Political Fix Election special: snap analysis
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been a dreadful night for Labour as council seats across the country have turned from red to turquoise. The Conservatives have not fared much better with Reform UK the big winner so far. With results still coming in, host Lucy Fisher discusses the fracturing of the vote and the future for beleaguered Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with the FT’s deputy political editor Jim Pickard, Northern England correspondent Jen Williams and political columnist Stephen Bush.
Have a question for the panel? We’re planning a question and answer episode on Monday May 11. Email your questions to politicalfix@ft.com
Follow Lucy on X: @LOS_Fisher, and Bluesky: @lucyfisher.ft.com; Jim @PickardJE; Stephen @stephenkb & @stephenkb.bsky.social and Jen @JenWilliamsMEN and @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social
Want more?
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Presented by Lucy Fisher. Produced by Clare Williamson. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music and mix by Breen Turner. The broadcast engineers were Andrew Giorgiades and Petros Gioumpasis. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of Audio.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, it's Mark. The UK Labor Party is dealing with an election hangover and not the good kind. |
| 0:06.5 | This week's massive defeat raises a lot of questions about the UK political system, like what does |
| 0:11.9 | this mean for the future of Prime Minister Kier-Starmer, what's to become of the conservatives, |
| 0:16.7 | and does Reform UK's big win signal a permanent shake-up to British two-party politics. |
| 0:22.1 | It is a lot to take in. |
| 0:24.4 | Luckily, our friends over at the FT's Political Fix podcast have dug into the details |
| 0:28.3 | and have an excellent conversation on it. |
| 0:30.6 | We're going to play that for you now. Enjoy. |
| 0:35.6 | Hello, it's lunchtime on Friday. |
| 0:37.9 | Results are still coming in, but Labour have taken a hammering, reformer on the march, |
| 0:42.4 | the Greens are up, and the Tories have suffered heavy council losses, |
| 0:46.6 | but clinched several wins in London. |
| 0:49.2 | I'm Lucy Fisher and this is political fix from the Financial Times. |
| 0:53.2 | Let's get straight to it with our panel. Jim Picard, who's been up since 4 a.m. Hi, Jim. Lucy, how dare you? It was 3 a.m. How dare I minimise your sacrifice of sleep? Stephen Bush, who eclipses you, Jim. He's been up all night, haven't you, Stephen? I have, yep, so I might start to sundown during the pod. Halfway through. And down the line from Manchester, it's Jen Williams. Hi, Jen. Did you get much sleep? I worked through for midnight, and then I did try and get to sleep. Then the doorbell rang after about an hour. So, yeah, I don't know what that was, but it didn't make me very happy and I'm not very awake. Okay, well, you're all slightly showing me up. |
| 1:29.1 | I feel a bit embarrassed because I had 40 winks and I woke up at 7am to check in on all the results, dashed to the office and get on it. |
| 1:36.8 | So I wish I could pretend I'm as frazzled and over-caffeinated as I presume you guys are. |
| 1:42.8 | As I mentioned, vote counts are happening as we |
| 1:45.0 | speak, but there are some clear themes emerging, Jim. Give us a snapshot of where we stand. |
| 1:50.5 | So the theme is pretty much what we've been anticipating for months, but seeing it crystallised |
| 1:55.4 | in front of our eyes is obviously fascinating. As of lunchtime on Friday, reform is over 400 seats up, |
| 2:02.8 | Conservatives around 200 down, labour down somewhere over 250, |
| 2:08.1 | and the Greens have got modest gains, |
... |
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