Southern England and Future Agendas

Keir Star mer and the Labour government have just faced their biggest electoral test since the 2024 general election, and the consequences for British politics could be huge. So what happens next? I'm Hannah White and this is Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. So we've had votes for the Scottish Parliament, for the Welsh Parliament, and in Council seats all across England. So what do the results mean for who governs in Holyrood? Is Wales ready for a whole new governing party? What were the changes, big changes to England's electoral map mean for Keir Star mer's prospects? And how significant will Thursday night's votes be for the future of the United Kingdom? Well the Institute for Government's brilliant devolution team, Akash Pound, Matthew Freit, Harriet Shaw and Megan Isaac have been following every twist and turn of the run-up to this week's elections and are now turning their expertise to the consequences. And the team is gathered at the IFG on Friday, it's the afternoon after polling day to record a must watch webinar. So good that this week's inside briefing is going to bring you the recording of their discussion. So now over to Akash and the team. Lots of results come in so far, many more to come still. But of the ones we've seen so far, I'm just interested, guys, like what stood out, what's been the most striking or interesting results for whatever reasons? Matthew, how about you? Well, I'm probably gonna go for one that isn't really in line with the national trends. Uh it was in Richmond, Richmond on Thames, not in Yorkshire. And the council's now got fifty-four Lib Dem councillors and is entirely made up of Lib Dems. And I think that's going to be fascinating on how it actually holds itself to account and all manner of questions asked about having just a monoculture in charge of a council really. Yeah, yeah. sure if that's true or not but i i i it it's probably one of the first times the live dems have ever had every seat on a council there's definitely been some labor one party fiefdoms um and yeah i think it definitely raises questions around scrutiny, accountability, and also whether the group is able to s to hold together or or or do they end up falling into factional infighting. But yeah, that's a that's an interesting one and and a and a bit of good news for Lib Dems in uh southwest London, one of their traditional strongholds, isn't it? Harry, how about you? What stood out so far? I'm gonna go in the completely opposite direction to Matthew and um yeah, go to a council that was early to announce a classic bell wether, which is Hartlepool. There we've seen Labour lose the council to no overall control after report reform picked up all 12 seats in the by thirds election there. So it leaves reform and Labour both with 15 seats each on the council. So how that council governs itself obviously will be interesting how they get stuff done for the people of Hartleypool. But yeah, seeing that massive reform gain, I think is a pretty telling theme of what we'll be discussing for the rest of this webinar. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, lots of places all across the north and beyond actually following similar pat tern um and we'll yeah we'll be getting on to some of those later on for sure. Megan, what about you? Yeah, very similar trend to um Harriet's Hartley pool pick actually over in the Northwest Th,ameside in Greater Manchester. Similarly, it's been a Labour majority council since 1979, and today for the first time has fallen to no overall control. And that's with reform picking up all but one of the seats that were up for election yesterday in Thames ide, mostly taken from Labour with a couple of conservative losses as well. So I think the interesting thing here is Labour only winning one seat and the fact that this was a by thirds election, if this was an all-out election, as we see in many other parts of the country, like London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, we could have seen a kind of complete label white power up in parts of the Northwest, which given there's some talks of a certain Andy Burnham potentially wanting to sit in one of those seats. It's also Angela Rayner's backyard out in Thameside. So I think these are potentially kind of pointing to some of those wider challenges that we might see for the Labour Party up in the Northwest and elsewhere. Yeah, absolutely. I mean Harriet and Megan, you've both mentioned the election by thirds point, which we were probably going to come on to later anyway, but do you want to say a bit more about that about that now, Megan, and and also what we think about the election by thirds model? Yeah, absolutely . So um election by thirds, um, a model where only one third of the council is elected each year for three years out of four, um, kind of contrasted with all our elections that we see in areas like London where you have the whole council up once every four years. So I'm sure there'll be many Labour figures in the Northwest who are very happy that the 10 districts of Greater Manchester elect by thirds and didn't elect all out as it's meant they've been able to kind of retain control of four or five of those councils and a few of them have fallen snow overall control, but we've not seen kind of big reform wins in the Northwest, despite reform having that big swing in their favour. We, as Akras said, have kind of made the case recently at the IFG that there's not that many councils left, which are elect by thirds, and there's kind of a case for moving towards those all-out elections, increasing the stability of the council rather than having these changes every single year. We might see a council like Thameside, for example, going to no overall control this year, might have a new leader. Next year we might see something different. So it can be quite difficult for the council to kind of have that long-term decision making without those regular changes in political control. And then there's also potentially some positive implications for turnout as well by having that clearer electoral moment, a good opportunity for local people to change the whole council at once. So yeah, if you're interested in that, you can read a lot more about that on our website as well. Cheaper too, if that if that should matter, the price but government has uh used that as a reason to to delay elections in it over the past year or two, hasn't it? So that might be might help make the case as well for some people. As for me, as I said before before we do move on. I mean I was gonna look west uh to Wales actually where we've now got results in from what's the latest four I think maybe five by now of the uh 16 four or five of the 16 six-seat constituencies under the new Welsh model. Um, the one or one of the ones that stood out for me was uh Blaina Gwent Kaf ili, where Clyde and Reform not only topped the poll as expected, but did so by such a margin that they each won three of the six seats on offer. So Labour and the other other what are now the smaller parties, Conservatives, Greens, Lib Dems were all shut out, won nothing at all. Labour won 11% , but that was below the the threshold they needed uh under the the PR system there to win even one seat. So still a lot of places to declare in Wales, but feels to me that was a bit of a um bit of an indicator, bit of a straw in the wind for what seems to be underperformance by Welsh Labour, even of the pretty low expectations they had. Because I think I mean Megan, you were telling me they've the Labour's already were showing me they've they've already been seemingly managing down expectations even as the first results come in. Is that is that right? Yeah, so we've had Welsh Labour releasing a statement earlier today that they're expecting to win maybe around ten seats um in the Sallad election, which is actually a bit below what some of the polls have put them at and I'm sure a significant way below what they were kind of hoping for themselves. And some more commentators coming out in the last half an hour as though saying that even that 10 seat kind of prediction or expectation management as you might describe it is also potentially a bit of an overestimate and a it could actually fall little bit below that. So it'll be interesting to see. I think what's kind of been really clear in this election is how difficult those fifth and sixth seats are to predict and to poll, which has made it quite difficult both for the parties themselves, but also for the kind of wider public to know who's going to win those seats. So given that's where they're holding to win the majority of their seats, that might be one of the reasons why it's quite difficult for an electoration in advance. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's we should say Labour winning maybe ten seats or or fewer even out of ninety-six, that's the the size of the new expanded Senith. So that really would make them a a small party, really having been the the the dominant par Let's look at Scotland. So um I mean obviously the the starting point in Scotland is uh well it's 129 seats up for gravity People will probably be aware. Under and that's uh elected on the additional member system under which there are 73 first parts of the post constituencies. Um and then there are eight regions, each of which elect seven members . It's eight regions, each electing seven rather than seven, each electing eight, isn't it? Someone fact check me while I'm speaking, but it's definitely 56 on the regional list, one way or the other. Okay, cool. Um and those regional list seats, none of which have been announced yet, are allocated taking into account how many of the constituencies each party wins, and they're there as a pop-up, as it's called, to make the overall result more proportion al. But in the first place, 73 out of 1 29 seats are first past the post. And so one of the big questions has been, could the SNP uh potentially win a majority just by winning over 65 seats on the first post-post basis. And then even if they win zero on the regional list, it wouldn't they have a majority there. Matthew, where are we up to now? And what are the what are the trends we've spotted so far and the results that have come in? So if you'll give me 30 seconds, I'll make sure I do the uh live refresh. So we've currently got uh we've currently got uh 50 of the constituencies of reported back. We're looking at forty-one SMP down two on the last election, three conservatives down one and before, Liberal Democrats are on three, and Labour have got two currently. Um I think that one of the of the sort emerging trends that seem to be is across the board there's been about a 10 to 15% decline in turnout. And that's been quite striking. I think that there was some polling before by, I think might be you gov saying this is the meh election. Maybe I need a shoulder shrug the same time, meh election. And it and so because basically you have an incumbent SNP government, um, they've been in charge for many years now, but equally there's sort of the a mood for change . So how does that kind of manifest itself? So when you actually have a look at some of the SMP result, the early ones that were coming in, typically what you were finding was so yeah, you'd have a ten to fifteen percent turnout decline, then you'd end up with about a fall in vote share of about 10% for SNP, a fall in vote share towards the conservatives of about 10%, and a rise to reform of about 20%. But we haven't yet seen any of any of the constituencies shift to reform. I don't think there's that much of an expectation for that. And think reform that you're often saying that they're expected to be in second place in these constituencies. But I think that when you look at the depressed turnout, that depressed SNP share, I think it's going to be really fascinating to see what happens to that regional list system. Yeah, yeah. The depressed folk share, lots of depressed politicians across the country at this point as well, probably. But maybe not so much the SNP. I mean, so yeah, how's that do we have any sense of how close they're maybe now going to get to that magic line of of sixty five seats at an outright majority? What what does it look like to think? I I think it's uh again still slightly hard to tell, partly because the picture is so sort of I mean I gave that as the overall trend, but at the same time you end up with in each individual seats and quite different kind of outcomes, like the West Islands going towards Labour, where basically um yeah the the corresponding decline in SNP vote going down, but then the uh reform vote coming in, meaning that actually Labour then up So I think it's quite difficult to see the overall picture right now. But I think in hopefully like half an hour or so we'll have a much better idea of where we've at on the constituencies and that might give a bit of more of a lead on where we're at for the regionals. So we have a a colleague, thank you, Megan Breyer, who's feeding us breaking news so that we can uh not not not say anything that's already been proven to be untrue. So BBC forecasting SNP as yeah as largest Marty but largest party but short of a majority, which was generally the expectation. Other interesting specific result that's just been flagged to me. Edinburgh Central, where Lorna Slater , former co-leader of the Scottish Greens, has won for the group Scottish Greens their, first ever constitu ency , meaning that Angus Robertson, cabinet secretary and former leader at Westminster, right, or former MP anyway, has been defeated. I think I'm right about that. That was the one people were talking about before. Harriet, did you want to come in? Yeah, I just wondered if it was worth uh mentioning to the listeners like how hard it is uh to get a majority under this system and how uh infrequently that, happens. I think the SNP have only done it once. So when we talk about them reaching that milestone, it would be quite an achievement. And they are used to a certain extent to governing in that minority way. And John Swinney has said prior to this election that he intends, kind of regardless of if he gets this majority or not to govern like a minority. I think it's yet just a a difference to Westminster politics that's worth highlighting there? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean it was a system designed agreed between Labour and Liberal Democrats back in the 90s, um, with the expectation it would mean yeah no party could win a majority when they did it in that twenty eleven that the SNP it was it was a big it was a big shock. I think the up but the other interesting thing to note this time is if they do even get close to it, it's going to be on a, as Matthew was just talking through, a much declined vote share. I mean, what was it? They won sort of 46% or so, I think, in 2021, and the polls had them on 35-36% coming into the election. From the results we've seen so far, that feels about right, I think. And yet, because of that fragmentation of the party system and the fact that, yeah, reform may be on the rise, but they're taking votes off the conservatives and Labour doing badly as well. The SNP can win most, well, almost all of those constitu encies, even if their national vote share is only around thirty-five percent, which is which is really striking for as you say, Harriet, what's designed to be a a proportional system, right? I I think that might also sort of feed into the narrative that John Swinney's been advancing about governing like a minority government, because I think if you look at what happened in 2024 with Labour at the UK Parliament, what looked like a really large majority has actually, been often well, part of the reason why some of these seats went Labour was because of the fragmented vote that was coming behind it. So there's been a bit of an inherent fragility to some of the discussions in Westminster. And I think that Swinney might be trying to prevent some of that by saying, look, he needs to reach cross-sale. I mean he'll need to anyway to get some of his you know finance bills passed or whatever, and that's like how it was saying, really common for the SNP in government. But I think there's sort of that recognition that actually to speak for Scotland that there's this broader um constituency that needs to be spot um engaged with. SP have as as we've talked about only they once had a majority and have managed to govern very effectively. People might disagree with what they've done with their with their with their power, but um as a minority for most of the past 20 years. And yeah, very very capable of doing so again for the for the next five years, I would imagine. Um okay, quickly finally on on Scotland, probably before we move on. Independence clearly, you know, s has has been one of the dominant issues in this campaign. Unsurprisingly, it's sort of right at the top of of the SNP manifesto , albeit, you know, there's also some quite big domestic uh policy issues that that the SNP are prioritizing . But there is John Swinney has has set out plans to make another push for a second independence referendum, ask Westminster effectively, which is required under the law to pass the enabling legislation, a section thirty order that would allow a Scottish Parli the Scottish Parliament to legislate for an another referendum, which I don't think the UK govern ment is in any in any circumstance going to going to allow, as far as as far as I can make out. I mean, where Streeting served certainly was interviewed about this during the campaign and was pretty categorical that the the 2014 referendum was maybe not once and forever, but certainly once in the generation, as as as people always say. So seems quite unlikely that that that will be allowed uh to happen and but no doubt there'll be some some controversy about that if if if we are in that position, especially if there's an SNP majority, but even if SNP plus Greens have a joint majority and and jointly um move a motion to to hold that referendum. So that could be a bit of a tricky intergovernmental issue, but in the end we know from the Supreme Court judgment of twenty twenty two, without Westminster authorisation, the Scottish Parliament cannot hold a referendum. That's undeniable. And and the SNP, of course, know that, whether they like it or not, they don't like it. But that is the legal position. So that's one thing to watch out for. Aside from that, I mean Harriet, you were looking through um manifestos. Um what what are the interesting uh policy commitments it of striking things in there. What do we expect an SNP administration or SNP led administration to prioritize? And what are they gonna try and achieve? Yeah, absolutely. Well, like you said, in independence was at the forefront, but as a result of, you know, the cost of living and voters focus, a lot of their the rest of their manifesto was focused on those like bread and butter issues, um, unsurprisingly lot of NHS commitments, increased number of GP walk-ins, reduced waiting times, as was I think on pretty much every manifesto , extending bus cap s, and yeah, aside from the full on full fledged independence, um they do make the case for some further devolution too. So uh the devolution of employment law. Um they include a new pledge to introduce um food price caps, um which uh remains to be seen but may run into the UK Internal Market Um Act. We'll see how that plays out. Um also run into basic laws of m supply and demand in free market economics, but that's another point. Carry on. Um yeah, and also worth mentioning here kind of some overlap with the Scottish Greens who also in their um manifesto set out basically pledges to devolve almost everything. Obviously, they want full-fledged independence as the ultimate goal there. But yeah, worth mentioning that overlap as that is likely to be um a party that we see the SNP working with um once they've formed government yeah yeah as they've as they've done quite a lot over the past decade and more, haven't they? Okay, very interesting. Okay, let's uh let's move on then uh to Wales. So um where are we at? I mean I said a bit about Wales um 10 minutes ago or so, but given the way news keeps breaking, uh, we should probably double check the numbers. Uh Megan, do you have them in front of you to to give us a quick recap of where we're up to? Yeah, so currently on hop ing this is up to date, but with fifty-four of the ninety-six seats that are declared, we've got pride coverage on twenty-four, reform on nineteen, labour on six, so already beating some commentators um attestations of the four of five mark, um, conservatives on four and the greens on one picking up that seat in the Cardiff Panath constituency. Um so yeah, looking at times relatively neck and neck between Blyde and reform, but it's seeming like Plyde are picking up a few more um of those kind of third seats that are going to be quite key to potentially have being the largest party in this election. So that seems to be kind of where we're up to now. And obviously I think Labour losses are a big story of the day across all of these elections. It's likely in Scotland that we've seen Labour's vote share and seat share decline in every single Scottish Parliament election since 1999. Potentially that's trend is going to continue in Scotland. We've seen big losses in English councils as well, but I think in terms of Labour losses, the biggest story probably of the day is going to be the losses in Wales. They've won every Welsh-wide election for a hundred years. They've been in power either alone or with the sport of another party in since the um Senate was created. So these big significant losses potentially coming uh being the third party in Wales is probably the very big story kind of coming out in terms of where we are . Yes, and we are getting some more uh breaking news fed to us from our colleague off screen. So I see that yeah Monmouthshire on the uh in the in the east of Wales on the English border has gone okay, two reformed, two plied, one Labour, one conservatives. So that's kind of reform-friendly territory, I think. So even there, they're not getting the third seat. Meanwhile, in Bangor, North Wales, it's gone three reform three Plyde rather, two reform, one conser vative. So yeah, overall definitely again seems to be in line with the polling expectations that yeah, Plyder Plyder going to end up as the largest party, um not going to win a majority, but even more so than in the Scottish system. That's very, very difficult if if but not quite impossible, of course, but for one party to win a majority. Um and yeah, I mean while we're talking about the results there, I mean, I see the the top-ranked audience question um is simply how does the new electoral system in Wales influence the results? I mean, I guess we've started to talk about that already. I think I mean the simple way, the simple answer that I would give is: I mean, first of all, as noted, the system is for people not in Wales or not following that closely, in 61 constituencies, each party puts forward a list and then voters vote for a list. They don't get to select individual candidates. There's only a single vote, unlike in Scotland where you have two separate votes. So you vote for a party list, and then in each of those constituencies, six members are elected. Those six seats are allocated using the De Hont formula. I won't explain that mathematically now, A, because it's very boring, and B because I'll probably mess it up explaining on air. But um basically how it shapes up is there is a bit of a bias in the way, or a bonus if you like, in the way the vote share is cap turned into seat share for the two largest parties. And roughly speaking, it does depend on lots of lots of variables, but in the way it's playing out. Now a s a party needs around about twelve percent or more to to win one seat. If they win around a quarter of the vote, twenty five percent or more, they'll probably win two out of six. So tw a quarter of the vote gets you around a third of the seats. And if you win 40% odd, you'll probably get three out of six. So 40% of a vote gets you 50% of the seats. Rough rules of thumb. That's all I should give credit where it's due, thanks to Jack Lon of Cardiff University, who's done really good modeling and analysis of that. So that's just the rough uh rough rough picture. And and I think you know what we're seeing happen is is in line with the expectations in terms of reform and and Plyde's well ahead of the other parties. Plyde is the largest larger of the two and, both of them are getting that bonus from the way the formula works, meaning that we're going to end up quite interestingly, I think, in a PR system, in a world of party fragmentation , multi-party politics, with a Welsh parliament that's probably going to be quite dominated by two large parties and then lots of smaller ones, medium and very small parties actually. So that's my quick um analysis of that, um, which hopefully is helpful. Um in terms of what else is interesting in Wales? I mean, maybe again, like Harry and Megan, you both looked at the the manifestos. Um Harriet, do you want is there anything that struck you that's interesting in if it is plied leading a government, what we expect them to to focus on, whether on constitutional issues or domestic policy? Sure, I'll I'll touch on the domestic policy again first. So, you know, similar to to the SNP in some ways, a big focus on those cost of living issues, uh a big focus on universal childcare, saying they would offer that uh for children from nine months to four years. That would be the most generous offer in the UK by quite some stretch if it was enacted, um, other cost of living measures, uh expanding free school meals, uh introducing a pilot of child payment to low-income families. So yeah, a lot of those measures to kind of close what they see as um as the gap kind of across across people in Wales. Um Megan, I'm not sure if you want to speak on some of those more constitutional issues. Yeah, so um in terms of constitutional issues, um independence is kind of in the mix there. Obviously Pride Cymru are a pro-independence party, although they've changed their position under their new leader, Ruinap Loreth, to a more kind of slow progression towards that. So rather than seeking it in the first term of a plague-led government, if we do see one, um, they're instead going to kind of bring about potentially a white paper on what Welsh independence would look like and kind of try and begin a bit of a national conversation with the Welsh public. It's a bit of a way behind where it is in Scotland in terms of the polls and how many people support it. So looking at that as a first step. But in the meantime, there's a much stronger call within Wales for further devolution. So the Senate already has fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament. And there's a bit of a cross-party consensus that's developed between both pro-independent parties such as the Greens and Plyde Cymru , and also between unionist parties such as Labour and the Liberal Democrats. So I mean what this cross-party consensus are both amongst both pro-unionist and pro-independence parties asking for further devolution over powers, including policing and justice, broadcasting, the Crown Estate as well. And then we see Plied Cymru and the Greens somewhat unsurprisingly going a bit further in those calls for further devolution. So including calls for rail devolution and also over things like water as well. So there's a bit of a range, but generally I think what we're likely to see um unless we have a potentially kind of reform and conservative led government in Wales, which we can kind of come onto the potential government formation scenarios later. But if we do see a more um kind of plied Labour, Lib Dem and Green type led government in Cardiff Bay, we're likely to probably see quite strong calls for further devolution in some of those areas. Yeah, yeah. I mean as we've had under Welsh Labour for several years. Yeah. And there don't seem to be much progress. Well, I was going to say they don't really seem to be many signs of kind of Westminster necessarily listening to that. Um, you know, we've had the Welsh First Minister from Welsh Labour um kind of making um quite a big deal of having a Labour government at both ends of the M4, hoping to have kind of more cooperation in that area. But then the quite clear calls that there have been for the devolution of policing have seemed to have kind of fallen on deaf ears in Westminster. Um, I mean Shabano and Mood announced a kind of big reorganization of policing and was very clear saying that policing would not be devolved to Wales when making that announcement. So kind of a question mark, kind of as with we've said with independence, that decision to devolve further powers still lies with Westminster. So doesn't necessarily matter how strong a case is made in Cardiff Bay. That's a decision that doesn't lie with them. No, indeed, indeed. Matthew, did you want to come in on that? Yeah, I was just going to say that we had Renap Yoeth come along and do a talk at the IFG um recently and he was really making the case that he's aiming to have many public disagreements with the government over this. And so whereas before there's been this sense that these That sounds like he's just picking a fight in the pub or something like that. I'm I'm paraphrasing quite a bit there. Yes. But I think that there there's likely to be a slight difference in tone at least in terms of those discussions between um the Welsh government and the UK government. Um whereas before as was being said that you know there was a premium on trying to emphasize two governments either end of the M4 corridor collaborating. Now there's much more potential for a government to actually say, no, um, we've asked for something and in private that hasn't been delivered, and we're going to say to the public that this hasn't been delivered. So that'll be quite a different type of relationship. And I think whilst on relationships, I think it's worthwhile just reflecting that they're also going to be quite different relationships for the Welsh civil service too. Um, because ultimately we have new ministers coming in. There's going to be a complete change of blood within the parliament, really. And so what we found through our previous work at the IFG when you have this sort of high level of turnaround is, you know, ministers need to get up to speed in their portfolio area. A big influx of MSs means they need to get up to speed with what being in the CNF means. The CNF needs to adjust around the fact there are now new um MSs and ultimately the civil service is gonna be as well by the way, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and new ministers. So there's a lot of change happening actually inside um w the Welsh government system. Um and so just to sort of flag the work of the IFG and our ministers team that, you know, they have given lots of um advice previously for transformation of uh and transfer of power in these situations. So uh anyone interested, do have a look at our website and the type of work and support that we um give in these scenarios . Yeah, yeah, lots of yeah, lots of interesting um insights from the the ministers reflect series, for example, interviews with former ministers as well as thinking about transitions of power. Absolutely. Um yeah, I think um just one other thing I was gonna note on the on the debate around f further powers. I think as as as Matthew and Megan you both said , we know that UK government's not persuaded on policing and justice devolution, for example. I think one quite other one other quite interesting area where Clydes are calling for more powers is on um tax, on fiscal devolution. And and they've argued for the same power as the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament has to vary um income tax rates and set the basically set the rates and and um bans which Wales can't do at the moment and Scotland can. And and I think it's if if I if I recall correctly, I mean it's a specific applied commitment in the manifesto to, yeah, not only seek that power, but in order to create a more progressive tax system, which is what Scotland has, it's more progressive, but overall it's higher tax. I mean uh uh uh most most people in Scotland pay a a little bit less than they would in England because of the way the the the bans are set . But anyone uh uh earning above average, or nearly everyone earning above average, pays quite a bit more. Um question mark whether that's that's worked well in terms of actually be boosting the the the Scottish revenue as well as whether it's working well politically, but um Plyder seeking to do something similar, it seems. So that's that's that was quite interesting to me. Um one other question, I think, before we move on to England. Um the now the top top ranked question, people are voting for their their preferred options. With Labour losing control in Wales and losing moment um uh in Scotland since twenty twenty four, when of course, yeah, under Starmer um Labour won most of the seats in the in the Westminster election in in Scotland. Um but given given that Labour's falling back in both those nations, what do you think are the implications for relationships between the UK government and the devolved national governments? I mean I think Matt Matthew you said a bit about this alre ady. Um but you know this is something we're we're very interested in. Intergovernmental relations is good good kind of geeky IFG topic. Without getting too lost in the weeds of it. I mean, it's w worthorth flagging that this is an issue that Matthew and I have been doing some thinking and research on, and we will be writing a paper on this to come out in a in a month or two, hopefully. Um so look out for that. But but I think one interesting thing, certain ly people are going to be commenting on for the first time ever, probably, let's see, but probably there's going to be first ministers in each of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland , who come from who who are nationalist party leaders, who therefore seek as a principal constitutional objective, the dissolution of the UK as it stands, independence for Scotland and Wales, unification of Ireland in the case of Sinn Fein. That is quite a big moment. I think as we've talked about , we know that the Scottish Government may make a push for independence. Won't get very far, probably in the short term, but it's not going to go away as an issue. In the case of Wales, yeah, maybe a bit more of a public confrontational approach, possibly to seek further constitutional reform. Northern Ireland's heading for an election next year as well, isn't it, Matthew? Um so yeah, I mean what w how do you see this shaping up ? Well I think it comes in the context of the relationship reset that the gut the Labour government uh when it entered power said it wanted to reset relations across um the Union, that sort of sort of stopped using the language of the Union to a degree. Um on on the basis that previously under the outgoing Conservative government there was um what some people termed muscular unionism trying to emphasize ways in which the UK government was adding a premium in the nations, and the I think there's a wide recognition that there was a really good um talk, that there was a good walking of the talk at the early stages of that reset. But as we've now entered sort of more of a business as usual type of environment that actually , you know, there's been a space for conversation opened between the different governments, but um that doesn't always lead to agreement. And there are sometimes different perspectives on the a level of intervention that the UK government should be doing in the nations. I think that manifested most through a leaked letter, a leaked memorandum that came out that was quite widely publicized in Scotland and Wales and less so in England, where basically the government signed off by Kistarmer said there is a case for the UK government to be making interventions in the nations financially , and that there should be more clear public narrative around it. So I think that there is potentially a space for a reconsideration of that sort of activist approach, um space to think about how that how the UK government articulates its case for the union. And I think ultimately there's a really sophisticated system of uh intergovernmental relations that was established uh relatively recently. We've got a period of time between now and the next parliamentary election where you know Westminster won't be trying to win these seats off the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Government to actually embed some good practices, some good intergovernmental relations and working so that actually, using that really trite phrase, it people can um disagree agreeably, you know, work out how to collaborate when sometimes there may be differences of perspective and ultimately make sure that powers that are held by Westminster and the powers that are held by the national governments work together towards better policy delivery. Yeah. And I think yeah, I think I think it a s sensible approach from um the Prime Minister, current one or maybe new one, whoever it may be, um, would be to yeah, w seek those areas of shared interest. And I think one really interesting area is the EU reset. I mean, we know that's going to be a big priority, a centerpiece of the upcoming King's speech later this month. Um, it's an area where if it is appiedl SNP and obviously the power sharing coalition in Belfast, in all those places, there's going to be some support, maybe quite strong support for developing a closer relationship uh with the EU dynamic realignment is what UK government's talking about. Drive and SNP obviously would go like to go a lot further than that and go back into the customs union and uh if not the the EU in in total. So um that could be an area where the the the three devolves and could could be quite helpful maybe to a Labour Prime Minister who's who's trying to make the case for for closer relations with the EU. I th I think that's quite an interesting area to watch. Um okay, and um we don't have much time to talk about uh hundreds and hundreds of different results all across England. We'll rush through that quickly in a sec. Maybe just before that. I mean Megan, did you want to say something about what we expect to see happen in terms of government formation in in Wales, given where we now see what we now see is the the projections BBC saying Plyde's probably gonna end up with between forty one and forty six um 48 of course being half or 49 therefore an outright majority. So not not that much, but not too far off possibly. Yeah, but yeah, quickly so we can move on to England, but yeah, I think there's kind of an interesting piece around the government formation in terms of there being a much kind of clearer it does look like Clyde Cymru are likely to become the largest party, although obviously we've still got seats to declare. Um but throughout this campaign there has been a much kind of clearer route for the leader of Montgomery as first minister compared to reform. There's kind of more natural partners to work with in the Senate. And all of the parties apart from the Conservatives who are likely to win any seats have ruled out working with reform. So with reform and every party likely to come short of a majority. Um there's never been a majority in the Senate and there's a more proportional system now. So that was never really something that anyone was expecting. Um it would be expecting the parties to work together to kind of get into government. I think some of the interesting questions around what that looks like if plied at the largest party. We kind of spoke about in our event the night before the elections and which is definitely worth watching back. We had a great panel, um, kind of speaking about what decision making Labour makes in that scenario, whether they agree to kind of work with Plied Camry to um form the next government, whether they choose to abstain from the vote to elect the next first minister. If they do choose to abstain, can they afford to choose to abstain without letting reform with maybe the support of the Conservatives elect the next first minister? So even though we've kind of got this expectation that Plyde and reform are going to be the largest parties, there's still kind of some interesting negotiations to come over the next kind of few days and weeks. Um there's 28 days until the first minister has to be elected. So it'll be interesting also to see just how long those negotiations take? Is it something that can be done quickly? And I don't think it's been announced yet, but um also a question about whether Ellen Ed Morgan, the current leader of Welsh Labour and current First Minister, will retain her seats. So what that looks like for Welsh Lab our as well, I think who's leading that process, who kind of steps in if that does happen, I think is another interesting question. So yeah, still a lot to watch on Wales, but definitely worthless turning to England. Expectation I think certainly is she's unlikely to be elected. She's um standing in West Wales, South West Wales, and she in Pembrokeshire, and the way the polls suggested beforehand and the results we've had so far um make it very unlikely she's going to be returned. And yeah and I think just like psychologically, that's quite a blow, isn't it, for the serving first minister and the party leader to be defeated. It makes it quite hard in that situation of uncertainty about who's even going to be leading the party for them to play any active role, I would have thought, in a government formation process. But um yeah, probably Plyda gonna have enough to I don't know actually the current projections. I this is one of the things I shouldn't say without checking live on air, but are they g are they likely to have more than Conservatives and Reform combined? I think possibly they will, which would mean um the other parties on the centre left, if you like, can all abstain and Arena Piorov would still become first minister, even if the Conservatives were to lend their support to Dan Rogers, leader of reform, which they may well not do, frankly. I don't think Conservative Reform alliance is is is necessarily that likely um even if even if the numbers added up anyway we shall see okay let's um uh move on to England we don't have very long left do we but um loads of results, no doubt, have been coming in even as we speak. So we may be a little bit behind the times. But I think what we were interested to do now, I mean, is the big picture, whatever the current numbers are, doesn't matter precisely, because they're changing minute by minute, but clearly very bad results for Labour everywhere. Um not a very helpful insight for me to say that. But um that that's obviously the picture, losing to to different parties in different places. So we're gonna talk about some of those different s places, starting with the north, which is is a big story to to cover in I don't know how long do you wanna take there, Harriet, a minute. But our our northern correspondent, Harriet, t tell us what's going on. Yeah, I'm gonna try not be that person I resent in these situations who just stereotypes enough, but um I'll give it a go. Um but yeah, Akash like, you said, um in the overall picture as well, um the North is looking, you know, particularly bad for Labour in those so-called red wall seats that always seem to b be a big story. Um, you know, things are not going well, that's possibly an understatement. Um, but I'll go to my home turf. So seats in West Yorkshire are still very much coming through, though I've just seen that some in Bradford have gone to reform in the white wards. Um, but yeah, we're not only hearing, I suppose, that things aren't going good for Labour, but also that they're losing some quite senior counsellors. Um, I'm hearing for, example, in Bradford that the Labour council leader Susan Hinchcliffe looks likely to lose her seat. Her seat, Windhole and Rose, likely to have been affected by reform, who seemed to have uh swept up pretty big chunks of the white working class though in that those areas. In Kirklys, the Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem leaders have all lost their seats due to reform gains and Green gains. Uh in Sheffield, the Labour C Labour Council leader has left lost his seat to the Greens by just seventy three votes, which must have hurt. Gosh. Okay . Yeah. Um but yeah, going to the northwest areas like Charley and Wigan, they've swung heavily to reform, um, being saved, um, Labour being saved from losing control of the council only because um only a third of seats were up to election for election, like Megan kind of touched on um before. Manchester City Council has a little bit of a different story . It's seen some gains for reform, seven seats, and but eighteen for the Greens there, that for the eighteen eighteen for the greens there. So yeah, I don't want to, you know, characterise the whole north as purely being this one giant teal wave. You know, there is some gains of the Greens there. But yeah, that reform gain does seem to be the the overwhelming story. Some really some really dramatic um swings and uh places where, as yeah, as we've talked about already therefore, but the form of one all the almost all the seats up for grabs in these elections by thirds in lots of places. I think I don't know the latest in the northeast. That's an area we've been watching quite closely as well because um do you want to say anything about that Harriet? I mean there's this issue with well you might explain it but basically we're we're interested as as regular viewers of the IF G and and uh devolution content will be aware, like we have quite close interest in take quite close interest in the the Metro Mayors, the operation of mayoral strategic authorities. Uh the Northeast is a place where possibly Labour Mayor Kim McGuinness, she's not up for election, she's gonna be in post, but she may suddenly be sitting on a a board, chairing a board predominantly comprised of other parties. Is that what we expect now ? Yeah, I don't have the latest results for the Northeast. I'm not sure if any more have have come through. But yeah, the issue there being that of course these councillors you know come in with their own agendas and services to run and that's a a super important role, but they're also you know sitting on the MSA boards with voting rights and you know they um this help decide along along with the mayor with their votes you know how devolved budgets and powers um should be used um so yeah Kim McGuinness but also Tracy Braben in West Yorkshire for example um four of the elections there are all out they're all currently Labour they all look fairly unlikely to still be by the end of the day. So yeah, we could be seeing big shifts into something that looks very, very different for these mayors and how they govern . Certainly from the results in Sunderland that I'd seen before we went on air. Yeah. Um was going heavily, heavily reform. I think it was 18 of the febbs 21 seats, reformed one all from Labor . Uh so that seems to be the case. Um, we've also just seen that First Minister Eleanor Morgan has lost her seat as expected. But yeah, that's that's a big moment there for Welsh Labour. Um o Okaykay., thanks Harriet. So yeah, good quick overview of apologies for simplifying the wonderful divers ity that that is the the North into into that single phrase uh but the the the the obviously lots of different stories. Um okay moving southwards uh Megan your home territory is somewhere in the West Midlands I think you're gonna tell us about what's going on then also there there's some potentially quite big implications for the operation of devolution in in in the West Midlands, isn't there? Yeah, definitely. So the West Midlands is kind of also very diverse region . If we kind of take a look at the West Midlands combined authority areas, we've got the mayor Richard Parker, Labour Mayor, kind of took over from Andy Street, Conservative Mayor, in the last few years. And currently, of those seven local authorities in that combined authority area, four of them are Labour and three of them are conservatives. So Richard Parker's already got experience with kind of working across parties to kind of get his agenda through as the mayor of this big region. Um, but we've got five of these regions up for all our elections and two of the other councils up for elections by first. So we don't actually have too many results through yet. Uh we did get Dudley earlier this morning with a big swing to reform, 43% of the vote share in Dudley, winning over 20 of the seats. And bearing in mind that was one that was up by third. So we can imagine what that would have looked like if that was an all-out election. Um that is now under no overall control, which was a loss for the conservatives. Um so there's a kind of an interesting question there, I think, for Richard Parker at the end of today is what what does his command authority board look like and how might they work together in the future? Um, I think another very interesting one is Birmingham and Birmingham City Council, biggest council in England, serving over a million people. Um, been in the news a lot for not great reasons, um bins and bankruptcy, um so sticking with the bees there um for Boroughham City Council. Um but this um seems to kind of be potentially like a microcosm of some of the fragment ation that we're seeing more broadly across England. Um, we had the partial results up earlier for Birmingham and the vote shares across five different parties were all in the double digits. Um so it's very unclear here kind of how it's going to be governed, what sort of administration might be able to be are formed on the council. This is a council that's been a labor majority since 2012. So quite a big shift here. There's kind of a big increase in independence. The Greens are expected to do well. Reform are also expecting to take some wards as well. So I think what happens in Birmingham will be a really interesting one, not just kind of in terms of the election results, but actually kind of how does Birmingham govern over the next couple of years Yeah, that's that that that is that is this that was the striking thing, wasn't it, uh Megan, we were talking about it. Multiparty politics has the big picture, but in lots of places it's still a battle between two or maybe three parties. Birmingham is absolutely um, yeah, as exactly as you say, the microcosm, multi-party politics in action in a in a single city. So very interesting one to watch . Just before I turn to Matthew , yeah, just a couple of things from the online audience. So one about our discussion about all out versus elections versus election by thirds. Someone anonymous says all out elections are somewhat encouraged in local government best value standards, though not required. Given your recent report, well, it was a comment piece, but thanks, yeah. And its impact on these elections, do you think we'll see support for a change in legislation? It's interesting, isn't it? I think, you know, Megan, when when you were doing that piece, when we were working on it together, you know, it was clear from the research that government sort of favours all-out elections because all the new unitary authorities that's been cre ating or in recent years and and in current LGR process, local government reorganization, they're making all our elections this the standard , but places that already have elections by thirds are allowed to retain that. So the government's softly nudging the system towards all out elections as the norm without being willing to just legislate for the whole country, which will inevitably annoy some local leaders and frankly governments annoying local government leaders, left right and centre as it is, so they probably just figure, I don't mean left, right, and centre in political terms, though that as well. But I think they probably just think they've got enough fights on their hands as already accurate . One word answer, Megan, is that about right? Yeah, yeah. Uh okay, cool. So running out of time, sorry about this. Matthew, um Harry has covered the whole north. Tell us about the south in about two minutes, sorry. And I think there's an interesting question coming in , which I know you wanted to talk about as well. Given the results in in the South and more generally, what does it what do these mean? What do we think will happen next with the government's well both devolution and local government reorganization agendas. See how much of that you can answer very quickly. Sorry about that. Quick as I can do. Well, there's going to be an upcoming podcast doing specifically on the local election results and the um local government reorganization agenda for the government, which to be frank, a large amount of these areas are going to be covered by LGR. So I'll finish off my answer by saying pay attention uh to upcoming IFG publications and we'll go into great detail there. I I can give you a bit more detail now if you want, Akash, but that's very succinct. I think uh it's Friday afternoon at five o'clock, nobody watching this has other stuff to do, I'm sure. They they can probably stick around. Hopefully that's all right. A few more minutes. So yeah, tell us a bit more, Matthew. Certainly, so I'll give I've give the proper answer now. So um Um in predominantly in the large amount of the South, we've had district council elections. And people might recall that earlier this year there was this question about would elections be delayed in areas undergoing two tier that have two tier areas that are undergoing like a current reorganization. The government took uh said they would be, invited areas to come forward with their proposals, then under the threat of um the judicial review, um reviewed its advice and said that no, um actually these elections would be going ahead. So what we're seeing is a range of local leaders who are going to be in post for probably about two years. Um so there's an awful lot of stuff in their in-trade, lots of issues around finances, increasing demand from social care, you name it, but are also needing to work out what the future governance of their local areas looks like. Um, we've also seen a couple of county council elections cut that that were previously meant to be held last year but but delayed because errors were on the government's devolution priority program . Now, the devolution priority program is going to be having a few obstacles potentially um moving forward, aside from the fact they're going to be new leaders with their new account and new visions of what devolution should look like in their local areas. In Norfolk and Suffolk and in Essex, there are changes in leadership. And because the government decided to delay elections, previously councils had approved statutory orders that would have set up the combined authorities for twenty twenty-six. Because the government decided to delay mayoral elections to twenty twenty eight, as a result of that, they need to reapprove these statutory orders at local level. But having just changed leadership, we'll have to s wait and see what the new reform leaders in Essex and Thurrock think about devolution, whether they want to have a mayor, we'll also need to wait and see what happens in Norfolk and Suffolk with the with well, Norfolk results um still yet to come in, but if they follow what's happened in Suffolk, then there could be another change of leadership there. So we're yet to actually see what reform state position is on uh mayors in this space. Sure they've had they've ran mayoral candidates and they have some standing by and they wanted to engage with the mayoral elections. On the other hand, you could potentially see some areas end up trying to use the mayoral elections and the establishment of mayoralties as some kind of bargaining chip in negotiations with government to try and push for different LGR footprints. So it gets really quite messy. So we'll have to just see how this plays out in the DTP areas, I think. Absolutely, yeah. And you've I mean you're as a Sussex native, you you haven't specifically talked about East and West Sussex, which are up for election as well. I mean, the interesting thing there, isn't it, by contrast to Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk and also Hampshire, I think, is that the Sussex and Brighton combined authority has already been created because government managed to get the local consents required, got the legislation through parliament, meaning that um even if there are changes in control there and leaders come in who aren't a favor in favour of devolution, it's already uh the combined authority, the new strategic authority, has already been created. So Sussex and Brighton have kind of maybe got it got got through the door just before it closes, possibly. We'll see how it shapes up in these in these different places, as you say. Okay, so that's been uh a good quick whirlwind tour of lots of the country. I mean I'm the I'm the kind of born and bred Londoner on the call, on the in the te am. So and London obviously is a big part of the story. We definitely don't have time to go through it in in much detail, but there has been a question specifically about that. Um given Labour's electoral woe woes, reform win Havering Council, although Conservatives win Westminster and hold on to Kensington. Can the panel somehow explain this from a London cephology perspective? I suspect the answer to that is no. I probably can't explain that from a lot specifically cephology perspective because all of us are somewhat amateurs in uh in in in actual cephalogy. I mean, I think you know, London is it's clear it was it was no it was it was clear for a while it was going to be one of the dominant stories of of this set of elections. There are many and we've talked about many of them already um I mean the interesting thing about London seems to be Labour may still remain the largest party, the the most popular party, possibly good news looking ahead to future male contests in London even , but it's becoming we talked about Birmingham before, it's becoming very much a microcosm of multi-party politics as well. So yes, I mean we've seen reform make make those breakthroughs. Greens won in Hackney , the mayoral tea, that was quite a big result for them. Some suggestions Greens might have underperformed some of their expectations, possibly because of the bad news they've had over the last week or so, more scrutiny of Zach Balanski and other members. Conservatives have made a comeback in central London, yeah, Westminster, Wandsworth. Matthew talked as well about Lib Dems sweeping up in uh Richmond. So very multicoloured multi-u-party politics in London. Um I mean, London's obviously a huge place. So in a way, it's unsurprising that that's what we see, that those different stories, but but very interesting. And and um I think if overall Labour fall back a lot in London , maybe even more so than their defeats in Wales and Scotland. That's that's really gonna weigh on the minds of Labour MPs thinking about what to do next and whether to m continue to back the Prime Minister or not. Well that was Akash Pound, Matthew Freight, Harriet Shaw and Megan Isaac bringing you the IFG's latest reaction to the big elections in Scotland, Wales and all across England. You can find the team's analysis, explainers and latest commentary at the IFG website with plenty of new content landing in the coming weeks. And with Parliament returning next week for the King's speech, we've got a series of brilliant parliamentary-themed events coming up on the restoration and renewal of parliament, on private members' bills, and on the elec tions bill. Head to our website and sign up for those now. Until then, if you stayed up late to watch the votes, come in, I hope you get some sleep this weekend. I'll see you next week