0:00

The Spectator magazine is home

0:02

to wonderful writing, insightful analysis

0:04

and unrivaled books and art

0:06

reviews. Subscribe today for just

0:09

12 pounds and receive a

0:11

12 week subscription in print

0:13

and online along with a

0:15

free 20 pound John Lewis

0:18

or Waitrose Voucher. Go

0:20

to Spectator.co. uk.org/Voucher.

0:27

Hello and welcome to this special sastier

0:29

edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm delighted

0:31

to be joined today by the legendary

0:33

pollster Sir John Curtis. Now John, huge

0:35

set of local elections up next week.

0:37

Talk us through the top lines in

0:39

terms of what we're likely to see.

0:42

It's not a huge set of local

0:44

elections. It's a remarkably small set of

0:46

local elections because we only have elections

0:48

for 23 councils, most of them county

0:50

councils which are often more difficult to

0:52

be, together with six morality. What of

0:55

course you mean is that there's a

0:57

big set of elections in terms of

0:59

Westminster's interest in what they are going

1:01

to tell us because of course these

1:03

are elections that are occurring at the

1:05

time when the opinion polls suggest that

1:08

support for the UK Labour government. has

1:10

fallen away more rapidly than that

1:12

for any newly elected government, and

1:14

that reform are the principal party

1:16

to have risen since the last

1:18

election, as a result of which

1:21

labor and reform roughly neck and

1:23

neck in the opinion polls. Conservatives

1:25

who have shown so far no

1:27

sign of recovery, if anything, are

1:29

slightly worse positioned than they were

1:31

last July, but with the Greens

1:34

still knocking even more largely on the

1:36

door than they have done in the

1:38

past. and the Democrats also, if anything,

1:40

in a slightly better position they were

1:43

last summer. So we're all just wondering

1:45

what this is going to mean for

1:47

the outcome of the elections or

1:50

to put it slightly differently, will

1:52

the local actions confirm the message

1:54

of the opinion polls that a

1:56

reform are indeed a significant threat

1:58

to the conventional two-party system and

2:01

indeed therefore more broadly do we

2:03

get further affirmation of what was

2:05

one of the lessons of last

2:07

July which is that perhaps we

2:09

are moving from a two-party system

2:12

to a multi-party system whether or

2:14

not these local actions also confirm

2:16

that broad and messy. So they

2:18

are big in terms of political

2:20

significance but we need to realize

2:23

very straight away we're looking for

2:25

big signs from small pieces of

2:27

evidence. Of course, we've got six

2:29

marities up for grabs. Who is most

2:32

likely to win each of those? On

2:34

that, we do have, for what it's

2:36

worth, a certain amount of opinion polling,

2:38

which in a sense is both

2:40

interesting, but also illustrates

2:42

what is going to be the wider

2:45

problem with anticipating what happens in

2:47

these elections. So you, Gov, have

2:49

published estimates. Now, they're also just

2:51

opinion polls. the fact that they

2:54

confirmed that reform appeared to be

2:56

doing well and indeed probably doing

2:58

as well in the four or

3:01

the different areas as we might

3:03

expect given what the opinion polls

3:05

are saying well but that's the

3:07

opinion polls confirming opinion balls still

3:10

for what it's worth two things

3:12

to take away from it one

3:14

is that if you go on right

3:16

reform are on course to win both

3:18

the whole and East Yorkshire morality

3:21

which is a greater linkage one

3:23

And of course, Lincolnshire itself is

3:25

the most Eurosceptic county in the

3:28

country. We know that reform,

3:30

unsurprisingly, are primarily getting support

3:32

amongst those who would still

3:34

vote in favor of Brexit.

3:36

So the fact that they're

3:38

heading for 40% in Lincolnshire

3:41

perhaps is at a great

3:43

surprise. But just to illustrate

3:45

the problem, whole. Reform might

3:47

win according to Ugov on

3:49

35%. Cambridges, actually the Tories

3:52

might win Cambridges, but on

3:54

32%. And in the west of England, the

3:56

Greens might get it if Ugovs

3:58

are on 27%. And this illustrates

4:01

a broader problem. We are seemingly

4:03

in an era of five-party politics,

4:05

particularly in no collections, because certainly

4:07

historically both the liberal Democrats and

4:10

the Greens, who are the two

4:12

parties that are further behind in

4:14

the national opinion polls, tend to

4:17

do better in low collections than

4:19

they do in the contemporaneous opinion

4:21

polls. So we're probably looking up

4:24

five political parties that may be...

4:26

relatively equally strong in

4:28

these local actions, with their

4:30

vote all being factored through

4:33

a single member priority electoral

4:35

system. Look forward probably

4:38

to lots of the cancers being

4:40

elected on relatively low shares

4:42

of the vote.1. And two,

4:44

it's one of the reasons

4:46

why anticipating just how many

4:48

seats are going to go in

4:50

one direction or another. very difficult

4:53

to call because what we have

4:55

to remember here is that he

4:57

who wins votes is not necessarily

4:59

the part of the win seats.

5:01

You know, this one of the

5:03

stories of the 2025, 2024 election

5:05

was reform took votes off the

5:07

Conservatives and thereby helped Labour and

5:10

the little Democrats to win seats.

5:12

Now, of course, what's different now

5:14

is that it with reform act

5:16

25% maybe, maybe. It will also

5:18

be reform that pickups the seats,

5:20

but you know, it's all

5:23

very nip and tuck, given

5:25

the geographical character of reform

5:27

support. So again, which also I

5:29

think the only thing one has to

5:31

say straight away, if you want to

5:34

understand what these low collections mean,

5:36

don't focus too much on the

5:38

outcome in seats. This could prove

5:41

to be very misleading beyond that.

5:43

There is one thing that we

5:45

know. All the seats that are being

5:48

contested this time were last contested

5:50

in May 2021. The same day

5:52

that Boris Johnson won the Hartlepool

5:55

by election from Labour, the Conservatives

5:57

did very well in the local

5:59

elections. Starmo contemplated resignation. Most of

6:02

these elections are also taking place,

6:04

and again, one of the reasons

6:06

why we're looking for big evidence,

6:09

from small, big stories, some small

6:11

evidence. Most of these elections are

6:13

taking place in Prime Tory Shire,

6:15

English County. This is just a

6:18

similar slice of England. It's not

6:20

England in general, let alone. So

6:22

I'm telling it's nothing about the

6:25

rest of the rest of the

6:27

UK. So therefore, there's all of

6:29

these two things, you know, of the

6:31

1600 seats, the toys are defending nearly

6:34

a thousand of them. Well, look, we

6:36

can, given the history, we can anticipate,

6:39

yeah, the conservatives will lose a

6:41

lot of seats. Maybe 500, maybe

6:43

even more. Nobody really knows. You'll

6:45

notice, nobody has put out any

6:48

benchmarks this time. And that is

6:50

an indication of the uncertainty. But

6:52

we know the toys are going to

6:54

lose a lot. We can be pretty

6:56

much guess that reform are going

6:58

to make significant gains, but whether

7:01

it's 200, 300, 400, again I

7:03

think frankly nobody knows. That in

7:05

a sense will be the interest of

7:07

the Friday where most of the

7:10

results are declared, but it does

7:12

therefore remember that given that a

7:14

lot of seats could be won

7:16

by very narrow margins, you know,

7:18

if the opinion polls are just

7:21

overestimating the reform a little bit.

7:23

Maybe it's closer to 200. Maybe

7:25

if they're underestimating them,

7:27

I don't know, maybe it's closer to 400

7:29

or 500. And it won't take very, very

7:31

much to make quite a difference potentially in

7:34

terms of the outcome in terms of seats.

7:36

Can you put this in a bit of

7:38

context? Because it seems that, you know, we

7:40

have the two-party system overall, it's been sort

7:42

of... going downward for about 50, 60 years

7:44

or so, you know, back in the 1960s,

7:46

the two main parties who were winning around

7:49

sort of 90% of the vote, this time

7:51

Labour and the Conservatives are around sort of

7:53

45, 47% combined. Now what an extent is

7:55

this a potential to be the sort of

7:57

like the 1920s a century ago where you have...

7:59

the Liberals and the Conservatives coming

8:02

up against labour and labour replaced

8:04

the Liberals as the main party

8:06

of the sort of centre, centre

8:08

left. Do you think we're living through

8:11

a similar period to that now? Well

8:13

that's certainly the question to which

8:15

we're all seeking an answer though,

8:17

unlike the 1920s at the moment,

8:19

it seems there might be a

8:21

prospect of us ending up not

8:23

with a two-party system but a

8:25

multi-party system. Now, one thing we

8:27

should be clear out straight away,

8:29

and one of the reasons for

8:31

thinking it isn't just the 1920s.

8:33

The last general election was

8:36

the first ever general

8:38

election in which five political parties

8:40

fought virtually everywhere. You can

8:42

fought virtually everywhere in 2015,

8:44

and so we had a

8:46

four-party contest there. And the

8:48

point is, therefore, we now

8:51

know that the Greens pretty

8:53

much are organized everywhere. The

8:55

Liberal Democrats, how did they

8:57

survive the, what for them intellectually

8:59

was the disaster, the coalition, what

9:01

at least they always had one

9:03

man, one woman and a dog

9:05

to keep the party going locally

9:07

during the dark days and there

9:10

was a permanent organizational presence. The

9:12

challenge that reform set themselves in

9:14

the wake of last July, when

9:16

frankly they did have a lot

9:18

of paper candidates, some of them

9:20

still necessarily still did model well,

9:22

is to create a party organization.

9:24

in a sense reform of already

9:26

won these local elections because they

9:29

are contesting virtually every

9:31

seat. Now arguably the

9:33

Labour government's decision to

9:35

cancel some elections was, although

9:37

we formed, we're very unhappy about some

9:39

of the places where they hope to

9:41

do well and no longer having elections,

9:43

on the other hand, it meant that

9:45

they could focus on a very small

9:48

part of the country in order to

9:50

be able to create their first steps

9:52

towards creating a party organization. But we

9:54

have never had, we've got, you know,

9:56

even the Greens are fighting virtually three

9:58

quarters of the seats. 85% conservative

10:00

labor virtually ever. So most

10:02

people in most wards are

10:04

going to find themselves with

10:06

candidates from what at the

10:08

moment are the five GBI

10:10

parties that we have. And

10:12

the point is that once

10:14

parties create an organizational presence,

10:16

they are more likely to

10:18

survive the ups and downs

10:21

of this fortune. Now of

10:23

course. lot of speculation about

10:25

whether or not at some

10:27

point there'll be some pact,

10:29

understanding and argument, whatever, between reform

10:31

and the conservatives, but you know

10:33

that's certainly not going to happen

10:35

any point in the short term.

10:38

So yes, the question that we

10:40

are faced with is are we

10:42

heading towards multi-party system? July raised

10:44

the question after two elections in

10:47

2017 and 2019 when it looked

10:49

as though the two-party system. at

10:51

least in England and Wales, had

10:53

restored itself. We should remember it's

10:55

long since been destroyed in Scotland.

10:58

But then, 2024, you know, Green's

11:00

record, reform record, liberal Democrats

11:02

gained lots of seats as

11:04

not necessarily votes, lowest conservative

11:07

in labor share combined since

11:09

1920, since 1922. And the

11:11

point is that what's happened

11:13

since the last election, if

11:16

Green's going up, reform definitely

11:18

going up, has just further. indicated that

11:21

at least the potential that we are

11:23

heading for a very different kind of

11:25

politics in Britain, but at the moment,

11:28

with it still being refracted through

11:30

two-party systems. One of the things that

11:32

I was giving some talks about this

11:34

after the last lecture, had one or

11:37

two Labour MPs say, well, of

11:39

course, should remember here, Labour voted in

11:41

favour of changing the electoral system in

11:43

2022. I had some Labour MPs say...

11:46

Well, of course, the reason why we

11:48

now need to keep first pass

11:50

the post is because it will

11:52

help, it kept reformat. Well, yeah,

11:55

that works at 15%. It doesn't

11:57

work at 25%. Remember what happened.

11:59

in Scotland. The SMP

12:01

struggled to get very much

12:03

in the way of Westminster

12:06

representation with their geographical evenly

12:08

spread vote until 2015 when

12:10

they got nearly 50% and

12:12

they got virtually everything. And

12:14

the point is that reform

12:16

even at 25% but with

12:18

nobody else doing better than

12:20

them as we've seen from some

12:22

of the attempts to estimate what

12:24

might happen. reform potentially get

12:26

at least as many seats as

12:29

the Conservatives and they because that

12:31

geographically spread is no longer is

12:33

no longer a disavowed. And again

12:35

that helps to understand why

12:38

we just don't know how many

12:40

seats they're going to get because

12:42

you know reform basically are fighting

12:44

virtually all of these wards for

12:46

the first time. We can kind

12:48

of make a bit of a

12:50

guess that, for example, in Lincolnshire,

12:52

again, the most, in which also

12:54

has a county council election, as

12:56

well as the mayoral action we've

12:58

talked about, that, now, we kind

13:00

of anticipate they might do pretty

13:02

well there because it's pretty Eurosceptic.

13:04

Same is true of parts of

13:06

Kent, maybe not so well in

13:08

Oxfordshire, which is rather a remaining

13:10

country, as is true of much

13:13

of Cambridure. But just how well

13:15

they're going to manage to middle

13:17

bits in between places which are

13:20

not particularly pro-Brexit, but equally not

13:22

particularly pro-remain. That's very very difficult

13:24

to call. And you mentioned of

13:26

course the importance of party organisation. speaking to

13:28

lots of Tory candidates the last election who

13:30

stood in basically no hope of seats across

13:32

much of the North of England, you wonder

13:34

about those sort of areas where traditionally you've

13:36

been Labour strongholds, they might have sort of

13:38

flirted with the Conservative or being Red Wall

13:40

areas the last at the 2019 election, but

13:42

then in 2024 Labour just took them back.

13:44

And I wonder, you know, your assessment, John,

13:46

of reforms chances in those such seats and

13:48

of course, run corn we have next Friday,

13:50

in terms of the narrative these local elections,

13:52

that results expected around sort of two or

13:54

three in the two or three in the two

13:57

or three in the morning in the morning. thereafter we get

13:59

the local council. I think throughout the rest of

14:01

the day, but of course if it is

14:03

reform winning their first female MP there, that

14:06

potentially sets it up for a whole story,

14:08

etc. and a narrative around reform success, how

14:10

likely is it that if they were successful

14:12

though they could then replicate that across much

14:15

of the places such as sort of a

14:17

milliband seat, a cupa seat where reform came

14:19

second last time? Well, I'm going to be

14:21

a pedrant here at this point. Sure. Runcorn

14:24

is not strictly speaking of Redball seed. I

14:26

regard a Redball seed somewhere where it's been

14:28

continuously labor all the way back to

14:30

the 1930s. That is, I

14:32

mean, Runcorn is basically a

14:34

new creation. It's partly ex-

14:37

Tory territory, but even we've

14:39

availed which is the previously

14:41

closest seed the Tories have

14:43

held in the past. It's

14:45

much more... historically much more

14:47

variegated than a classic Redball

14:49

C. But that said, well

14:51

I think the first thing

14:53

to say, if reform do

14:55

manage to win one corn,

14:57

it will be significant because

14:59

remember that UKIP never succeeded

15:02

at the height of

15:04

their popularity before the 2015

15:06

election. They never succeeded in

15:09

winning. a by-election afresh. The only

15:11

two by-election they won were in Cloughton

15:13

in Rochester where the Katorianpi stood down,

15:15

Douglas Carswell in Cloughton, for example, and

15:17

then managed to hang on to their

15:19

seat in the by-election after they resigned

15:22

and re-fall. So it would be the

15:24

first time that a Eurosceptic party has

15:26

won a by-election. Now, of course, one

15:28

of the things that we kind of

15:30

do say about by-election, while they're

15:32

difficult for governments, governments tend to

15:34

lose ground perhaps more heavily than

15:36

they would in a general election.

15:38

What we don't know, however, is

15:40

whether or not reform can do

15:42

in by-elections what the Democrats tend

15:45

to do. So usually, you know,

15:47

particularly, we've got a conservative government

15:49

as we hide in the before

15:51

2024, you know, in some places,

15:53

the Democrats were just all of

15:55

a sudden get an ability to

15:57

come from nowhere like North Yorkshire

15:59

and... managed to win the biodection, and

16:02

they're clearly doing well in a way

16:04

that they would never have done if

16:06

there hadn't been a biodection in the

16:08

constituency. We just don't know how much

16:10

better we're going to be able to

16:12

do in one corn than might be

16:15

the case if there were a

16:17

general action now. And then we've

16:19

got a couple of exercises recently

16:21

of these so-called MRP polls to

16:23

estimate what would happen individual constituencies

16:25

if there were a general election

16:27

now. One of them... said that

16:29

at the moment reform will be

16:31

six points behind labor. The other

16:33

said reform would be four points

16:35

ahead of labor. Now I think

16:38

certainly if those two polls were

16:40

at all right, it looks as

16:42

though reform will be close. I

16:44

certainly don't think it's an easy

16:46

win for reform because at the

16:48

end of the day, you know,

16:50

they are starting off quite a

16:52

considerable way behind. the Labour Party.

16:54

I mean, the Labour Party has

16:56

a 30 or well over 30

16:59

point lead. And there's not that

17:01

much of a conservative vote to

17:03

squeeze. And in a reform I

17:05

still in an national opinion polls

17:07

finding it easier to pick up

17:10

votes off the Tories than they

17:12

are of labour or labour. But

17:14

the converse of that therefore is

17:16

again to emphasise, you know, how

17:18

remarkable will it would be. if

17:21

reform were actually to win the

17:23

seat. And I think you're certainly right.

17:25

That will help to set up the

17:27

narrative. And of course, what's also true

17:29

is that the Merrill contests, I think

17:31

they're all of them being declared overnight.

17:33

And if indeed you go, all right,

17:35

and at least a couple of them

17:37

go to reform, again, as it were,

17:39

we will start on Friday morning with.

17:41

basically, I don't know, maybe Labour and

17:43

Tory folks for more decide to give

17:45

the Today programme a miss for once.

17:47

I mean, who knows? But otherwise we

17:49

have to remember that actually most of

17:51

the results are being declared on Friday

17:54

afternoon. We've got one or two councils,

17:56

but that's it, counting overnight. But you

17:58

know, that's in itself. will be enough

18:00

for reform to grab the headlines and

18:03

it will represent a significant achievement. It

18:05

will be evidence that perhaps indeed anywhere

18:07

where Labour are defending a seat with

18:09

reform in second place is a by-election

18:11

that Labour will be wise to try

18:14

to avoid if it all possible. And

18:16

just the final question, how does Sir

18:18

John Curtis spend his easy plan to

18:20

spend the election night? And how do

18:23

you prepare? I mean, there's a famous

18:25

clip from 1987 general election where David

18:27

Dimmabby is caught snaffling a Marsbar to

18:29

give him strength to get through the

18:31

programme. I just wanted what your tips

18:34

were to survive in election night. Well,

18:36

I mean, I have to say to

18:38

that I was looking forward to half

18:40

a night's sleep on election with so

18:42

few contests being contested overnight, the BBC

18:45

weren't going to run an overnight program.

18:47

So we'd have to get up with

18:49

around four or five and make sure

18:51

we knew what was happening by the

18:53

morning for the handful of results that

18:56

were happening. And then of course they

18:58

put the by-election on. So now there

19:00

is an overnight program. So I mean,

19:02

the real difficulty actually is not overnight.

19:04

It's by about five o'clock the following

19:07

day. And because much of the action

19:09

is on the Friday afternoon. you know

19:11

that's in the case of a general

19:13

action it's all over by then so

19:15

actually low collections are more demanding than

19:18

general elections in terms of stamina otherwise

19:20

the truth is well I mean, the

19:22

challenge of being able to ascertain and

19:24

tell the political story correctly is always

19:27

quite difficult. It's going to be particularly

19:29

difficult this time. Boy, you, but there

19:31

are lots of technical reasons to do

19:33

with more boundary changes to do with

19:35

the difference between county election divisions and

19:38

district wars. These are a very difficult

19:40

set of elections to analyze. You have

19:42

to go in a variety of different

19:44

ways. But it's the challenge of being

19:46

able to tell the story and trying

19:49

to identify the story correctly. and sometimes

19:51

may be very very gently twigging the

19:53

tail of a slight sense of over

19:55

exaggeration in which parties are sometimes

19:57

times inclined to engage

20:00

to talking about their

20:02

election performance. It's

20:04

the challenge of dealing with that in

20:06

the end of the day. that in the

20:08

short, of have Yeah, night. you have a Well, thank

20:10

you very much, John, for joining us

20:12

today you Shards. You're welcome. John, for joining us today

20:15

in Coffee Arts. You're welcome.