Now on bbc news, electioncast. Electioncast from the bbc. We dont wa nt to electioncast from the bbc. We dont want to be thinking about a general election. We want to be buying our christmas presents. If anyone says they know what is happening, cocked an eyebrow, smile politely and turn your back. Guys, are we on . Im adam fleming, you may have heard me and my colleagues on the Award Winning podcast brexitcast. Well, because there is an election on, were now doing a daily election podcast on bbc sounds called, imaginatively, electioncast. And now were bringing to you every night on television here on the bbc news channel. And because its a podcast, we have microphones and headphones and people in there doing faders and pushing buttons. Todays episode is all about Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, pulling pints, and nigel farage, leader of the brexit party, pulling candidates. Dont worry, all will make sense when you listen and watch this. Welcome to your monday edition of electioncast. Its adam here at electioncast hq, joined by. Laura here in westminster too. And i think alex forsyth is in a pub. In a pub best place to be during an election. Have you given up work already and hit the bottle . Yeah. I didnt even go to work today. Ive spent the whole day in the pub. And then Boris Johnson happened to walk in. Just travelling from pub to pub. 0k. He did, it was pure coincidence. Borisjohnson, the Prime Minister, its crazy. Thats amazing i cant imagine that happening, ever. Anyway, the person we are used to seeing in a pub is the brexit party leader, nigel farage. He was not in a pub for once, he was doing a press conference, where he revealed his big news of the election. Which is what hes not going to do. He is not going to do what he swore he absolutely would do, which is stand candidates in every single corner of the country. I have to say, having followed nigel farage for quite a lot of years, which alex has done too, its not entirely surprising that he ended up actually changing his mind and doing a reverse ferret. But given that the brexit party were number one in the european elections, and then he was absolutely adamant he was going to take on all comers in the general election, it is quite a big deal that he reverse ferreted quite like this. Shall we have a listen . I have got no great love for the conservative party at all. But i can see right now that, by giving boris half a chance, by keeping him honest and holding into account by getting people in, and by stopping the fanatics of the liberal democrats, who would sign us up for everything, wouldnt they . The United States of europe, european army, you name it. I mean, they even want to revoke the result of the referendum. No, i think our action, this announcement today, prevents a second referendum from happening. And that to me, right now, is the single most important thing in our country. So, in a sense, we now have a leave alliance. Itsjust that weve done it unilaterally. Weve decided ourselves that we absolutely have to put country before party, and take the fight to labour. A unilateral leave alliance that weve done by ourselves. Yeah, so remember the context of this. No less then the president of the United States was helpfully alongside nigel farage, suggesting that the tories should do a deal. There are a couple of mps that you talk to every now and again, who say, yeah, maybe we could do some kind of deal behind closed doors with nigel farage. But i have to say, alex, i dont know if you would agree with this, every time you ask anybody in the conservative party who has the power to make a decision, or who has any kind of rank, they always say absolutely no way whatsoever would they touch the brexit party with a barge pole, really. So in a funny way, although we heard nigel farage there trying to sort of take the moral high ground, in a brexiteer kind of way, this is also what was politically convenient for him. Alex, do you agree . Undoubtedly, and i think it was actually coming under quite a lot of pressure from people within his own party to take this path. So there were a handful, i mean, really only a handful, kind of half a dozen or so Brexit Party Candidates who pulled out last week and said they didnt want to stand against conservatives for exactly this reason, the fear of splitting the leave vote. But i spoke to others, and in fact, i know there were other candidates who were talking to the people close to nigel farage, saying, were really worried about the strategy. We are really worried about the potential consequence of standing in every seat, taking on the tories. So that message was coming to nigel farage from his own party. And towards the back end of last week, some of these Brexit Party Candidates, i understand, were being told to hold your nerve, stand firm, we need to keep up the pressure on the tories. We need to push for what he calls this clean break brexit. But they got the sense that Something Big was coming around it. So like you said, i dont think it was any great surprise in what hes done. I think it was almost an inevitability that he would get to this point. And what hes trying to do, as you say, is make it like look at me, im putting country before party, im pulling back. But there was no chance from the tory side for a pact, and he was getting a lot of grief from some of his own about the possible consequences of going down that route of 600 seats. And just to be clear, this pact that isnt a pact, that is one sided, is nigel farage saying he will not stand to the 317 seats that the tories won the last time, but hell focus his fire, as he puts it, on the remainer parties and or labour. Yeah, thats absolutely right, so theyve gone from making a promise that they would be this National Party standing everywhere to saying, basically, theyre going to stand in roughly 50 of the seats, and that is where we have to wonder what the impact of this might be. I know somebody who might know. 0h, whos that . Our brain box, peter burns from the analysis and Search Department at the bbc at westminster, who sent us all an e mail spelling this out, and here is what he said in his e mail. And the next e mail i got after that was about the gdp figures, and then an invitation to a concert. 0h, a nice concert . Yeah, im busy that night though, but it was nice to get the invitation. In broad terms, i mean, as somebody in the Tory Campaign headquarters put it to me, its obviously helpful, but to win a majority, they need seats where the brexit party are still standing, and its very hard to work out what the possible configurations of that might be. And a rather more pointed text from somebody who may or may not be a very Senior Member of the conservative party says, so farage accepts a vote for the brexit party as voting for corbyn in a second referendum, but he hasnt pulled out of the seats that we need to win to make sure that we beat him. So it helps a bit, but it doesnt its not. I mean, its an important event in this election, and it will change the dynamics in maybe quite a lot of seats in ways that are hard to predict. But its not kind of by no means does this suddenly make a tory majority any kind of slam dunk. Alex, i mean, you are with the Prime Minister this morning. Did he raise a glass to this news . Yes. Well, you know, as doris said, i dont think hes going to be disappointed, because those are seats that the conservatives already hold. It makes it a bit of an easier task for them to hold them. I mean, he was asked, did you do a quiet deal, have you been chatting to mr farage . , and as you might expect, it was a categorical absolutely not, no way. You know, they dont want any kind of part of being seen to be some sort of pact with the brexit party for fear of the impact that might have on tory voters. But its also worth saying, within the brexit party, there was a bit of worry of mr farage presenting this as a kind of, were going to go out and attack labour. Because obviously the implication may be that, you know, if theyre being seen to help the tories, that may alienate some traditional labour voters, who might have otherwise been considering voting for the brexit party. If they think that mr farage is helping a borisjohnson to get into power, then, you know, that mightjust put a bit of a nasty taste in their mouths. So i think there was some candidates who were saying to me, we wouldve preferred it if mr farage wouldve presented this as we are out to target remainers as opposed we are out to target labour seats. Its interesting, and it took about five minutes flat before nicola sturgeon, Jeremy Corbyn, and all sorts of other people were all over the place on social media saying, see, see . Look, this means that borisjohnson is basically exactly the same is nigel farage. And also its like a club with donald trump too. In fact, i thinkJeremy Corbyn said Something Like this is a trump alliance, which would bring us fascism on steroids. So its helpful, and in a way, and it also means that nigel farage has a different role in the air war, right . Because hes not going to be standing up, slinging overjohnson every day, but it does also gives more ammo to the people on the other side who want to say, well, borisjohnson isjust a really posh version of nigel farage. Well and what is Nigel Farages rush from switching from this deal that Boris Johnson has done with the eu is dreadful, its worse than remaining, to now like, oh, actually, its fine. I think its partly all the reasons that alex was talking about, that nervousness among candidates, and theyre kind of, oh, do we really want to be seen on the wrong, the other side to brexit, and one might actually say getting brexit done. But i think, also, because this election looks strange and unpredictable, and it might be very very tight, and if there is labour being the Biggest Party or maybe getting a majority, or the Biggest Party alongside the snp, and others, then there would be another referendum. And if theres another referendum, then brexit might not happen at all. Although interesting to listen to nigel farage, his kind of rationale for the slight u turn hes made was that because borisjohnson said, we will not sustain the transition period beyond the end of 2020, which is a transition period in the brexit deal, and also, that future relationship with the trade deal will be super canada, plus, minus, plus. Well, i would posit that basing a big political decision on something that was posted on social media quite late at night on 10 november might be not quite part of the whole well, part of the story, maybe not the whole story. 0k alex . You have to think im i mean, he was in wales on friday night, nigel farage, and he was giving one of these big rally speeches, and it was really interesting that there was a very, very slight, but noticeable difference in his rhetorical on friday. Because up until that point, he had been going, you have got to ditch your deal if you want a pact, mrjohnson. On friday though, this really slight softening, and he was actually going, youve just got promise not to extend beyond next year. We have got to sort this out next year. , so it was almost like he was moving towards that position anyway, because there was this sort of sense of pressure building up. And its also worth noting that he enjoyed massive success with the brexit party, nigel farage, when theresa may was leading the tories. There are a lot of people who didnt like her approach to brexit. Now, i think he gets the sense that perhaps some of those people that really flocked to him at that point are slightly more convinced by Boris Johnsons offering. So he would have been doing some calculations of his own, of course, because, you know, you dont want to put up 600 candidates and have an un brilliant result in this election. Of course, we dont know whats going to happen, but i think there was this sense, you know, the real kind of frost of support behind the brexit party came a little bit earlier this year. Alex, did i heara glass smash behind you . Is there, like, a pub brawl happening . No, there would never be a glass smashed in this pub, because its just too well run. The tavern, we love it. Its because you know, they set us up in here, its freezing outside, and they let us come in here and sit in the warm and have a drink here. But i can say that this is the very bar that Boris Johnson was standing behind, pouring the obligatory politician on the campaign trail pint. There you go. He did do it. Had a little tiny sip. Said im not meant to drink before brexit gets done, but he did have a little sip. Did he pour a good pint, because thats always one of the tests, isnt it, if he can actually pour a pint. Yeah, i have had some secret conversations with the owners, the very kind owners of this pub, and they have given me their verdict on borisjohnsons pint, but i dont know if im allowed to share. 0h, go on they might get cross with me if i tell you, but you know. Well, you dont want to burn your sources. Oh, really, it wasnt that good . We are still in the pub, they might kick me out if i Say Something wrong. We are going to hear that a lot, the same happens, there was a distillery tour, where the obligatory, oh, look, im in scotland, im a politician, i must have a little sip, and they made the same gag. Oh, no, im not allowed. It was meant to be a self imposed booze ban for the Prime Minister during the election, so i think we are going to hear that gag. Over and over. Quite a lot. Its not like borisjohnsons repeated a gag over and over. 0h, joy. Laura, very quickly, liberal democrats today in courts, why were they in court . Well, they are very very, very cross aboutjoe swinson, who is presenting herself as a candidate to be the Prime Minister, not being included in the head to head ministerial debates. And the lib dems have done what we thought they probably would do, which is apply for a judicial review of the decision. And for people who follow the sort of travails of the tv debates over the years since 2010, when they sort of became quite a big, you know, media fixation, and a political fixation, you know, discuss whether thats right or wrong, some people love them. Some people think they are pointless, im making nojudgement. I think they are obviously important because people get a chance to hearfrom politicians. But anyway, frankly, it works either with the lib dems, so either theyve got a story about hey, look, were getting frozen out, we deserve a chance at being Prime Minister. This is a terrible disgrace. So they can keep the story rumbling, and they can stay relevant, which is always a battle for the, you know, if you are not one of the big two parties. Or if they win it, they could take part in the debate, which they would be delighted about. So a win win for them . Yep. In a minute, we will be talking about the big story about public spending, and who is spending how many trillions where, big thought about what that reveals, the fact that we have had that row . It reveals that this election genuinely does turn the page from the last two elections, when the core disagreement was between labour and the tories row, you know, who has got who is more careful with the chequebook . That said, although the tories are now promising to turn on spending taps in a way that you know, would bring philip out in hives, let alone george osborne, its very important for election casters and everybody listening and watching to understand two parties are presenting radically different visions of the economy. Yes, theyre both promising a lot more spending, but if you compare their plans for labour wants to renationalize the rail and water companies, they are still looking at things in a radically different way. So you would be wrong to think they are spending loads and its all the same. Really, really not. Its notjust about the numbers, but its about why the numbers are. In the numbers themselves are also very very different now. Ok, lauren, you have got to go, alex, it is cocktail hour now, so alex will move from the be is to the cocktails. Thanks forjoining us from the pub. Im already halfway through a few. You pull it off very well. Chris, a reality check and are you there . Im here adam, hello. I think no afternoon drinking for you. You might know, im afraid not, no cocktails here. Reality check is our Fact Checking service here at the bbc, the reality that you have been checking the last couple of days, i suppose actually, it was a story over the weekend as well, spending pledges and who has got trillions to spend or not to. Yes, this figure the tories came out with over the weekend that labours spending pledges were going to cost £i. 2 trillion, and it is basically a bit of a back of a fag packet calculation, the document that sets out is more than 30 pages long, so its quite a big fag packet, but nevertheless, what theyve done is costed the last labour manifesto from 2017 about £600 billion. And then it theyve added up all the pledges labour has made since, notably, at its recent party conference, about another £600 billion. You had 600 and 600 and you get 1. 2 trillion. There is a few problems with that. Number one, we dont know whats going to be in the next labour manifesto, and we can talk about manifestos in a minute, adam, because ive got some top stats for you on that. Oh, good. But also, some of the assumptions it makes, for example, read nationalization, labour plans would cost about 196 billion quid, and those are numbers that they have got from the cbi. The problem with that number, we have looked at it, and many of the numbers that they use are about 30 above current market value for companies they may want to renationalise. Also, if you take, for example, i dont know, water companies. They are using, say, £3 billion is going to cost to buy that water company, but they happened then added and the fact that once they buy it, people like you and me are still going to be paying water bills, so that asset is going to create some value as well. So were not convinced that £1. 2 trillion is a particularly useful number. Are labour going to be spending a lot of money . Certainly a lot more money than the last ten years of austerity. Yes, it is for sure. But as laura said earlier, everyone is promising to spend more money, but they are going to spend it in a slightly different way. And so just from my own sanity, 1. 2 trillion is 1,200 billion . Its got lots of zeros on it. Put it this way, roughly over a five year cycle of parliaments, we spend at moment about £4 trillion, so this will be saying, at £1. 2 trillion on top of that so a more than 25 increase in overall public spending. Until we see the manifesto, when is it coming out, we cant actually accurately cost everything they are going to do. The one thatjumped out for me when i first skimmed through it was the idea of including bringing private schools and independent schools into the state system, and there, youve got it, for example. £5 billion. Yes, but that being that was something that was voted on at a labour conference, but we dont know to what extent that will appear in the manifesto, and also, the conservatives were suggesting that that would happen on day one of a new labour government. So the 14th of december this year, so there is just one example of where its just not quite accurate, we might say . No. Its frontloading all the pledges, and putting them all into day one, saying suddenly, they are going to want to be spending this much. Of course come tories dont have a monopoly on perhaps exaggerating some figures for their opponents. We can im sure youve talked about it over the last few days, the £500 million a week that labour says a tory trade deal with donald trump would cost after brexit, that number, also, we dont think stands up to scrutiny because its based on assumptions that suddenly, all uk drugs would cost the same as drugs in the United States. And i saw over the weekend somebody had done a gif ofjohn mcdonnell doing throwing the money out of the palm of his hand with Jeremy Corbyn, wearing his thug life glasses in the background. Some people said but may be labour wouldnt be too upset about that gif, because their whole thing is that they are going to invest more money than the tories will, maybe you could argue it might backfire because it just reinforces labours message about how much they want to invest. They are not shy about wanting to invest more money, the whole shtick right now is that they have not been investing enough money for years, one thing we can say with certainty for this election is the money tree is in full bloom, there is no question about that. You teased me a little bit a minute ago, when the manifestos might appear, i am desperate to see some stuff actually written down that we ourselves can then cost and work out. It does help, doesnt it . There has been rumours around that maybe the tory manifesto might come out quite late, so we thought lets go back over the last few elections and see when normally do these manifestos come out. So, over the last ten elections going back to 1979, the average number of days before the election, the tory manifesto has come out, drum roll. Mm hm . 23. 7. The average number of days for a labour manifesto. 24. So three and a bit weeks for both of them, which would mean in theory that we should be seeing manifestos at the beginning of next week. The lib dems are at the same, 22 days. The only outlier that we could find was the snp at the last election, 2017, there manifesto when they came out nine days before the election, and i guess thats probably because at the previous election in 2015, they did so well, 56 out of 59 seats, they probably wanted to assume that nothing was going to change for as long as possible, but on average, just over three weeks. So if that is upheld, we should be seeing some numbers we can really get our teeth into at the beginning of next week. But there have been these rumours around who knows that the tory manifesto might be a little bit delayed. This is what i love about you guys a reality check, you have worked out that the tory averages 23. 7 days, which means its sort of, we expected to come mid morning. Down to the hour, i know. Is that mid morning or mid afternoon, what is. 7 of a day . 0. 7 of the day, i will go back to my boffins and work it out for you. Im nowjoined by one chris mason, just one. Thats the kind of imagery i like. Chris mason is here with us for the last couple of minutes. So, talk to me about cobra, and i dont mean there is a big snake loose in westminster. So this is the emergency government civil Conservancy Committee and for emergencies gathering tomorrow from downing street tonight with the Prime Minister chairing its come of this in response to the floods that we have seen in South Yorkshire and in the midlands. There has been plenty of action from the Political Party saying, oh it, is the government doing enough . We heard from Jeremy Corbyn urging there to be a cobra. Exactly, and other is a cobra, and so the Prime Minister, as any Prime Minister can do it during an Election Campaign is a look Prime Minister ariel when stuff happens, and i guess this is an example of that. Nick remind us who he is, and what hes got to say tonight. He is a former conservative minister, hes been the mp for stamford in lincolnshire, he has not been a fan of borisjohnson for some time. But hes written a piece in the london evening standard. I willjust redo one paragraph, which kind of gets you there. In the blue corner, talking about the conservatives, we have a compulsive liar, who has betrayed a reasonable person he has ever had any dealings with them every woman who has ever loved him, every member of his family, every friend from every employee, every constituent. And hes talking about the Prime Minister. He goes on to be not too complementary about labour either and then says, he will be voting liberal democrat. So we had in austin doing his thing last week, the former labour minister who said he would vote conservative oh, sorry, oing. Someone talking to you. My Old High School friend saying your tie is a bit loose. I thought it was going to be applicable party with a late shift. Which means you are preparing content for tomorrow morning. That is why my tie is undone, the late shift, i am reunited with my good friend, 1am. So what happens at this stage is all the Political Party start sending stuff through that they hope were going to broadcast tomorrow morning. With their claims and counterclaims. If a party says, oh, we are going to cut income tax or raise income tax, whatever, thats fair enough, straight forward, you just write it down. When they start making accusations about each other, and the other side is contesting that accusation, particularly in this pre manifesto stage, when all of the big parties can say oh, we are not quite sure what our platform will be. It gets quite knotty. So thats my evening ahead. Good luck, chris will be here probably until 1 2, maybe even 3am. Hopefully its one or two rather than three. Thank you forjoining us. Hello there. Its been a very unsettled start to november, even indeed before november, weve seen a lot of rainfall around. Low pressures been firmly in control and its been quite cold as well. The rest of the week stays unsettled thanks to low pressure, it will be quite windy too and we will see some snow around as it will remain cold, particularly over the higher ground. Lower pressure firmly in control of our weather for tuesday, bringing fairly strong wind from the north west there will be a lot of showers circulating around it. Early on tuesday, it looks like most of the showers will be across parts of scotland and Northern Ireland, Northern England, some wintriness over the high ground of scotland but further south, it should be dry with lengthy clear skies. But that does not mean it wont turn quite chilly here. 1 3 degrees here with the showers, generally 11 5 degrees to start tuesday. So we start with sunshine across the south, and in other areas, but bands of shower and long spells of rain spreading into south eastern areas into the afternoon. And there will contine to be some wintriness over the high ground. It will feel cold with temperatures 7 8 degrees. Out on the wind, itll feel quite raw. Low pressure pushes off into the north sea and allows a bump of High Pressure to build in before wednesday before this next weather system moves in wednesday night into thursday. It could bring some areas quite a lot of rainfall, unfortunately. Through wednesday, though, it could be a chilly start in central, eastern and Northern Areas but dry and bright thanks to that bump of High Pressure. The next weather system will be arriving across Northern Ireland and wales and the south west of england, bringing some heavy rain here later in the day and it will be another chilly one, temperatures struggling to get up as much as 4 degrees across scotland. Through wednesday night a few showers here and the weather front across the south west will push northwards and eastwards, itll pivot as well, we think. Bit of uncertainty too, its northwards or southwards extent but some areas could see quite a lot of rainfall it could be the flood affected areas in the midlands and Northern England could see quite a bit of rainfall. But again, i have to emphasise theres some uncertainty on the position of the weather front. There are a number of flood warnings still in force and this rain could exacerbate that. So stay tuned to the forecast and head onto the bbc weather website. Has we head out into friday the weather front eventually starts to fade and move southwards and eastwards. So it could be quite cloudy on friday across southern and eastern areas, one or two showers here, quite blustery. But further north and west, we will see a ridge of High Pressure move in. Its an improving picture here with some good spells of sunshine. And temperatures again on the low side, sticking in single figures for most. Welcome to bbc news, im mike embley. 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