Dudley Council Labour group leader on his party's prospect

Pete Lowe the leader of Dudley Council's Labour group and a former parliamentary candidate

Transcript

00:00Expressandstar.com. We're here with somebody who knows a thing or two about running for

00:06Parliament. The leader, the Labour leader of the Dudley Council, Pete Lowe. How are

00:13you doing, Pete? I'm keeping really well, Paul. How are you keeping? Yeah, not too bad,

00:18not too bad. First of all, how do you think it's going tonight? I mean, it looks pretty

00:22good on the national picture. Well, certainly the projections that have come out have said

00:26it's a historic night. I mean, you'd have to go back for 1832, I think it would be,

00:32for a night of the largest Conservative party. But let's wait until the votes have actually

00:37been counted and the results are known. But it certainly looks like it's going to be a

00:40very positive night for us. Yeah. And as we said, you've been a candidate before. What

00:46would be going through your mind at the moment before the results coming in? Absolutely.

00:50So where are we now? We're half past one. So we're probably a couple of hours away from

00:56the declaration. I've stood here three times. So as a candidate, you'll be nervous. You'll

01:02have an idea of which direction you think it's going to go. You'll have got that from

01:07the various counters that have been counting the votes here. But of course, now we're getting

01:12the trays out so the votes will start to be counted. So the nerves will start to kick

01:18in. You'll have the speeches ready. You'll have two speeches, I would imagine. One if

01:23you're going to be a successful candidate and then one if you don't expect to be a successful

01:27candidate. And like I say, the nerves will be kicking in and you'll be trying to put

01:33a smile, keep that smile on your face whilst inside you have a bag of nerves. Yeah, I guess

01:39it's the hard work's over as well in a way. And it is hard work, isn't it, leading up

01:43to a campaign, leading up to election night? Absolutely. I mean, everybody will have been

01:51out from whatever political party, knocked on as many doors as they possibly can, put

01:56the message across to their respective parties about what a Britain would look like under

02:02their government. And all you can then do is hope on election day that that's enough

02:08to encourage people to go out. I think the turnout looks like it's been very good in

02:12all three seats down there. And then what you'll be hoping for is obviously you've

02:16got more votes than your opponent and you've gained the trust of your electorate in order

02:21to go down to Parliament. So, no predictions as yet, but quietly confident, I guess. And

02:27I think that's exactly it. I mean, if you look at the national, it looks like it could

02:31be a good night for the Labour Party. We could be forming the next Labour government if objections.

02:37But let's wait until those seats are down. They'll be watching the graph until we get

02:41to 326. And then obviously, we can take it from there.

02:46OK, thanks Pete. Always good to speak to you.

02:48Absolute pleasure, Paul.