david grossman reporting there. election day wouldn't be election day without a panel of our finest pundit pals tonight. owenjones is here — he's one ofjeremy corbyn‘s noisiest cheerleaders, and spent much of the last few weeks on the campaign trail in target areas. phil collins used to write speeches for tony blair and now writes columns for the times. iain dale is a broadcaster and former conservative campaigner, and miranda green was press secretary for the liberal democrats. a warm welcome to you all, lovely of you to spend your bank holiday with us. owen, you campaigned hard in these — are you happy? jeremy corbyn had somewhere else to go today, to a celebration let'sjust remember where we were a year ago, the electoral extermination was talked about after local elections when labour got 27% and four weeks later got 40% to deprive the tories of a majority. according to the bbc‘s own projections labour would be ahead of seats in parliament, that shows last year wasn't a fluke. in london, labour has got its best result since 1971 and the tory had their worst results. you are not exterminated but you should be in an incredibly strong position against theresa may's government right now?

that is what i am saying. london, this was a tory city until recently with a conservative mayor. 1992 london was more likely to vote tory than the rest of the country bust up in trafford, momentum campaigned exceptionally hard. labour should be knocking over the conservatives with a feather. those local elections last year, what you saw was labour going from 37% in four weeks to a general election, getting the biggest vote surge of labour since 19115. it's difficult to extrapolate from local elections but what you had seen in places like westminster, labour got its best result since 1986 and in wandsworth. trafford, portsmouth, where momentum also campaigned very hard, a massive vote surge, a colleague of yours that you did labour success to momentum. you are seeing that it is polarised country and this is an exceptionally polarised time. owen is treading the thin line between commentary activism. not very plausibly, unfortunately. i love you too, phil. sirjohn kirwan is, the great sage

of british electoral life called it a draw and that is a reasonable summary. there are no clear victors. i wouldn't say there are decisive and in fact emphatic losers. definitively they didn't prove anything. i don't want to go very hard on the other side but an activist emphatic view that labour had a good night is ludicrous. it didn't at all. you and i are both activists, use your platform to advocate for your views and i do for mine. i happen to be one of the only commentators in the press that is not hostile to the labour leadership, you are right. you were a while ago because you are very critical and turned out to be right, in yourjudgment ofjeremy corbyn... i campaigned very hard for him to become leader. i voted for him.

but what i think we saw and what i am worried about at the moment, that general election ended a consensus political consensus we have had in this country since thatcherism. what consensus? free markets, deregulation, lower taxes on the rich. there is a desperate attempt to turn the clock back before the general election last year, to return to this idea that the left is delusional and on the retreat. every time... every time you appear on a television programme, i worry for the floor manager. who will have to pick up the remains of the strawmen that you bring and then southbridge in the conversation. because this is preposterous. —— and then savage. where is labour headed? you thought labour would get 20% in the last general election, do you thinkjeremy corbyn plausibly could... who is turning back the clock? you talked about the last election, these elections happened yesterday and we are trying to discuss this. did labour get the best result in london since 1970s? the best result was probably the lib dems. vince cable calls at the beginning of the fight back, what is the next bit? that is a really good question.

i don't think there is any doubt this was an unexpectedly good result for them. part of that is because the labour party and conservative party managed to make themselves so repellent in the last few weeks that lots of people decided to vote lib dem instead. but they haven't been picking up on that movement. something changed. it may be that they will hope that it is the beginning of the post coalition detox. even if it is a protest vote. for the last couple of years, people have not been happy to give the lib dems a protest vote and if they can do that again, they can build on it. it is also positive because if they can't rebuild and local government where they were strong before, it gets out of this dead end up being the anti—brexit one issue pressure group party than a proper political party. iain, repellent is a strong word, do you recognise that a lot of people are frustrated with your party as well as labour? it's not my party any more,

i voted liberal democrat in the election as a protest vote against my counsel. i haven't been in the conservative party for eight years. a lot of people find all politicians repellent at the moment, it is not confined to one party. these elections mean absolutely nothing in the context of a general election. talbot borisjohnson, the daily mail. you saw the front cover —— tell to. you're close to david davis — how hard is he going to push this now? this is preposterous, what on earth has a so—called hard brexit, which is actuallyjust brexit, got to do with any of the results from yesterday? these were local elections, i don't think they have any impact on the brexit debate. do you not believe it is empowering for the brexiteers, people like boris johnson and jacob rees—mogg to say this is a clear sign people don't want the labour version of brexit, this is what it is about. that is what they are doing whether you think it is preposterous or not.

they can do it all they like. the only protection and local elections is the theresa may is comfortable in her position for another three weeks —— the only projections. it would be just as absurd on the conservative side to claim some sort of mandate out of these elections as it would to claim a victory for anyone. nobody had a breakthrough here. british politics is rather stuck. this was none of the above. these elections were effectively a repeat of 2014 plus or minus a bit. right. if you go back to the mid—19 90s, owen has a bit of a problem. or 700 seats at these kind of elections. blair's opposition in the mid—1990s they were getting gains of 600 or 700 seats at these kind of elections. something has shifted in the last 48 hours. everyone in politics,

the fifties; dam labia 7———~————~———~————~——7 we thought that labour was changing the rules of politics. this is a correction to that assumption. have they reached their peak? if you talk to non—momentum activists in places like trafford and portsmouth, they attribute many of their successes to momentum's activism. polarisation is a problem. jeremy corbyn‘s labour got the same percentage that tony blair did in 2001. but these two blocks in public opinion, relatively socially conservative and older and a younger generation who are much more economically insecure, home ownership in collapse, stagnating wages. is it younger voters? we have an unprecedented generational divide in politics. i think that is right, politics is dividing by generation, age, attitude rather more than economic interests these days.

i don't share the criticism that many people voice about momentum, by the way. most of the people in momentum are just going out knocking on doors doing politics and good luck to them. but the question for them and for owen is, where does labour get its next 5% from? labour did much better than most of us thought in the last election but it needs to now find another 5% over the next few years in order to be a candidate to win. which is a very good point. labour's big challenge is winning over some of those older voters but also how does it make more working—class young people who have the lowest turnout in this country come out to vote? that is a massive challenge particularly in local elections. what does theresa may do with that? the challenge she still faces from labour because she isn't forging ahead and is still dealing with the brexiteers thinking the deal is done. she has got to get a domestic retail offer ready for the 2022 election, that is a long way away, they have the time.

you don't think she will fight it? i don't but i think she will be prime minister until after the transition deal, that is her personal aim. every few months, there is a crisis where we all think, is she finished? she always bounces back. she is an incredibly resilient politician and is one of the few politicians, i have written about this today, who has gotten virtually no friends and allies within her own downing street operation. she lost some. when fiona hill and timothy went, she lost some very closed advisors and never really replace them with people she can trust 100%. she hasn't got cabinet ministers who she can pick up the phone to and chew the fat of an evening. margaret thatcher said every prime minister needs a willey, she needs quite a few. are we overinterpreting this?

there be voices saying, bins, bins. potholes. defence in plymouth, classic local and buried death affected by labour. in politics, the psychology and perceptive is so important. if i wasn't pro—european, pro—remain and moderate side of labour i would be hugely cheered up by this because it might strengthen my hand in the internal labour party conversation about where they should stand on brexit. as you rightly pointed out earlier, completely confused position. and inside the conservative party. these results show that northern labour voters, there is a brexit element about it, there is a split between the north and the south, particularly on the labour side. there is a division between hackney and holt, both labour strongholds, one voted 80%...

how do you bring back together. that's all we have time for — no programme on bank holiday monday but kirsty‘s back on tuesday. have a great weekend. goodnight. don't spend too long in the green room. get out into the fine weather that many of us will enjoy as we go through the rest of the weekend and including the bank holiday. many, not necessarily all, though. we have seen a step in the right direction today. many of us is sunny spells and temperatures headed up a few degrees. more on the way with exception of some irish sea coasts, misty and murky. it doesn't apply to the far north—west of scotland. there will be rain at times this weekend. as things develop through the rest of the night, you see the

area of misty and foggy mess over the irish seat and that will affect adjacent coasts. —— for guinness. —— foginess. a few spots with clear spells and single figures. this is how saturday is shaping up. cloudy for northern ireland. some spots through yorkshire, west wales, bristol channel, cornwall and devon. we haven't pointed out your area, it is more likely you will have some blue sky. you won't be surprised on this picture to see high pressure in control dominating the weather for many of us. again, there are weather fronts close to north—west scotland where we will see some rain at times. need to mention the wind as well. gusts of a0 or 50 mph in

exposure through the weekend. you can see the misty mess, some coasts through the irish sea. not everybody is in seeing it. —— mistiness. there should be more sunshine on offer on sunday. from monday, bank holiday, cloud for scotland and there will be a lot of sunshine for most of us. it will be pleasant. not everybody will see temperatures in the mid— 20s. that is in the london area. we could see an isolated 27 on the bank holiday. that is easily the warmest early may bank holiday on record. you might be surprised to find the record is 23.6. we have had 29 already this spring so it is a low—temperature but we will be there monday. this is bbc world news.

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