Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home with me Alan Tolhurst.

With Parliament parrobed, Westminster is in full campaigning mode, a week out from the May 7 elections.

And while the conversation largely centres around potentially massive labour losses across the UK

and reforms continued rise, there's another

story going on too, which is that with predictions of another terrible set of results for

the Tories, could the party, once known as the most successful election-winning machine, be sliding

into a relevance?

To discuss whether Kemi Badenock can turn the Conservatives fortunes around, whether another

drubbing at the polls next week further cements Nigel Farage's place as a dominant force on the right. I'd like to be joined by the Tory MP, Jack Rankin, who's been the member for Windsor since 2024. Alongside him, we have the former Tory cabinet minister, David Gork, now vice chair of Centrist Group, Prosper UK, as well as Talley Fraser, assistant editor at the

Conservative Home website, and my colleague and political reporter here at Poll Home, Matilda Martin.

So Talley, starting with you then a week out from the May 7th elections as we record now.

What's the mood like, I guess, in the Conservative Party as they break up for kind of

prerogation and back to their constituencies?

There's kind of a weird haze right now, I think, amongst Tories, where there's a slightly

almost semi-boyant Westminster mood.

You know, Kemi's personal polling is doing better in that she's less badly, poorly

regarded loser. But she's doing better. Her performances are doing better in terms of the

chamber and on media. That's all going quite well. These sets of locals are going to be very, very difficult. Part of the haze is related to the fact that these will be very difficult for the Tories and even worse for labour. Yeah. It doesn't stop it being really, really bad for Tory local councils. Yeah, Jack, is there a bit of a kind of a mirage, I suppose, like in things like, Prime's questions, Kenvain looks very visible. She's been able to land some blows on Keistama,

but that hasn't really translated into wider polling.

No, well, Talley's quite right that the mood at Westminster amongst Conservative members

of Parliament is, I'd say buoyant but realistic. I think what we have to think about with these local elections,

we're coming down from some big highs in 2021, 2022. And the reality is, is that Westminster politics

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