This is The Guardian.

I'm not going into any coalition whatsoever with Nigel Farage or reform at national level.

At local level, it's different.

If I wanted to do a deal with you, I would

shake your hand, look you in the eye and do that deal because I trusted you. I don't trust

the Conservative Party in any way at all, and we are going to replace them. I'm Pippa Carrera.

And I'm Kieran. You're listening to Politics Weekly Westminster for The Guardian.

Well, we're back at Westminster after a couple of weeks where we've been off for recess.

Loads going on at the moment, both on the domestic stage and the international stage, Kieran.

But let's start with the very domestic stage, where voters will head to the polls for the local

and mayoral elections on Thursday. It's going to be the first big electoral test for Kiyosarmer's

government and, of course, for Conservative leader Kemi Badernock, all eyes on her since the last

general election. But more importantly, it'll be our first chance to see if reforms rise in the

polls actually translates at the ballot box and whether Nigel Farage can seriously disrupt

the two-party system as he's threatening to do. So should we take a look here at the current

predictions for the May elections? Well, the thing to remember, Pippa, is that these are elections. They're held

on a four-yearly basis. So the baseline we're looking at for these elections is 2021. These are not

really labour areas, most of the seats that are being contested. There are about 1,600 council seats in

all, six mayoralty is being contested on Thursday, four of which are quite major ones. But these are mainly in rural

areas that were swept up by the Tories this time four years ago in 2021. We had the post-vaccine

bounce. Boris Johnson was at the height of his popularity. Reform were really nowhere. I don't think

they won any council seats. They almost didn't exist at this point four years ago. So a lot has changed since then. The main thing, I think the main trend we're going to see is a big collapse of those Tory votes and, you know, a big rise, as you say, in the reform vote. Labor, I imagine, will be just trying to stay out of the headlines and not make this about them at all. They'll say this is a story about Tory collapse and the splitting of the right.

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