Electioncast: The Winners And The Losers
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, Labour suffered a historic loss in the Welsh Senedd elections coming in third behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
In Scotland, the SNP held onto it’s majority with second place too close to call between Labour and Reform as Newscast began recording.
And in England, a bruising run of results continued for Labour, who lost more than a thousand council seats. Reform won more than 1400 councillors and the Greens made gains.
Adam, Chris and James break down the results.
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Anna Harris with Shiler Mahmoudi. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Stephen Bailey. The assistant editor was Jack Maclaren. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, nearly all the results are in from what Laura Coonsberg christened Maga May. |
| 0:11.5 | In the English local authority elections, in the areas where there were, local authority elections, |
| 0:16.8 | Reform UK have won more than 1,400 councillors. Labor were the big losers, losing more than |
| 0:22.7 | 1,300 of them. The Conservatives also lost 552, but they were big gains for the Greens and smaller |
| 0:30.1 | gains from the Liberal Democrats. Then if we go to Scotland, the Scottish National Party was |
| 0:35.5 | re-elected as the government at Holyrood with 57 seats. |
| 0:39.9 | So that's down six on the last Scottish Parliament election result and crucially leaves them short of a majority. |
| 0:48.6 | And then if we hop over to Wales, massive news there. |
| 0:53.1 | Labour out of power for the first time in the devolution era, which |
| 0:57.4 | started in 1999, replaced as the government in Cardiff by Applied Cumbry. But they, like the |
| 1:04.7 | SMP in Scotland, are also short of majority. So how Plied Comrie will govern in Wales in this new era for that part of the |
| 1:12.7 | UK? We do not know. So, oh, and by the way, there's some rumblings amongst Labour MPs that |
| 1:18.0 | maybe Kier Starmour should give a timetable for when he will quit Downing Street. So loads and loads |
| 1:23.6 | to discuss on this second helping of newscast on Friday the 8th of May, which follows hot on the heels of the elections of Thursday, the 7th of May. |
| 1:32.6 | Newscast. |
| 1:33.3 | Newscast from the BBC. |
| 1:39.7 | Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. |
| 1:41.8 | It is Chris at Westminster and it's James in Edinburgh. And it is 41 in the newscast studio. It is Chris at Westminster. And it's James in Edinburgh. |
| 1:44.9 | And it is 41 minutes past 10 on Friday evening. Notice I did that five live time check style |
| 1:52.2 | rather than Radio 4 where it would be it's 19 minutes to 11. James, can I just say your studio |
| 1:58.5 | that you've been using outside the Scottish Parliament is fan dabby-dozy. |
... |
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