What to look out for at the local elections
The Rundown by PoliticsHome
PoliticsHome
4.1 • 107 Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As voters nationwide prepare to go to the polls for a highly anticipated set of local elections, this week we have a special episode giving you a guide to the key results, when to expect them, how to interpret them, and what might happen next.
With around 5,000 council seats in England up for grabs on 7 May, along with six mayoralties, every seat at Holyrood and in the newly expanded Senedd, the Labour Party is braced for an extremely painful evening, which will likely put renewed pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer's leadership over the weekend.
At the same time, the Conservatives' electoral woes are expected to continue, in what would be a reminder of the work leader Kemi Badenoch has to do to repair the party's brand following its heavy general election defeat in 2024.
Meanwhile, signs point to the UK's insurgent smaller parties, Nigel Farage's Reform UK and Zack Polanski's Greens, winning many hundreds of seats across the country, while there are also expected to be gains for Liberal Democrats and independent candidates, further demonstrating Britain's shift to multi-party politics.
To discuss all of that and more, host Alain Tolhurst, is joined by Luke Tryl, UK Director at think tank More in Common, along with Dr Hannah Bunting, Senior Lecturer at Exeter University and co-director of The Elections Centre, alongside PoliticsHome's editor Adam Payne and The House magazine's deputy editor Sienna Rodgers.
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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home with me Alan Tolest. |
| 0:09.1 | As elections take place across the UK tomorrow, this week we have a special episode |
| 0:13.2 | giving you a guide to all the results, a potentially seismic event in British politics, |
| 0:17.6 | when to expect them, how to interpret them, and what might happen next. |
| 0:21.7 | With around 5,000 seats across 136 local councils in England, along with six mayoral contests, |
| 0:27.6 | plus every seat at Holyrood and in the newly expanded cenoth, Labour embraced for a pretty |
| 0:32.0 | dreadful night, while reform are hoping for unprecedented success in Wales and Scotland, the Greens are looking to make |
| 0:38.2 | more big gains, while the Tories are just out for any glimmer of hope in what could be another |
| 0:42.2 | disaster at the ballot box. To discuss all that and to like to be joined by Luke Trill, Executive |
| 0:47.1 | Director at the Think Tech, more in common, along with Dr Hannah Bunting, Senior Lecturer |
| 0:51.4 | at X University and co-director of the Elections Centre. |
| 0:58.9 | Anna has also got with me two top colleagues, Sienna Rogers, deputy editor of our sister title, |
| 1:01.9 | The House Magazine, and our editor here at Paul Home, Adam Payne. |
| 1:09.2 | The plan here tonight is we're going to talk through what we're expecting, where all the results are going to come through, where the key races to watch and where we might end up as we head into this weekend. So let's start with on a Thursday evening, the polls close at 10 o'clock. But unlike a lot of previous years, we may have a while to wait for some results because not as many councils are counting overnight as previously. But Adam, talk us through when we might expect the first kind of significant results on what it might show for us. Thanks, Alain. Yeah, so I think it's |
| 1:31.7 | important to point out that when normal people wake up at a reasonable hour on Friday morning, |
| 1:38.6 | we're not expecting a huge volume of results due to the fact that a lot of counting just isn't happening overnight. |
| 1:47.0 | But in terms of what we can expect in the first few hours of Friday morning, |
| 1:53.5 | I think somewhere to look out for and somewhere where I think will naturally attract |
| 1:59.8 | a lot of attention is Hartlepool in the |
| 2:02.1 | northeast. It's one of those Brexit voting parts of the country that have become sort of under |
| 2:09.8 | the spotlight in British politics in recent years. We'd expect reformed UK, Nigel Farage, |
| 2:17.0 | to do well there. |
... |
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