0:02

Politics is a game of winners and losers,

0:04

and thus, during an election, there will always

0:06

be more of a focus on those who

0:08

have a realistic chance of holding the keys

0:10

to number 10. Take for

0:13

example, Sky's leaders event taking place

0:15

in Grimsby Wednesday evening, focusing on

0:18

Labour and the Conservatives. But

0:20

away from the big two, something interesting

0:22

is happening with the smaller parties. Take

0:25

the Greens launching their manifesto today,

0:27

building on a fantastic set of

0:29

local election results, they are now

0:31

eyeing up multiple seats in Westminster.

0:34

The Lib Dems have enjoyed a bounce in the polls, perhaps

0:37

thanks to party leader Ed Davies' love

0:39

of donning a wetsuit and falling into

0:41

water. What of reform?

0:43

Well, they believe that soon they'll overtake

0:45

the Conservatives in the polls, with

0:48

a little help from new leader Nigel Farage.

0:51

And the overall number of candidates standing is up

0:53

more than 35% on

0:55

2019, helped by reform and the Greens,

0:58

as well as George Galloway's Workers Party. I'm

1:01

Neil Patterson, and on this edition of the

1:03

Sky News Daily, we will be asking, is

1:05

bigger always better? And what place

1:07

is there for the smaller parties in a

1:10

first-past-the-post system? In a

1:12

moment, we will go through the data poster

1:14

Scarlett McGuire is back on the pod. But

1:17

we begin with our deputy political editor, Sam

1:19

Coates. We today are focusing on

1:21

that sense of disaffection that I think

1:23

we picked up on in the YouGov

1:26

poll yesterday, the way in which the

1:28

smaller parties do really seem to

1:30

be coming through in a way in which they

1:32

weren't just a few years ago. Is that something

1:34

that you've detected on the campaign trail? The

1:37

YouGov poll was very stark. And if I

1:39

just sort of pull out a bit, the

1:41

polling picture is very, in

1:43

some senses, confusing. And there is

1:45

no doubt that the polls definitely,

1:48

definitely put Labour on course to

1:50

win this election and win this

1:52

election big. But there's a

1:54

complication. And that's that people

1:57

don't much like Keir Starmer.

2:00

Now, they lose Rishi Sunak, all the polls

2:02

I'm looking at show a differential. But here's

2:04

a question that we asked in the Sky,

2:06

you go up poll from yesterday. The

2:08

proportion of people that think that Keir

2:10

Starmer is going to be a bad

2:12

PM, Neil, has gone up to

2:15

49%, 49%. Even

2:20

though these, some of the many, many of the same people

2:22

that are going to put him in Downing Street and put

2:24

him in Downing Street with a healthy majority,

2:26

he's going to come into power with

2:28

the British public, with their arms folded,

2:31

going, go on, impress me then. And

2:33

that's the backdrop to today's discussion, because

2:36

the other thing that the poll

2:38

told us, and on my

2:40

way to Grimsby, I stopped off in

2:42

Ashfield, outside Nottingham,

2:44

where I picked up in kind of

2:46

real time what I think that a

2:48

lot of people seeing an

2:51

unappetising choice and going

2:53

elsewhere, you know, a lot of

2:55

people were talking about Nigel Farage and his

2:57

impact, and in a week that's seen the

2:59

Liberal Democrats kind of jump in the vote

3:02

and the Greens launching their manifesto today. Sam,

3:04

back to you later, but let's dig

3:07

into the numbers with Scarlett McGuire of

3:09

pollsters JL Partners. Scarlett, we've

3:11

seen some pretty interesting Ugov figures come

3:13

out yesterday, the Labour Conservative vote, that

3:15

two-party vote, down to around 56%. You

3:19

rewind to the 2017 election, the big

3:21

two took 82%. I'm

3:24

wondering why that might be. It's a great question. So,

3:26

2017 was actually reasonably unusual

3:28

in just how high a vote share there was

3:30

in recent history, between the two parties, and smaller

3:32

parties were very, very much squeezed. I think what's

3:34

interesting about the current state of play is that

3:36

actually Labour, if the polls are all right, Labour

3:38

look on course to receive around the same share

3:40

of the vote that Boris Johnson did in 2019,

3:42

in sort of low 40%. And

3:47

I think a lot of what is driving

3:49

that sort of low overall share, like you

3:51

just stated, Ugov, is that sort of bottoming

3:53

out of the Conservative vote. So when you

3:55

have Conservative vote share in the low 20s,

3:58

some pollsters even have them slightly under

4:00

than that. That's going to drive down the

4:02

share between the two main parties. There's another

4:04

survey out today that shows the trust in

4:06

politicians is at record low. And I do

4:08

think something that we pick up, especially in

4:10

focus groups, is this disquiet, is

4:13

this apathy, but it's also just a sense

4:15

of, well, why should I bother voting? Because

4:17

none of them are going to do anything.

4:19

And I think that environment is an environment

4:21

in which smaller parties could thrive. Obviously, our

4:23

system does not lend itself to that. And

4:25

at which you might see voters starting to

4:27

turn away from the two main parties. And

4:29

one of those parties, of course, is the

4:32

Greens launching their manifesto today. Pretty bold, in

4:34

fact, to my catching stuff on, you know,

4:36

taxing the super rich, bumping up national insurance

4:38

in a way that the two main parties

4:41

will not do for those over 50,000 pounds.

4:44

But we saw signs of something

4:46

in a push in the Green fortunes

4:49

all the way back at the local elections, didn't we?

4:51

That was one of the biggest takeaway from the local

4:53

elections, when the pressure is off in terms

4:55

of who you're actually putting in number 10. A

4:57

lot of people feel more able to vote for

4:59

smaller parties, although actually this election could be recreating

5:01

that slightly, given that most voters now think that

5:03

Labour are going to comfortably win, they may feel

5:06

again more able to vote for smaller parties, which

5:08

is potentially going to prove to be a headache

5:10

to Labour, just in a couple of seats. But

5:12

yes, the Green party, they did very well in

5:14

the local elections. And this, I think, is something

5:16

we're seeing is that we've seen very, very clearly

5:18

the damage that the Reform Party has done to

5:21

the Conservative vote from its right, peeling off,

5:23

we now have it as peeling off one

5:25

in five Conservative 2019 voters, which

5:27

when you bear in mind, they're only keeping 40% of their 2019

5:29

voters to lose that

5:32

many, so the Reform Party is staggering. They

5:34

are losing about 15% to Labour as well.

5:36

But for Labour, I think there were some

5:38

interesting things of what could happen when they

5:40

start governing and they start trying to hold

5:43

together what will be an incredibly broad and

5:45

in my guess, is quite fractious voting coalition,

5:47

which will include your young, very sort of

5:49

left-wing voters and your people who've maybe voted

5:51

Labour for the first time even, your people who've come

5:53

back from after voting for Boris Johnson. That is quite a

5:55

disparate group of people, that's going to be quite hard

5:57

to hold together and it may be that you see... more

6:00

and more people peeling off to the left. Now

6:02

this is actually something we picked up in our

6:04

last week of polling. We saw the Greens increase

6:06

their votes with 18 to 34 year olds. But

6:10

I think the local elections is a good example

6:12

of how interesting the Green Party are because they're

6:14

offered on sort of five or six percent in

6:16

the polls. They can go slightly unnoticed in terms

6:18

of firstly the sort of major upsets they might

6:20

cause on election night. I'm thinking of Bristol Central

6:22

and potentially even in Waidley and sort of conservative

6:25

heartlands. But we saw in the local elections that

6:27

you know people vote Greens for lots and lots

6:29

of different reasons. It might be that they're upset

6:31

with Labour about its position on the conflicts in

6:33

the Middle East which we did see and we

6:36

saw some Green candidates harness that upset. It might

6:38

be they care like I think with some of

6:40

these younger voters they care passionately about climate change

6:42

and they think neither of the main parties is

6:44

taking bold or quick enough action. Absolutely

6:46

fascinating particularly the way in which and this

6:49

is entirely anecdotally Scarlett I've been speaking to

6:51

some died in the world of true blue

6:53

Tories who are very very keen on voting

6:55

Green this time around. But I suppose the

6:58

point to be made is if you step

7:00

back from all of this look at the

7:02

general election. Environmental

7:04

issues don't really seem to

7:06

be one of the big drums being

7:09

beaten by the major parties. So if

7:11

you take your average voter the main concerns

7:13

that dominate are the cost of living, the

7:15

NHS and immigration. Now different groups of voters

7:18

care about different sorts of things so there's

7:20

been an awful lot of attention for quite

7:22

obvious reasons over the last few years on

7:24

your conservative 2019 voter. They care a lot

7:26

about immigration as well as NHS and the

7:29

economy. If you look at your people who

7:31

voted Labour in 2019 they care

7:33

an awful lot more about the environment, about

7:35

housing. But I think this sense and something

7:37

that Lib Dems have been trying to tap

7:39

into and the Greens will be in part

7:42

of the country as well. I think some

7:44

of the environmental concerns especially over stuff that

7:46

we saw with the concerns about sewage into

7:48

waterways into rivers and seas. It can be

7:50

important in a different sense which is that

7:52

I think all those things tie together into

7:55

this fundamental concern that voters have that Britain

7:57

is not working, that nothing in the country

7:59

is functioning. very well. That's something we hear

8:01

over and over and over again. That's part of the

8:03

reason why a lot of voters are so determined to

8:05

get rid of this government because they're just saying absolutely

8:07

nothing is working. You mentioned the

8:09

Liberal Democrats there. We have Ed Davie

8:12

doing those silly stunts which are

8:14

eye-catching. But then I also remember

8:18

Lib Dems winning here as a mantra at

8:20

by elections is one

8:22

which we follow. They do have a good ground game

8:24

when it comes to elections. They do

8:26

and they've got an advantage compared to say

8:28

something like Reform, who if you look at

8:30

polls on a higher share of vote than

8:32

the Liberal Democrats in that the Liberal Democrat

8:34

vote is very, very efficient. So not only

8:36

do they have good ground campaigns, they're quite

8:38

good at targeting the right seats. So that

8:40

means that their 10% in the polls could

8:42

convert to an awful lot more than Reform's

8:44

15%. So the Liberal Democrats could be looking

8:46

at anything from sort of 30 to 60

8:48

seats potentially. A massive increase on what they

8:50

achieved in the last election. Reform, we've

8:52

talked around them perhaps too much in this

8:55

discussion about the smaller parties. And I wonder

8:57

if it comes down to this. Have we

8:59

not been here before with another party that

9:01

looked an awful lot like Reform? I've lost

9:03

count of the number of elections where we

9:05

have been chasing UKIP up and down the

9:08

country and then there was no parliamentary representation

9:10

on the other side of it. Does

9:12

Nigel Farage being leader of Reform mean that we

9:14

have to pay an awful lot more attention to

9:16

them now? Or is it or is it simply

9:19

more of the same from those elections in the

9:21

past that I was talking about? I think

9:23

Reform with or without Nigel Farage an

9:25

important force this election. You're right, you

9:27

have been there with UKIP before for

9:29

no representation, but UKIP got over three

9:31

and a half million votes in 2015

9:34

and arguably changed the course of, you

9:36

know, it's all contributed to the most

9:38

important bit of British policy. A lot

9:41

of people would say in the last sort of

9:43

decade it's been Brexit. So I think they matter

9:45

in that way. They are also going to be

9:47

kingmakers in a lot of seats. Now, not to

9:49

the parties that they potentially intend to, although Nigel

9:51

Farage has made it quite clear he does not

9:53

mind doing damage to the Conservative Party, but if you

9:55

are a Labour or Liberal Democrat

9:57

candidate and you are second in what is

9:59

currently... a conservative held seat, a very healthy

10:01

reform share might put in reach a seat

10:04

that otherwise looked like the majority would be

10:06

impossible to turn over even in the sort

10:08

of bleak conditions that we're currently in for

10:10

the conservative party. So they master in that

10:12

sense, I suspect they might get a couple

10:14

of MPs. If their polling performance holds up,

10:17

I do think Nigel Farage will win Clacton.

10:19

They may well pick up one

10:21

or two more. But reform and

10:23

then UKIP before them, as you

10:25

quite rightly mentioned, are an interesting

10:28

example of how even though our

10:30

first pass the post system does not

10:32

necessarily mean that lots of votes translates

10:34

into representation in Parliament, they can still

10:36

have sort of outsized influence. Well on

10:38

that point then, is this shift in

10:41

British politics towards the smaller

10:43

parties such as it is, something that will

10:45

persist the other side of polling day or

10:48

merely a consequence of us

10:50

being in an electoral cycle?

10:52

I mean you mentioned first pass the post

10:55

there. I suppose perhaps for

10:57

many of these people that we've been

10:59

talking about, the only way in which

11:02

that support would persist post July the

11:04

4th would be if there were a

11:06

shift from first pass the post to

11:09

some form of proportional representation. It's

11:11

quite difficult to get voters very excited about

11:13

electoral reform, but something I have heard in

11:15

focus groups and especially when as we've touched

11:17

on there is quite a lot of disquiet

11:19

with the two main political parties. It's a

11:21

slight sense of frustration that they would like

11:23

to vote elsewhere, but that vote might not

11:26

matter. But I suspect the locals this year

11:28

were a sign of what's to come in

11:30

that I would expect the

11:33

locals next year, the year after, I think

11:35

we're going to see increasingly strong performance from

11:37

smaller parties from across the spectrum, but that is just

11:40

a hunch. Scarlett, thanks very

11:42

much for joining us again. Really appreciate your

11:44

time. Stay where you are. When we return,

11:46

we will speak again to Sam Coates about

11:48

the outsider status. The smaller parties have been

11:51

capitalising on back soon. Welcome

11:55

back with me again, our deputy political editor,

11:57

Sam Coates. Sam Eller, you are talking about

11:59

the world. way in which there is a

12:01

dissatisfaction with the electorate, with the two main

12:03

parties that are being offered up to them.

12:05

I wonder if you might go slightly further

12:08

than that. I wonder if what we are

12:10

witnessing is people do consider voting for parties

12:12

that they perhaps wouldn't have even considered voting

12:14

for in the past, certainly haven't voted for

12:16

in the past, is that there is a

12:18

breakdown in trust, that people no

12:20

longer trust in the political process. They're quite

12:23

cynical about it. And at times like that,

12:25

people with outsider status, the Greens, reform, even

12:27

the Lib Dems, I'd include in that number,

12:29

become more appealing. I think that's right. I

12:31

don't think that that's a, it's a completely

12:33

one way street in my lifetime. You know,

12:35

the fate of the two main parties has

12:37

gone up and down. It was

12:40

only an up in 2017, having been on

12:42

a down for most of my political reporting

12:44

career. It often can be, you

12:47

know, brought back and rises when

12:49

there's strong leadership. But I think

12:51

undoubtedly there is an unhappiness, a

12:54

discontent, a disaffection, a restlessness amongst

12:56

our electorate. And that's what I

12:58

heard on the campaign trail, that there was

13:00

just something, something unsatisfactory about

13:02

Rishi Sunak and Kia Stama. And we're in

13:05

manifesto week and I think I'd summarize a

13:07

bit like this. I wonder

13:09

whether the Tories are, you know, in their manifesto

13:11

launch, which we saw yesterday, they're just kind of

13:13

offering too much and people don't quite believe it.

13:16

And when it comes to labour, when it

13:18

comes to specifics, I'm wondering whether they're

13:20

almost offering too little that

13:23

people can grasp hold of and believe

13:25

in. So I think that is a

13:28

complication in the way that people

13:30

are seeing this election. But don't

13:32

the leaders of the smaller parties

13:34

have an ability to, you know,

13:36

speak their mind, make promises that

13:38

they will never be forced to

13:40

act upon? I mean, your colleague

13:42

on your Politics podcast, Jack Blanchard,

13:44

I thought put it quite nicely

13:46

talking about Nigel Fannage's ability to

13:48

paint in primary colours that he can

13:51

offer net zero migration in

13:53

a way that neither Rishi Sunak nor

13:55

Kia Stama can because they know that

13:57

practically it's not possible. Similar with the

13:59

green. on their taxing of the super

14:01

rich, they can say things that frankly lots

14:04

of people would love to hear and even

14:06

see happen but which are not practical politics.

14:08

Oh absolutely and I think that works sort

14:10

of in shadow in reverse for the Liberal

14:12

Democrats. I mean the Liberal Democrats have kind

14:15

of at this late stage put the

14:17

NHS at the heart of their manifesto

14:19

but really what's been going on with

14:21

the Lib Dems is they turn themselves

14:23

under a daevie into a simply anti-conservative

14:25

party. So you can either promise too

14:27

much as you were saying with the

14:30

Greens and Nigel Farage or sort of not

14:32

really promise anything at all, you become a

14:34

repository for unhappy voters. They probably do hold

14:36

the two main parties to a much higher

14:38

standard but you know he said politics was

14:40

fair and this is what they're doing and

14:42

politicians are going to have to lump it.

14:45

But across the board this election

14:47

it has been all about

14:50

the people at the top and I wonder if given

14:52

what we're seeing in the polling that might be a

14:54

bit of a mistake for the bigger parties not so

14:56

much of a mistake for the smaller guys. You might

14:58

be right it's an interesting point and it's

15:00

interesting reflecting why this might

15:02

be. I mean do

15:05

you think Neil I'm wondering that sort of amusing

15:08

to see in the last four and a half

15:10

years almost other than the

15:12

ousting of the leader that the

15:14

figure of the Prime Minister has been

15:17

probably supreme in our

15:19

politics. It was Boris Johnson

15:22

personally really whose force pushed

15:24

through Brexit. He

15:26

personally led quite a lot

15:28

of the response to Covid and was

15:30

the face of it for the nation. Liz

15:33

Truss did what Liz Truss did taking

15:35

advice from literally nobody and

15:39

Rishi Sunak has run his government a lot like

15:41

that. You know big Tory beasts even like Michael

15:43

Gove being pushed a bit to the fringes. So

15:46

I think a bit of that is a

15:48

craving for accountability from the guy at the

15:50

top because cabinet government has felt like it's

15:52

mattered less than than at any point in

15:54

my lifetime and so I wonder

15:56

whether the campaign reflects the recent past rather

15:59

than perhaps. the way that our structures

16:01

and systems were set up. Given what we

16:03

have seen the polls, given the emergence of

16:05

the smaller parties, you know, in something of

16:07

an eye-raising fashion, do you

16:09

take Grant Sharps, do you

16:11

take his comments this morning

16:13

warning about Labour winning

16:16

a super majority, do

16:18

you take that as a concession speech

16:21

by the Defence Secretary? No, I

16:23

take it as a sort of

16:25

desperation, pulling another ripcord, to

16:27

try and come to a soft but

16:29

still losing landing in this election. At

16:32

this point, nobody

16:34

feels that they're going to win, so

16:36

the goal is to lose less badly.

16:38

Don't give Kirstarmer a blank check, ease

16:40

Rishi's campaign message, return a few of

16:42

us. And Grant Sharps' comments really are

16:45

just a pace with that. It tells

16:47

you about expectation and what

16:49

people think about, you know, what

16:51

the best way of doing that. And then

16:53

let's see where we end up. By the

16:55

way, you were mentioning the high Lib Dem

16:57

figure and the Greenfers. We do just have

16:59

to be a bit careful

17:02

because the poll was taken at

17:04

the point at which the Liberal

17:06

Democrat manifesto was all over the

17:09

TV. Really, we need

17:11

to look in a week or so's time

17:13

about how these numbers go. Final question, Sam.

17:15

If we assume that this is a Labour

17:18

majority government that is fast approaching, if we

17:20

assume that the Greens do have parliamentary

17:22

representation, reform, the Liberal Democrats put

17:24

on a few numbers. I

17:27

wonder with a diminished Conservative Party

17:29

on the opposition benches, how

17:33

Sir Kirstarmer will play it, where he will

17:35

find the most difficulty when it comes to

17:37

those parliamentary occasions when he's dealing with

17:39

the opposition. Will it be the smaller parties?

17:42

Will it be the Conservative Party? It's a

17:44

great question. Labour's temperament is to ignore

17:46

everybody else. It's a tribal, not

17:48

consensual party. And on Monday,

17:51

Davey said, well, we

17:54

might get a Labour letter slide, but I'm sure

17:56

Labour will listen to the ideas in my manifesto,

17:58

particularly around the NHS. And I just I did

18:00

sit there thinking, you know, I

18:02

have met these people before, that won't

18:04

be option one because it causes so

18:07

much internal dissent. And one of the

18:09

great unknowns is what the Labour Party,

18:11

the Labour parliamentary party and the Labour

18:14

cabinet, if we get there, all

18:16

look like and how much difficulty

18:18

they cause Kia Stama, probably

18:20

not at the start, but

18:22

in years two and three

18:25

and what kind of a break they put on them. And

18:28

at that point, you know, picking up your

18:30

opponents ideas, particularly what

18:32

weren't in your manifesto and

18:34

break your promises as the capital gains tax raise

18:36

that the Lib Dems are proposing to pay for

18:38

a lot of the health stuff, that would be

18:40

tricky. Sam, we will let you

18:42

get back to what looks like being

18:45

a very, very busy and long day. Thanks for

18:47

your time, mate. Brilliant. Thanks very

18:49

much. As

18:52

I'm often fond of saying, bigger is

18:54

not always better. But size isn't everything.

18:57

Good things often come in small packages

18:59

for the political parties less well endowed

19:02

with money and support. Elections

19:04

like this provide opportunities far greater

19:06

than simply being heard. And

19:08

whilst the polls show there is little

19:11

chance of a big upset, they also

19:13

show some dissatisfaction with Labour and the

19:15

Conservatives and a disdain for politics in

19:17

general. There is a tiny

19:19

gap in the metaphorical fence surrounding

19:21

the Commons, and it seems

19:24

likely the smaller parties might just be

19:26

squeezing through. That's your lot for

19:28

this edition of The Daily. We'll see you tomorrow.