Could the local elections be cancelled?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Labour will reveal plans today to re-design local government, with district councils set to be abolished, and more elected mayors introduced across England. The plans could be the biggest reforms of their type since the 1970s, but with the May 2025 local elections set to be Labour’s first big electoral test since the general election, how will they be impacted? Local government minister Jim McMahon didn’t deny that the elections could be affected, or some even cancelled. Reform UK have called foul – what’s going on?

James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls. Also on the podcast: rumours abound that a Chinese spy could be named in Parliament today – what does this story tell us about the UK’s complicated relationship with China? And a new poll from Ipsos holds more bad news for Keir Starmer.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Get three months of The Spectator for just £15, plus a free bottle of Paul Rage champagne if you go to spectator.co.com.uk, forward slash, jingle.
0:09.7	This offer is UK only and time limited.
0:27.9	Hello, and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Katie Bowles and Isabel Harbin.
0:37.8	Now, Isabel, over the weekend, a number of the newspapers were covering the alleged Chinese spy and his involvement with Prince Andrew members of the Royal Family. Talk us through why the story has blown up now and some of the likely consequences in terms of Westminster, given Kirstarmer's keen to develop
0:42.4	co-cest ties with China. Yeah, so one of the things that might happen this afternoon is that
0:48.3	an MP names this suspected spy in the Commons using parliamentary privilege. And there's highly likely to be an
0:56.8	urgent question you've got in Duncan Smith, I think has tabled one. We won't find out whether that's
1:02.3	been accepted or whether another one has been accepted until later today. But it's going to come up
1:07.4	one way or another in the Commons. And ministers have been out and about
1:12.0	urging MPs not to use privilege to name this suspect on the basis that the authorities are
1:19.2	already involved. It's not one of those cases where there's a public interest in naming to
1:23.1	move on an investigation or anything like that. But you know, you've got Nigel Farage and
1:28.4	others saying that they think it is important. Currently, the spy is referred to as H6 and is
1:35.8	alleged to have met David Cameron, Theresa May. Obviously, the story emerged as this spy who
1:42.7	had strong links to Prince Andrew, who is now being told
1:45.6	to stay out of public sight while this latest row blows up. And there's again calls to reconsider
1:55.0	the way in which China is treated in terms of threats.
2:01.3	So the foreign influence registration scheme is something that ministers are being
2:07.1	pressured to revive, to put China on the enhanced tier for threats of this,
2:13.5	and there'll be calls again for other sort of registers for lobbyists and so on.
2:18.6	So I think it's going to be one of those quite dramatic days in Parliament as MPs try to
2:23.7	try to deal with this and as ministers try to work out what to say about it because as you say,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.