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Hello and welcome to this edition of The Westminster Hour with me, Ben Wright, and my guests.

Coming up, pressure is mounting on Sarkia Stama after Labour's thumping in the local, Scottish and Welsh elections.

Can he turn around his premiership and see off his critics

with a promise to build a stronger Britain back at the heart of Europe?

We'll discuss all that and the new era of multi-party politics across the UK.

Plus, we'll hear from the leader of one of Reform's flagship councils.

What advice does she have for colleagues preparing to take power in town halls around England?

First, let's meet my panel.

Jessica Asato is the Labour MP for Loistov, elected in 2024.

Before Parliament, she was a North London councillor and thought big thoughts for think tanks such as progress and the Social Market Foundation.

Were you glued, Jess, to the overnight election coverage on Friday or were trying to ignore it all with a pillow over your head?

Well, as somebody who has children, I couldn't watch the election coverage all night because I needed to get up in the morning to make sure they were ready to get to school.

But you follow it, don't you, obsessively on social media? And I certainly was looking at the results in my patch.

Sir John Whittingdale has been at Westminster for more than 30 years as Conservative MP for Maldon and before that he was political secretary to Margaret Thatcher.

In government he served as Culture Secretary and as a Minister for Digital and Creative Industries.

He's now a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

I'm sure you've seen cheerier election nights too, John, over the years.

And like Jess, your constituency now sits in a county run by reform.

It does. And I mean, I was there till the bitter end, 4.30 in the morning. And it wasn't a great

night for us. You know, reform did very well. But now the test will be to see whether they're actually capable of

running a county of the size of Essex. Tim Bale is someone we regularly turn to to guide us through

...