Cutting through the spin – elections bonus ep
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 917 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As votes the continue to be counted Amol and Nick give their take on where the election results leave both the Tories and Labour.
Pollster James Kanagasooriam, chief research officer with Focal Data who sits on the board of centre-right think tank Onward, is back with some expert analysis.
And find out how you can come along to a special recording of The Today Podcast: Live!
Regular episodes of The Today Podcast land on Thursdays. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producers are Hazel Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Hannah Montgomery and digital production from Elliot Ryder.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Right, cut through the spin. |
| 0:06.2 | That was a triumphant night for Labour. |
| 0:08.6 | They won hundreds of council seats right across the country. |
| 0:11.2 | They had a massive 26% swing from the Tories to them in the Blackpool by-election by any measure, Nick. |
| 0:17.7 | They've got to be pretty pleased. |
| 0:19.3 | They do. |
| 0:20.4 | But, and as I sometimes like to say, |
| 0:22.6 | it is a big butt or maybe several butts. Yes, it was a dreadful night for the Conservatives. |
| 0:28.0 | Yes, we have just heard it got worse when just before we started recording this, |
| 0:33.4 | we heard that the mayor, the directly elected mayor, for Rishi Sudak's own patch in North Yorkshire, has gone Labour as well. |
| 0:41.9 | But he will be able to say Ben Houchon is still Mayor of Teesside. |
| 0:46.5 | Andy Street, who you know very well, is likely to remain the mayor of the West Midlands. |
| 0:51.5 | The London mayoralty looks like it could be quite a bit closer than Labour thought it would be. And the Reform Party, which is one of the great sortlands. The London Marilty looks like it could be quite a bit closer than Labor |
| 0:55.2 | thought it would be. And the Reform Party, which is one of the great sort of unknown unknowns, really, |
| 0:59.7 | or maybe known unknowns of British politics. They didn't quite make the breakthrough, |
| 1:03.8 | particularly in Blackpool, that's certainly Richard Tyson, Nigel Farage, were hoping. |
| 1:07.5 | Andy Street, if you won for the Conservatives, would be extraordinary. Maybe, just maybe, the narrative of catastrophe for the Tories isn't the whole story. |
| 1:16.2 | It might just be more complicated than that, which is why it's worth a bonus episode |
| 1:21.0 | of the Today podcast. |
| 1:22.2 | Can we do it? |
| 1:23.1 | Let's do it. Hello, it's Nick and this is the third part of my election triathlon, overnight results |
... |
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