Britain's two main parties suffer heavy local election losses
5/8/202648 min
Britain's governing Labour party and main opposition Conservatives have suffered heavy losses as the populist right wing Reform surges ahead in early results from English local elections.
We look at what this means for the country's traditional party system and how long the current prime minister can last in light of these results.
Also in the programme: President Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is still in place despite a series of clashes in the Strait of Hormuz; we mark the 100th birthday of the documentary maker David Attenborough; and we'll look at how the war in Iran is causing a shortage of saffron in Italy.
(Photo shows the UK's prime minister Keir Starmer speaking at a meeting with Labour Party members in Ealing, West London on 8 May 2026. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJames Menendez· Host0:00
[intro music] Hello, and welcome to News Hour. From the BBC World Service, we're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up, Russia prepares for its annual Victory Day parade with no tanks, no ballistic missiles, and no military hardware trundling through the center of Moscow.
Yevgeny Popov· Soundbite0:18
Our tanks are busy right now. We need them more on the battlefield than on the Red Square right now.
James Menendez· Host0:27
We'll have a report from our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. That's in fifteen minutes. Also, the effects of the Iran war on the trade in saffron. We'll be hearing from an Italian chef where many local dishes rely on Iranian saffron for their color and their flavor.
Simonetta Batzu· Guest0:42
In Italy, the problem is, uh, that in Italy we have a limited production of saffron, and we buy saffron from Iran, which is the world's largest production of saffron. I think about the ninety percent of, uh, the world saffron is, uh, produced in Iran.
James Menendez· Host1:00
More on that coming up in about twenty minutes in this half-hour. But we are gonna start today here in the UK because people have been taking part in some potentially very significant local council elections in England and also elections to the national governments of Scotland and Wales. We'll explain what all those are in just a minute. But the big picture right now as the results start to come in is that Britain's governing Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is facing heavy losses. And the populous right-wing, uh, Reform Party led by Nigel Farage