NationalWorld politics editor Ralph Blackburn and LondonWorld editor Andre Langlois analyse the local elections from City Hall.
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00:00 Hello, Rach Blackburn, National World Politics Editor here at City Hall in London, where
00:06 just behind me Sadiq Khan has been elected as the Mayor of London for a historic third
00:12 time. I'm with London World Editor André Langlois. André, what did you make of the
00:20 announcement we've just seen now? It certainly appeared that between Sadiq Khan and his story
00:25 rival Susan Hall, there was no love lost. No, we've just seen the declaration in City Hall
00:31 and it's fair to say the handshake was cold at best. Sadiq Khan's speech contained a few
00:38 references to how bitter the campaign's been, how nasty, and you know, threatening to the family,
00:42 which you know, nobody, most people don't want to see. And then Susan Hall's speech also had a
00:49 little dig as well. So no, can expect fireworks next time they're in the Assembly Chamber.
00:54 Yeah, I think Sadiq Khan accused her of promoting right wing populism. He said the campaign had been
01:03 non stop negativity. Now, last night on social media, there was kind of flurry of claims that,
01:10 you know, Susan Hall might be able to unseat Mr. Khan. Where do you think that came from? That
01:18 ended up being very wide of the mark. Why do you think, you know, certain commentators started
01:22 discussing that? Well, I think the what it was, the turnout figures were released, which showed
01:27 that in the areas that Tories have been strong before, there's a good turnout and in Labour
01:32 areas slightly less so. And to be honest, that created a bit of a narrative. I suspect it was
01:40 always a bit of a ramping up the story and also ramping down expectations from Labour, claiming
01:46 an even bigger victory when it came in. I'm not sure really that many Tories were going around
01:51 saying we're going to win this. Yeah, so overall, there was quite a small swing to Labour 3.2%.
01:58 You'd have potentially expected slightly higher given the national picture. Sadiq Khan is probably
02:06 not the most popular mayor we've ever had. What do you think are the main issues? Obviously,
02:10 one of those was the ULAS, the ultra low emissions zone, first created by Boris Johnson, which has
02:16 now been brought in by Sadiq Khan. Was that perhaps overstated in the national media, you think?
02:21 I think certainly off the back of the Uxbridge by-election, it was something that was really
02:28 pushed and to be honest, Zakir Starmer brought into it as well. But I wonder if actually it was
02:36 overhyped and what you hear more about and what the parties that are really against ULAS also
02:41 talk more about at the moment is knife crime, which obviously initially is an issue and Sadiq
02:46 Khan's not going to argue with that. But his main message today is that if Labour can win the
02:50 general election as well, then with them both in power, more can be done, which the public will get
02:56 a chance to see if that's true. Yeah, speaking about the general election, the results across
03:01 England and Wales over the last few days certainly point to Kier Starmer having a good chance of
03:08 entering Downing Street as the next Prime Minister. Labour's made gains in various parts of
03:13 the country. It would need to win to win a majority of the general election, including Redditch and
03:21 other key bellwether seats, Thorough and Essex as well. We're here on Saturday evening, so we haven't
03:28 had the result of the West Midlands mayoral election where the Labour are hoping to unseat
03:34 Andy Street. That's gone to a recount. I think that if Labour do win that, then they'll be able to
03:42 finish the elections on a real positive note. That'll be a real good run for them. Whereas if
03:46 Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives hold on to that seat with Andy Street, it will maybe keep the
03:52 plotters within the Prime Minister's own party at bay for a little bit longer. But yeah, thank you
03:59 very much for joining me, Andre. Thanks very much everyone for following our elections coverage.
04:04 A reminder you can find all of our policies coverage on the National World app. Thank you.