thing to bear in mind about this year’s elections is this they are like I say only 2,700 seats up for grabs this year last year it was 8,000 seats it was a silly number of seats and uh I remember doing the count and I remember not getting it finished until about uh Monday Monday or Tuesday I think I think I was still doing it by Tuesday if not Wednesday so um this to be honest with you 2,700 seats quite small fry nevertheless the tragedy for the conservatives is this last time they were on an estimated 1,099 seats note this is different to what you see on Wikipedia because the way we count uh which you know which how many conservative councilors are in this Council when you are changing the boundaries I’ve do my I’ve done my own uh modeling and thinking for that which is different to the way Wikipedia does it uh they just use you know that the Slate of councils they just use the Slate of um you know how the council is is composed so but anyway last time these seats were up for grabs 1,99 conservative counselors 953 labor 391 lib de and 118 uh green now we expect the greens to pick up uh few dozen to get to 170 we expect the lib Dems to go up to 520 labor to go up to 1,226 almost double the uh number of conservative councils we expect to uh win tonight which is 621 now if you are quibbling over the accuracy of the seats that were last up I’d recommend you look at the wards instead now the wards think of them as constituencies one and you see this you have Labor leading topping the pole in 760 Wards last time these elections were held so sorry you have Labor leading in 760 Wards last time these elections were held compared to 732 for the conservatives you are almost almost actually is that actually it oh it almost is yeah you have the number of conservative wins basically the number of uh times the conservatives will Top the poll in an area falling from 732 to 373 they’re losing near half of their Wars and note this too uh the libdems May equalize with them for the number of wards won in this series of Elections now what I want you to pay attention to however is this is what’s up so can we all see that yes we can see that so this is what’s up this year the local elections of 2024 it’s not exactly representative of England is it it’s quite varied you have bits you have the whole of Dorset the bits of Devon are Plymouth and exitor disproportionately labor as well as this Council byelection here in what ashburton and book bookus Lee yep I’ve been called up on my pronunciation before I’m not going to try again in parts of the home counties you have most of sorry going to the polls you have bits of Barsha reading woking over here um if we go move over to North hartfordshire you have Watford St Albans Welling Garden City harpenden stevenage Hitchin but you don’t have Hartford you do have harow in Essex you do have basilon and you have many other places and you do have these little bits of London that are having a maral election are having an Assembly election and also have a council byelection note this one here West Putney and wassworth a slim labor defense 43% to 41% for the for labor um will they hold it well the national polls suggest they will but you know funnier things have happened so this is what’s up across England today in Council seat terms and I want you to pay attention to these Council seats because they are going to be a healthy indication as to what could happen in the general election will labor strike gold and sweep areas such as Peterborough such as Grimsby such as Milton kees such as uh rugby nonon in the West Midlands over here will they m count a decent enough recovery in the black country because in 2021 they were absolutely decimated over here will they Advance beyond the well-to-do suburbs of Manchester to the less than well-to-do suburbs of North flaner outskirts of Burnley the Hall of Hein bur and Darwin and others will they do all this we don’t know yet um there are decent enough things to watch out for but it’s all jury still out polls have closed but the ballots have yet to be counted and here is harleypool this the last time all this was up was 2021 look at this you know labor getting absolutely decimated in so many corners of the bough but the thing to pay attention to is this in England we do this thing called electing by thirds so take for example uh this Ward burn Valley which is just south of where the labor candidate won their seat this is three counselors represent this area three counselors represent these what half a two dozen two dozen streets three dozen streets I suppose um and in 2021 which is when the when these seats are up for grabs it went conservative but notice here in 2022 it went labor and in 2023 it also went labor so the likelihood here is that you can probably expect the labor candidate whoever he or she is to pick up the seat also same in Headland and harbor 2021 which is up for grabs tonight conservative 2022 it went inde dependent or rather to an independent group there’s a strong independent grouping in haryo and in 2023 though it went labor what is going to happen here tonight that’s what we’re going to pay attention to Sunderland as well saw a big big collapse in support for the labor party in 20121 you saw the Tor break through in places like uh these bits on the outskirts of Sunderland in the more um I would say Suburban areas if you want to call it that and the lib Dems were also striking gold look at this Sand Hill I remember the council by election here in uh 201617 and uh look at that you’ve seen a seat that was Voting labor consistently you know even before you know what you’re seeing here tonight and it was Voting lab in 2015 and 16 the lib Dems won it in a council byelection and they’ve made it solidly liberal Democrat since and they’ve done that to other parts of uh Sunderland but not all note this one almost in the um Central Award of henden um you have the libdems winning this in 2021 but labor win it in 22 what’s going to happen in 2024 we don’t know yet do we milfield uh same as well are we going to see any sort of return in labor I don’t think so but keep an eye on that we also have new uh boundaries for certain councils in the area so here we have a North titin side which you’ll notice when I click on them doesn’t give you the results you compare it with uh Newcastle if you go over here you’ll be able to see the results but in North time side you’re not seeing the results and the reason for that is because these are new boundaries all I can tell you is how this seat probably voted in previous election so tin MTH proper or Ty mouth or tin MTH proper uh voted has been voting in conservative counselors we don’t know how much we don’t know by how much but um let’s see how that votes later on over the course of the evening so these seats will last up in 2021 or at least 2third of them okay the rest of them have either gone through boundary changes have gone through um uh other elections you know the cycle does get broken sometimes um but nevertheless take Trafford for example we’re comparing this election with 2023 so in 2023 you had three councilors elected in this Ward and the third place candidate is going to the polls uh uh today or has gone to the polls today all right so the 2024 local elections this is the as I say the last series of Elections before we get to the uh general election it is sort of the time in which we should be seeing if the polls are be to be believed the opposition advancing we should expect to see the conservatives to lose upwards of 500 seats or around there labor Advan is 273 note how it’s not the same as the Tory fall the reason for this is that in local elections that are more V varied fights than there are in general elections in local elections there are more labor vcon fights than there are uh than there otherwise would be in a general election you also have green versus livb Dem and in other bits of the country you have green versus o where where could I prove this um green versus conservative here in places like Winchester in the Monon Valley okay same here in stoud you know the Challenger here once upon a time these outskirts of Stroud voting in conservative counselors now they vote in green and where do you think those labor voters go well they go for the green candidate that’s what we’re going to be seeing more and more of in council elections whether that seeps through to a Breaking of the system in general elections is yet to be seen but we’ve had the libdems we temporarily had ukip are we really expecting anything is anything new coming well we haven’t seen it we haven’t seen it have we Bristol is want to watch uh to for for this election if you are uh Keen to see the seepage potential seepage of votes from labor to the greens the greens had a really good election year here in 2021 let’s not forget 2021 um can I show you the chart uh here we go so in 2021 when these when these elections were last held uh you had the labor party virtually 11 10 points behind uh the uh conservatives they were also nine points K Stu was also nine points behind the Prime Minister and he was minus one on approval and his party was minus 18 points behind the conservatives on the economy that’s pretty important right if you don’t lead on the economy you have no chance of governing this country because when it comes to It Whatever issue that dominates the day if you don’t lead on the country you will never ever lead the country okay so that was the background to what got as elections like these in Bristol the labor vote was pretty depressed the conservatives were enjoying a sort of vaccine bounce their brexit deal had also earned them some votes and so the labor base wasn’t exactly turning out nevertheless um they did score some gains but not many and suffered some quite sizable losses to uh the uh Greens in these parts of Bristol Bristol Central uh yeah you can see that this was this was Labor in 2016 went Green in 2021 greens have always had some strength in the Clifton Village the rather well-to-do bits of the University uh part of town but their breakthroughs over here into lle into Easton and their competition in a place like Eastville is is new is new and it would it’s either a sign of a vote a labor vote getting quite depressed and going further a field or it could also be a sign of the greens picking up a lot of conservative and libm votes to beat labor because in green V lab seats conservative voters are a little bit more inclined to plump for the green candidate than they are for labor the appeal of the green brand means that in a lot of rural areas we’ve already talked about stoud but a lot of rural areas out on the outskirts of Norwich in suffk over here you have uh green candidates picking up a lot of Labor voters and conservative voters to just strike through and score gold and I think we’re going to see a lot of that later tonight um dorsit dorsy is a big beast of a council this is uh used to be a County Council then it just became a unitary Authority lib Dems are bullish here they are hoping to score some big gains um we don’t know about how much we just know they uh May pip the conservatives for the majority if not plurality of the seats up here tonight in Dorset and if they win in a place like Dorset which by the way voted leave in the referendum of 2016 what does that say for a lot of conservative MPS in the southern parts of Britain which also voted leave that were there uh had fallen out of love with the lib DMS 20105 went to ukip in 15 voted leave in 16 returned or rather you know took the jump took the plunge with the conservatives in 19 or 17 and 19 what what does that say for a lot of those seats that they’re suddenly a lot more competitive now and they and and I think they should be a little bit more worried take this as well for example you have whole waves of sorry mle Valley here uh voting in livem candidates and um likewise in North Alford St Albans and is this Watford yeah in Watford as well tight fights here some of them at least between the lib Dems and labor wonder how that’s going to turn out later tonight see look at this one uh legats ward in Watford it went conservative in 2021 which is what’s up tonight it went libd in 22 and labor in 23 how’s that going to turn out and look at the split here con 37 libd 35 labor 26 do you really think labor can take that on those numbers doesn’t seem it but when you look at the history well I think it does doesn’t it um what else we got Welling Garden City uh Grant shaps seat yeah we were expecting some pretty sizable labor and Liam gains here will the conservatives be able to hold on we do not know um in terms of gossip I’ve been hearing tonight Portsmouth Portsmouth is seeing or rather the indication in Portsmouth is that the conservatives are in sizable sizable serious trouble um the likelihood or something that is being floated by both conservatives and liberal Democrat and labor sources at is that the conservatives may be wiped out on the island here tonight so they may lose this seat East NE East nay and craneswater they may lose Hill sea they may lose copnor they may lose Hil as well is that also Hil yeah so they may lose all the Wards you see on the island of Portsmouth okay to labor and the liberal Democrats uh which will be quite a bit of trouble for Penny Morant and her re-election chances because if we want if if the polls are to be believed uh the uh labor party you’re going to score some quite sizable gains a landslide would be likely and who would you be staying up for would you be staying up for Jacob Rees MOG in his new Northeast Sommerset and Hanam seat which uh the polls in indicate he will be in trouble in would it be Penny Moran in Portsmouth North or who else who else could it be uh but yeah Swindon another one to keep an eye on if you wanted to keep if you’re wanting to uh track those con lab fights Swindon was one of those marginals that uh labor under Ed millerand was desperate to retake and they didn’t in 2015 in fact the vote went against them in 2015 some of their vote went ukip and it was really the conservatives who picked a lot of that Liv them support and Labour hasn’t really demonstrated a serious comeback in Swindon for quite some time with the exception of well the past year the past two years I suppose we go around M Swindon here you look at this one here St Andrews these little these little States here blundon St Andrew first time it went labor last year and this time or this time in 2021 it was conservative 56% labor 25 the likelihood is is that will be a labor game but when you consider that seats that went 56% conservative 25% labor if they’re going to fall to the labor party what does that say about other seats in the rest of the country we go to Milton ke as well which has a sizable libm representation as you can see but uh it seems as though labor will expect to be the bigger beneficiaries of tonight look at this Ward here bit of a traditional quite a tight fight here this was conservative 46 % labor 42 uh it went labor last year and the year before but it went conservative in 2021 and 2019 will that go uh labor again let’s find out Newport pagnell uh went lidm uh it went conservative in 2021 as did Newport pagal North but Newport pagal South went lidm uh last year and the year before will that happen again probably and here’s one that I think was quite it’s fair to say this was one of the biggest swings of last year only Ward which is very much rural buckinghamshire uh near bedfordshire and North hamptonshire here this was conservative 60% labor 26% last year it went labor last year so let me just say that again it went conservative 60% labor 26 in 2021 it voted conservative in 22 and it’s been voting conservative many years before that it went labor last year that’s quite quite a dramatic swing will we see that again let’s find out one thing to keep an eye on in terms of Labor underperformance Grimsby um not a lot of these have been voting in Labor candidates for quite some time so park Ward here on the outskirts of Grimsby uh you’re not really seeing much of a labor recovery yra ward in 2021 it was conservative 58% labor 29 you would think if labor can win in much uh tougher fights in Milton keing surely they can walk it here but they’re not they didn’t win the seat in 2022 and in 2023 an independent struck gold here freshney Ward as well this was Voting labor in 2015 when they held it off against the conservatives in ukip he voted labor again in 2016 but in 2022 and 23 and 23 he went independent what is going on with the labor vote in a place like Grimsby also Kingston upon Hull or just for anyone from Hull uh the libdems are gunning to maybe take control of this Council or at least expand their number of council seats but where maybe they’ll pick up the university Ward um that could be interesting uh where else where else where else maybe they’ll pick up uh the the outskirts of the uh east side of Cole don’t really know don’t really know that could be very exciting to watch indeed if you want to talk about uh recovery sorry if you want to talk about where labor needs to be demonstrating you know serious gains the rather Valley is it so in rather the council elections there sort some pretty Stark swings against labor they got absolutely annihilated in places like here in furra wickersley South sitwell which you know this was Voting in ukip councilors many years ago and rarely rarely saw you know representation by the conservatives until 2021 if we want to see some serious labor advancement we’ve got to see them win or win back in places like the RO Valley if they’re not there are questions there are things for things to well pay some heat too we also need to see labor winning in places like penniston even if it’s Liden we need to see them try there um they did win peniston East which is basically more so just the villages uh you know even in in rural South Yorkshire votes in Labor candidates more than you know uh rural parts of other other counties in England and stocksbridge as well this was voted in ukip councils as late as 2016 it then swung back to the conservatives in 18 and 19 swung to the conservatives in 20121 and then became labor once more the likelihood here is a labor regain we also need to see labor doing particularly well on the outskirts of Wakefield this is how Wakefield voted in 2021 this is where the labor strength was uh in places like here but you notice that in some areas since then labor have either recovered or scored some some decent enough gains uh let’s see if that happens again even in oset Ward which was probably the only part of Wakefield to hold against stand against labor in the uh by election of 2022 uh labor picked it up in 2023 so lots to pay attention to and we’re going to be probably be having the First Council Ward results to pay attention to uh when hello again when uh the results start to come in we’re expecting the First Council seats to come in well could be in the next half an hour or if if we haven’t got any uh just yet uh Blackpool is expected to come around about uh between 2: and 4: a.m. uh the low turnout should speed that count up but uh if anyone is telling me otherwise I can’t wait but anyway let’s focus on some of these uh am in the right place there so yeah you can see the chat yes I’m reading chat now as you as you might be able to tell based on my voice um I’m quite I’m I’m very ill so yeah time of my life so any questions have you miss Norwich yeah the greens could do well in Norwich but they’ve done well in Norwich before um actually you want to talk about one thing about the Corin years that was particularly good for labor outside of the uh snap election of 2027 20 2017 sorry um and norch is one such place so look at this here’s one Ward here Nelson ward in Norwich okay so we’re looking you know you’ve got your city center and you’re just looking a little bit to the uh west of it which is Nelson Ward represented here on the map in hyim Grove in 2016 and 18 it voted labor which was a complete you know unexpected I think the greens actually went back in Norwich during the Corbin years and since then they’ve very much recovered uh have any other instances that we can talk to here same mancraft ward the the center of Norwich uh is that Norwich North or Norwich South because Norwich North is really quite the northern super Northern bit of the city again the they elected labor councilors in 2016 and 18 started going elsewhere in 19 and they’ve been staying solidly green since can you attribute that to the Corbin years I I don’t know actually but I I’m I’m minded to think yes so Norwich it seems could we be seeing green gains when some Ward here sh has history for the greens uh this went 47% labor 28% Green in 2021 and the greens picked up again in 2023 uh mile crossw doesn’t seem it wiom we’ve already done that um yeah yeah maybe we could see some green Gaines here maybe the lib Dems will be in with a sniff but uh that seems more like a fluke seeing as the LI DMS in the bottom of the pile here uh another one town close which went Green in 2015 and has since been solidly labor interesting interesting wonder how that’s going to turn out so chat hello chat um what is this website you can go to sn. newstatesman.com uh you have a little look at that and you just scroll down a little bit and you’ll find the results page um what you’re looking at there is how these the wards up the seats up this time around voted last time around and when you go into the page and I should I should I just pull it up for you here now uh um sorry I definitely ill which is getting a bit very annoying so if you go to sn. newstatesman.com you see of course the what the latest polls say and it’s currently uh you know 43 44% uh labor to 25% conservative the likelihood is label will end up on around 400 seats you scroll down here Britain elects the 2024 local election results you go to here scroll down a little bit and you find I think that’s Canada yeah there’s Canada oh that’s um that’s the United States lovely but that’s because there are no results there what you can see are previous results and you go here you scroll down you read My Guff which I hope you do and you’ll be able to see um how these Council seats voted at the last election okay you zoom in and you’ll be able to look at it in a slightly different way to the way I’ve just done it but um that was for ease of presentation for the uh Stream So these SE are the council seats up for grabs tonight and there’s a fair chunk of them they will give you a decent indication as to what’s happening in the marginals in the Battlegrounds um but note of course they’re not all of England they’re they’re none of Wales um but nevertheless you know it really is telling to see what happens in the black country and Milton kees and you know the outskirts of London North lond north of London you know talking stevenage Welling Garden City and others you know if if if we’re not seeing labor Advance as much as they need to in places like that then you’ve got a poor doubt on the validity of a labor Landslide Peter as well look at that that does not look like a labor party on its way that does not look like the labor party on course for a landslide does it they need to sustain themselves they need to show some solid gains traditionally I’m told that the conservatives do better in council elections they did do in uh general elections here but nevertheless we need to be seeing some sort of rebellion against the conservative govern government if indeed there is such a rebellion or so rebellious that it results in decent decent labor gains Lincoln as well the likelihood is that the conservatives may lose almost all of the seats they’re defending here tonight so Minster Ward which is uh North Lincoln um it voted labor last year and the year before likelihood is it will do so again what about here in birwood yes also it voted labor last year voted labor last year voted labor last year so maybe the conservatives will be reduced just to this Ward with them who knows who knows we’ll find out as the night progresses so yeah plenty of things to the wrong one lots to do here so how do things look in Blackpool that’s a good question um I have a forecast that I’ve done or did in 2020 uh a few months back and I don’t see any reason to uh for it to change let me just show you it now uh here we go here’s how Blackpool will probably vote uh later tonight labor 50% up from 38% in 2019 conservative 30% down from 50% in 2019 and reform uh on 14% up from the the brexit party’s performance which was 6% so some pretty sizable changes there but note only the 12o increase in the labor share and the 20 point fall in the conservative share that’s interesting I think at least uh what else one there it is uh Tories have a small chance to win the election in my opinion saids hello there U I don’t think they have much chance if any I think really it is over for them uh but anyway if you have any questions put them in the chat now I’m going to give them a give them pay attention to those borders look a bit Jerry Mander it was that just me we don’t Jerry Mander in this country um the way the boundaries in this country are drawn is not by you know a political body or or a politicized body I I I rather edit it is drawn by an independent boundary bunch of boundary Commissioners and they account for quotas you know every seat has to be this size and does need to take into consideration you know things like um well you know geographical common sense and you know what sometimes it does but sometimes it absolutely does not that’s because the quotas exist so a seat can be between you know a parliamentary constituency for the House of Commons needs to be between what is it 65 or is it where it’s now 75 to 85,000 I think that’s too tight because the building blocks we use to build those seats are the wards you were just looking at earlier the wards you were just calling Gerry manded Wards okay and some of those Wards are like 20 to 30,000 people big makes no sense in my view and um I think either we should loosen the quotas and stop using Wards as the building blocks because we get some absolutely stupid ridiculous seats uh such as we do here in Chester my city of Chester is 880,000 people big and would make a nice constituency in its own right but it’s been split down the middle Chester North and Chester South because all the other seats surrounding us need to fill the quota which is very annoying anyway I’m going to uh have a look at that uh why are some of those areas saying con defense but they voted labor last time so James Corran asked this why are some of those areas that I was pointing out why did they say labor defense when it voted labor last time because in some of these areas and we’ll take uh we’ll take weatherbe for example uh which is not far not far from where I was born or rather back pised um last year it voted in a green counselor now weatherbe Ward is how what’s it like it’s like 15,000 people here and most councelors represent on average for you know you get a counselor for every 4,000 people but this Ward is 15,000 people so what do you get you get three counselers so what happens is you elect them by thirds the election up today is 2021s election and 2021s election was the conservative counselor winning in 2022 it also voted conservative and in 2023 it voted green but the green winner the green counsel that one is not up for election this year the Conservative candidate from 2021 is they’ve served a term of three years it was meant to be four years because of covid but no it was meant to be four years but because of covid it’s become three okay it’s the same for the maril race in uh great Manchester and London and the Liverpool City region uh what else we got how do you rate the chances of Independence in Newcastle there is some alignment between Jamie Risco the independent candidate my award in the PCC so let me just focus on giving myself a bit of a breather uh Jamie dris schull for the unawares is uh the elected labor initially elected Labor uh mayor of what was then the north of th meraly so it was all the authorities local authorities north of the river time and that that went from basically Newcastle all the way to up to Beric upon Tweed now it’s been redrawn to County Durham all the way up to ber twe and the north of time M jery Driscoll um left the labor party or rather got kicked out of the labor party over some things uh Google them and he’s deciding to stand as independent he’s running to the left of Labor he’s very um pro- ceasefire he’s very um you know very very openly Pro Palestine and yes he’s running very much the left of Labor we have one poll one more in common poll uh the poll is called more in common uh which finds drisol may be in contention to win this seat the poll is basically labors Kim mcness on you know 40% Jamie Driscoll on 37 36% um and uh he may be in for a chance my fear though is that in polls like these you are overstating sorry the um the the the the Driscoll supporters are to online there social media heavy and uh when I was at I went to the Cambridge literary festival and I was talking with um uh gr Grace blakley was on the panel with the new Statesman uh uh panel and did say that you know the way Driscoll was campaigning was very online very social media heavy and the fear is when you look at polls if you have a candidate that is very social media heavy when it comes to online polls those respondents get oversampled so that poll we saw for more in common showing Jamie Driscoll behind by you know by Four Points may have a bit too many Driscoll supporters we’ll find out as the night progresses in terms of uh Independence um in terms of Independence um Newcastle does have well rather let’s just have a look at it Newcastle and is it Gates head no Newcastle does have its fair share of independent groupings um let’s see if they pick up any more the lip Dems have always had strength here but it’s never really translated into a general election performance it’s very interesting that anyway uh why not why are we not on Twitch anymore um I’m limit basically the the the the people I use restream only gives me two options um and I have a you know I have to CH choose between Twitter twitch and YouTube and it’s there you know got to make my choices haven’t I uh what do you think the likely outcome for dorsit is and what did Portland vote last time Dorset is uh one of those councils big beast councils became unary Authority and saw you know heavy conservative losses in 2019 against pretty sizable libdem increases it seems as though maybe you know in a place like here you look at this Ward tight tight fight conservative 38 to labor to libdem 37 um what about this one you know bit bit harder for the libdems to mount a comeback number one thir down North oh a sizable ukit vote there 22% I think it’s fair to say that we should expect to the lib Dems uh on a bit of an up surge here in Dorset whether they take control of the uh Council well we don’t know we don’t know where’s Portland here in uh is it this isn’t this Portland yeah that’s Portland The Way Portland voted last time it was independent 32% labor 27 Labor’s strength really is in in this council at least reserved only for Waymouth in Portland OR way mouth in Portland I don’t know how it’s pronounced but uh yeah oh my God I’m getting very Hill if I talk too much do you think labor will be published punished in proe fight areas like South Manchester um the problem is there aren’t enough white voters who care about uh Israel Palestine enough to make it their primary vote where most people go to the polling stations they’re going with the economy in the minds they’re going with the cost of living in mind and other issues are more mood music so Israel Palestine is a mood music issue to them probably pisses them off probably uh maybe depress some people from not turning out but it’s not changing enough people’s views in enough areas to make it a sizable enough issue in other areas however such as there there Muslim heavy areas in which polling shows Israel Gaza really does sit high up the agenda uh maybe we could see a bit of a backlash tonight how George Galloway’s candidates perform in Rochdale is going to be very very interesting indeed uh sorry did I stand this year no so Declaration of Interest I should always make this before I do my streams I do apologize oh no bias again um I am a labor counselor Declaration of Interest my name is Ben Walker I am the co-founder of Britain El I’m a data journalist for the new Statesman and I’m also God forbid an elected bough counselor for Chester’s City Center in the garden quarter of which I stood under the labor party Banner so I am a labor counselor but I would always ask you to judge judge me based on what I say the proof is always in the pudding what do I say what do I write um I have my own prejudices who doesn’t but to be honest with you I think I’ve been fair and pretty uh reasonable for the past 11 years and the fact of my labor counts I don’t think changes that nevertheless I stood last year I won um with my two other colleagues because it’s a multi-member Ward and yeah I enjoyed it um how long are we streaming tonight always much better coverage here than mainstream coverage problem is I’ve got to get preparing for the Council seats that are coming in so I’ve got to go out and find something soon um and I might I’ll probably sign off in about five or 10 minutes to be honest with you but let me just get over let me just answer some questions quite quickly um what’s going to happen in haven’t yeah you got Portsmouth big trouble for the conservatives here the expectation the gossip on the ground is that they’re going to be wiped out on the island haven’t as well uh which is having new boundaries okay new boundaries here and how they voted last time it was Labor uh inhaling West lib them inhaling East uh maybe you’ll see some uh conservative losses here in haven’t proper water lville though I note um stood firm for the conservatives uh last year before the boundary changes which you can’t see here this of course is soel braan seat uh yeah what do I think of nonan and bedworth on and bedworth is one of those seats uh burs Council areas that you know the conservatives got absolutely annihilated in uh sorry the labor party got absolutely annihilated in all those years ago another one of those seats Milan’s labor were desperate to retake and they absolutely failed and they’ve been failing since then under Corbin and under starma they’ve really struggled we have new boundaries here and you can see nonan and bedworth almost overwhelmingly conservative with two green Wards I expect we’ll see a bit of a labor recovery absolutely necessary if we want to be sure of a labor landslide so yeah let’s have a look uh you heard in a tldr video that Brentwood is a seat the uh conservatives could lose to the lib Dems yeah so Brentwood is one of those uh as you can see here well because there’s already Liv Dem strength the uh libdems really just need to advance a little bit more in these parts Hutton and uh the outskirts and just be sure of a majority of the council cuz it’s good to win in brenwood you know it’s fine to win in brenwood but that’s not enough brenwood isn’t enough to win anyway uh what percentage of the population able to vote how are they restricting how now they are restricting what percentage of the population can vote well you’ve got 9% of London plus about what’s that five 3% 50 yeah yeah you probably You’ got of you probably got well how about this all of England and Wales can vote in police and crime commissioner almost all of sorry let me say that again almost every corner of England and Wales no every corner of England and Wales has an election okay every corner in Wales which you see is very gray here it is going to be police and crime commissioner elections in my area of Chester it is the police and crime commissioner in this little bit of elmir Port it’s the police and crime commissioner and a council by elction for the ward of wolver room look at that labor 80% don’t think it’ll be that this time in other parts of of West Yorkshire South Yorkshire the greater Manchester Lancashire uh you have meril elections PCC elections and these council elections that we’re talking about so what’s that uh you have 80 89% of the country will have a vote this year how many of them will use it well I’d say about 20% really because not many people are voting in a PCC election so there’s that uh predictions for Bristol could be very tough for Labor uh green advances could cost them a few seats maybe the greens will get a majority uh we don’t really know because there’s also a theory that the greens have peaked in Bristol what what is their appeal um maybe they’ve got maybe they’ve already topped it there maybe labor gains from the conservatives will see them um you know labor gains from conservatives will see them hold off uh a green surge but we don’t know we don’t know there is the the one Theory there are well there are multiple theories maybe there are the people who vote labor the people who voted labor in 2021 are the types of people who would still be willing to countenance voting green and if that is the case then the green ceiling is a lot higher than than than any of us can really say but if the greens have already taken those votes well maybe they don’t really have much of a Way Forward going forward maybe they won’t get the majority we don’t know it could go either way to be honest with you here I don’t think anyone’s properly surveyed uh green voters in this country we’re a lot more obsessed with ukit votes haven’t we uh other questions what time are we expecting the first results well could be any minute now which is why I need to think about you know got lots of stuff maybe I need to think about finishing what’s your dark course councel result that you think will surprise everybody oh what could what could surprise everybody um I’m not sure actually bason no no I don’t think that’ll be exciting at all I don’t think that would be exciting maybe labor could know is there a dark horse how about this oxf oxer uh around the surround sorry I’m just burping as well the surrounds of chipping Norton the surrounds of Whitney the surrounds of basically oxer the oxer that was David Cameron’s seat um I think I think you could see labor topping the pole there which would be a bit of a surprise or even the libdems um another surprise could be could be stoud maybe the greens could really sweep through there maybe the greens could top it there um yeah I’m not sure um oh another surprise sorry I keep thinking of council elections uh uh let’s talk about the other ones the maral elections North Yorkshire and York there is one poll out admittedly by labor together but apparently conducted under British poll in Council rules which shows labor is ahead in North Yorkshire which doesn’t often no no sorry doesn’t not often happen it never happens it’s never happened in our lifetimes it’s never happened in the life of the labor party the idea of the labor party topping the pole in North Yorkshire the only Yorkshire that you know reliably votes conservative is a bit of a shock uh it’s a meril election you’ll probably see a lot of livm Voters in places like harut and uh richmondshire and Craven you know going labor but my God that that would be a surprise that would be a real big surprise uh but one poll suggest maybe um what we got where do you think the toy vote will hold up the most I think Grimsby I think Grimsby could be one to watch for where the toy vote could hold up because I don’t think the labor part is doing enough there uh what we got greens are benefiting in Bradford with their procees first stands well let’s see let’s see if the results bear that out uh soon has Khan got it in the bag he’s probably more ahead than um that than not I think he probably does have it in the bag but I don’t think it’s you know it’s an overwhelming Victory what needs to be remembered about sadique Khan is he is the mayor of a part of the country that is very Pro labor that you know votes 50% plus labor in general elections or will do at the next one and yet his his own favorables his own popularity is pretty poor he’s you know whilst uh labor is polling 51% in London he’s on 40% and his approval is on 32% which is pretty poor okay he’s a bit of a drag on the labor vote there um you are seeing some polls a lot of the labor base on willing to come out for him but they much happy to come out for the labor party when the general election comes okay something to bear in mind there probably got it in the bag but I wouldn’t be surprised if the result was closer uh where we see the libdems gaining in the South but losing seats in the north EG Hull well the libdem appeal is not just one entity it’s not one entity it’s it’s 100,000 entities it’s different entities in different parts of the country the appeal of the livb DMS is a bull walk against the labor party in Hull it’s a lot more is it more anti-h housing or is it more Pro housing I wonder it depends who’s who are the nimes in Hull I don’t know but it’s a different it’s a different castle of fish the lib Dems you know if you got the lib Dems in say sorry up with the lib DMS and Hull you’ll find that’re quite different or rather they have do they have different politics don’t know that’ be actually something to ask them uh but but yes I can’t really answer that to be honest with you why are the conservatives so strong in brbor it’s pretty warm what voted leave didn’t it it’s saw one ukip counselor don’t know it’s it’s rural harer isn’t it uh but yeah yeah so right with that in mind uh shall we get to a few pointers um maril elections in the West Midlands the polling the Marl polling expects it’s a tight fight between the conservatives and labor 40% to the conservatives 40% to the Conservative candidate Andy Street and 40% sent to the labor candidate uh Richard Parker but if a general election was held Now using my Britain predict model output uh you would find uh labor getting 54% of the vote to 25% for the conservatives okay and this is why when I look at Merl polling I think H I’m not sure I really believe that because in a general election it’s going to be a blowout for labor nevertheless um nevertheless this maril election in which personalities do have a place they do have a place uh it’s tight so I’m looking at that and I’m thinking well is the maral polling overstating the proportion of people who are saying uh proportion of people who focus on the personality more than do the party I don’t know I don’t know but it’s something to consider here the maril polling is personality based it prompts for the candidate names and you have a tight fight but when you look at Party Support in the seats that make up the West Midlands county it’s 25% conservative 54% labor and another thing to bear in mind as well sorry um one thing I’m beginning to notice as well is in the West Midlands and the teas Valley very tight fights um West Midlands labor 41 labor 39 con 41 and you see the enthusiasm amongst the Tory base is greater than amongst the labor base which is a bit surprising sorry it’s astounding it’s it’s not what you expect to see in a year in which the Tory base is so depressed so apathetic so unwilling to come out is the power of Personality that strong I don’t know I’m not sure but that’s what the polling is showing it’s just that I doubt it I really do doubt it nevertheless I could be absolutely proven wrong teas Valley as well look at that you have 65% of 2019 voters sure that they’re going to come out for the Conservative candidate meanwhile you have 59% of Labor 2019 voters sure they’re going to come out for the labor candidate what is going on there that is not normal that is not what any of us I suppose are expecting it’s very little enthusiasm from the labor base for the local Labor candidates is it because the popular personalities are skewing these polls or is it because the popular personalities are well proving these polls wrong is is that a word proving these polls wrong uh not proving these polls wrong um validating these polls not sure I’m not sure but uh yeah anyway um so that is something to think about for the night as it unfolds when you look at the ma results if you see conservative holds in the West Midlands and the teas Valley you can attribute that to a very successful personality personality politics in Merill fights winning the day even for the you know downtrodden conservative brand because again I reiterate this 25% conservative in the West Midlands it goes up to 40% when you put Andy Street on the ballot paper that’s that’s not what you expect is it what else so we’ll be having Council election results uh first of all as the night progresses and um the four from me is almost 500 conservative seat losses to 273 labor gains 129 libdem gains and 52 Green gains um in Ward terms it’s not unreasonable to think that the conservatives that Liv down will be tying uh for the number of wards one number of uh Council you know areas uh one um anyway so it’s going to be very fun tonight um we have a labor party that is 20 points ahead on party vote 11 points ahead on the economy the most uh precise metric I suppose for competence and capacity and then you have K stam’s lead over isi sunak at 11 points and K st’s own net approval at two points Labour’s lead is not just 20 points it’s quite varied it’s a bit diverse it’s not all 20 points but it’s commanding it’s absolutely commanding so something to have a think about there um I’m very conscious that we may be due some Council seat results very very soon and I need to pay attention to those and I need to get to work okay because the thing about Britain Alex is we cover Council results as we get them okay and I want to be the first there for you um if oh have we just got a result now no no um the results are coming in very soon we don’t know when if you want to keep in touch when they do follow Britain Alex on Twitter twitter.com Britain Alex it’s not x for me uh twitter.com Brit Alex uh I am the co-founder of Brit Alex I founded it set it up alongside my late best friend Lily Jane Summers in 2013 we’ve been running it ever since and it’s been uh it was just it was just a little hobby of mine best decision I ever made actually because I love this stuff I love Daya I love looking at this country in a lot more granular way that helps you understand why people think the way they think I want to do more of it I very much enjoy it Council results will be coming in as soon as we get them keep an eye on the Britain Le feed keeping eye on our Ward byward results map uh when that happens there are no results yet so you don’t expect to see anything Blackpool South the by elction in Houses of Parliament it’s probably due between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. later tonight uh the Marl results don’t expect any at all not expecting any uh at all until what 11:00 a.m. 12 12:00 p.m. I think that’ll be the Northeast as well uh so we’ll we’ll see if Jamie Driscoll has failed failed or not uh or rather managed to cling on uh with his more leftist agenda uh in around about 12 hours time uh so yeah you had so much respect for me until I used the word granula I’m sorry yeah anyway if it helps I didn’t even graduate University so I I feel very much out of my depth all the time right so um 500 seat losses for the conservatives and apparently according to Stuart Ellis and the Tor have been talking up 600 plus losses well yeah they think they’re going to lose 4,000 seats as well so you know that that’s expectations game that’s it is look at what the forecasters say look at what we who model election say and the expectation is conservative seat losses around about four uh 400 to 500 all right anyway I think that concludes it uh my name has been Ben Walker and I think I’m going to leave you uh to it for tonight will I stream again I’ll probably stream in the morning uh before I go to bed I’ll be probably going to bed at 7:00 a.m. 8:00 a.m. get a few hours Kip and see what happens happens here um but who depends depends what what happens to be honest with you uh but yeah yeah this is the last major test for the governing and opposition parties uh before the general election there are no excuses now for saki st’s labor party he needs to show some pretty uh sub substantial gains in the so-called red wall and so-called blue wall of England um and there are rumors to suggest it might be happening but we need to be seeing those games in Grimsby we need to be seeing those games in the rer valley and we haven’t last year we didn’t last year and we didn’t the year before we need to see a bit more than that so there we are uh thank you very much for watching I’ve just seen the numbers uh 24,000 of you watched on Twitter and 451 of you watched on YouTube thank you very much indeed um but yeah I’ll be back be sure to follow us on twitter.com Brit Alex if you want to follow me personally I am bnhh Walker on Twitter Benjamin Neil Hyde Walker my parents decided to add a lot of surnames well middle names but there we go so I think that concludes it uh if you have any questions uh ask them at the next stream I’m going to be very busy tonight focusing on the results but yes thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you uh next time all right bye-bye