Who will survive the local elections?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The local elections are nearly upon us. Political editor Tim Shipman and deputy political editor James Heale bring you the one-stop shop podcast with everything you need to know ahead of the day. What could happen to Keir Starmer, what will a really bad day look like for Labour, and is the political map about to be redrawn?
If you enjoy Coffee House Shots, you can join Tim Shipman and James Heale live as the election results roll in. Will Starmer survive the night? Are Reform and the Greens about to redraw the political map? And what happens next? Along with a panel of familiar faces and special guests, get the only analysis you’ll need as the political fallout begins. Watch live on Friday at 3 p.m. here, and tap the bell now to be notified in advance.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Seal and I'm joined today by Tim Schindman. |
| 0:09.0 | Now Tim, obviously the one story this week is going to be the local elections in England and the Senate elections in Wales and of course, Holyrood in Scotland too. |
| 0:17.0 | Yes, Thursday, but we're recording this on Tuesday, which is great, because we're not allowed to say anything on Thursday. |
| 0:24.9 | So if you're feeling very naughty, you should save this and watch it on Thursday because that's basically illegal. |
| 0:30.5 | So great. |
| 0:31.7 | And what we must point out, I mean, I hadn't realised, James, that he was such a celebrity. |
| 0:35.9 | I'm a deeply honoured to be here. |
| 0:38.3 | One of the pollsters has just done a survey of how many people have actually heard of all the party leaders. |
| 0:45.3 | Poor old Zach Polanski for the Greens, he didn't score brilliantly well. I think he got 12%. |
| 0:50.3 | But someone in this survey mistook Zach Polanski for James Hill of the spectator. |
| 0:56.8 | So there are people in this world for whom you are more famous than the leader of the Green Party. |
| 1:02.2 | I think I've got, must be some ageing relative somewhere. I don't know. I'm sorry to Mr. |
| 1:07.2 | Polanski. Condolences go out. Clearly the smears from the right wing press never stop. |
| 1:12.0 | I want to meet the person who is painfully online enough to have heard about me, but not the leader |
| 1:16.9 | of Britain's biggest. I want to meet them too. I mean, you know, when you go on holiday, we have |
| 1:20.5 | another seat here, so we might well need it. Look, let's go through what we're expecting. |
| 1:26.2 | There have been various estimates. It looks like a pretty |
| 1:29.2 | terrible day for Labour. What are you hearing? I'm hearing Labour to potentially lose half their |
| 1:34.2 | councillors in London. Obviously, they've had 10 years at success post-Brexit in building that |
| 1:38.4 | number steadily up. We're talking numbers of around 12, 1,400 or so potential losses could be |
| 1:43.6 | much more than that as well. |
| 1:45.4 | I think notably they are in real battle to come second in Scotland, which for a long time |
... |
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