Keeps rearing its head. When will the general election be . And its not going to be on the 2nd of may because in an interview with itv in the west country on thursday night, rishi sunak said there will not be a general election on the same day as the local mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections, which are happening that day. Now, whether you love or hate speculation about the general election campaign, the fact that there is so much and the way its been going, actually, it is quite revealing about whats happening in politics. So we will kick off with that on this episode of newscast. Newscast. Newscast from the bbc. Hello, its adam in the studio. And it is chris in cardiff today, because theres a splash of democracy and voting going on here, with a new Labour Leader being elected on saturday who will become the new First Minister next week. And talking of other stories that have occurred today, michael gove, the levelling up and communities secretary, unveiled the governments new definition of extremism. And he popped into the newscast studio earlier to explain what it all means and i asked him a few other things as well, so we will come to that shortly. But, chris, first of all, people who arent at westminster and arent on Political Social Media the whole time might not have realised just quite the frenzy that was building about the fact that maybe the general election was going to be called for the 2nd of may, which means it was going to be called very soon. Yeah, so theres been two waves of frenzy about this, both of them predictable, lets put it bluntly, excuse my mild splash of world weariness about this sort of stuff. 0h, hes had a long day so, over christmas, there was a blast of all of this stuff and you had various folk, particularly labour folk, coming out and saying the greatest secret in westminster that no one dare talk about is the election is going to be in. May. I think Emily Thornberry of labour did a fair old amount of this, amongst others. Then we had the Prime Minister, in an interview with, i think it was the itv east midlands region, saying that the Working Assumption was that the election would be in the second half of the year. He said that in the first couple of days of january. He didnt quite rule out an election in the First Six Months but the suggestion was it would be the second half, in the autumn, which is where a lot of the smart money had been for some while. That then calmed down the, ooh, is the election going to be soon thing for a bit, until the calming down went away and the hullabaloo came back in the last ten days or so. Why . Because we were approaching the deadline at the tail end of this month which, had it been passed without a dissolution of parliament, you couldnt have an election at the beginning of may because there wouldnt be enough time left. So all the hullabaloo started again. A lot of it coming from people who would love an election in may and or love to be able to say the government has bottled it if it doesnt happen in may in other words, lots of folk within labour and indeed other Opposition Parties. So we arrive at today, with the Prime Minister offering a bit more clarification. Well, lets clarify some of the theories, then, that have been driving this frenzy of speculation. It was becoming quite frenzious. First of all, labours strategy here of why it was in their interests and there is a few reasons, isnt there, to tout around this idea of an earlier election than planned 7 yes, frenzious, thats a good word. Frenzious its not even a real word but it will be now. It will be now and youll know what it means when someone says it, so i think that counts, that means it should do. It should its place in the firmament of vocabulary. So from labours perspective, why would you want to talk up in election now . Well, firstly, if you were labour, you would want an election now. Why . Because you are a million miles ahead in the Opinion Polls and the conservatives look like, on the face of it, theyre in a pretty bleak position. Secondly, you want to demand one now because Opposition Parties always do all of the time anyway. Thirdly, because theres a fair chance the Prime Minister is not going to call a one now, for all of the reasons set out already, and therefore you can say when he doesnt that he is a scaredy cat, that he is squatting in Downing Street, all that kind of stuff. Conservatives would make the argument that constitutionally, they were elected for a five Year Parliament and that doesnt expire untiljanuary of next year. So thats why you have folk, principally in the Opposition Parties, who have been making that argument. One or two conservatives privately have been exploring the idea that maybe going earlier is better than going late, the idea being that things might get worse from their perspective. The vast majority of folk i speak to on the government benches, on the conservative benches, quite a lot of labour folk privately as well, have always worked on the assumption that it was much, much more likely to be in the autumn because why if you were a Prime Minister would you volunteer to go early, when the prospect of winning looks like something of a long shot and therefore you might be throwing away precious governing months that you would otherwise be entitled to . Then one of the other theories is that actually, its allies of rishi sunak who were promoting the idea of an earlier election as a way to scare tory mps into being more disciplined and less critical of him. Yes, and theres also the theory that says labour talking up the prospect of an early election also ensures that they and their rank and file are disciplined, because theres a prospect of an election soon. No keener way to try and instill a certain amount of discipline than suggesting that your political battle with your real opponents in other Political Parties is imminent. In other words, sort of hang together. So, yeah, there are lots of forces that would tempt people and have been tempting people, my goodness, over the last few weeks to talk up this prospect. Even if its likelihood was always relatively slim and now, as far as that particular date, has been ruled out by the Prime Minister. Cue the next wave of speculation about who knows, potential dates later in May Orjune Orjuly and then we can restart the whole thing about the autumn and whether its october or does he announce that hes going to go and see the king from the conference stage or blah, blah, blah . So we have seen two waves of this so far in 2024 and therell be more to come. Basically, youre saying were going to get one night off from this . And this is how we are spending it yeah, pretty much that. It will kick the can of speculation a little bit further down the road and then that can will start fizzing again when theres the prospect of another deadline approaching that would rule out a date in month x, month y, month z. Speculation is the waft of politics, isnt it . It is there the whole time but we should always be. You know, sceptical about why its happening or at least open minded about why people might be in the business of talking up something that may or may not be any more likely to happen as a result of that talking up. Also, theresjust not a huge amount happening in parliament at the moment, so lots of people have got time on their hands to speculate about this and politicians love nothing more than guessing about when the election� s going to be. Either because they think its really fun or because theyre really worried about losing their jobs. Also, my kind of game theory thing about this, and this is me thinking two or three steps ahead, is because keir starmer is desperate for points of difference from the government and also any kind of opportunity to attack them, i wonder. Will he end up in a situation where he makes some kind of commitment about when he would be calling the election if it was Prime Minister keir starmer . And, actually, do we have then something on the record from the Labour Leader that can be then he can be held to if he is in Downing Street so we dont go through this rigmarole ever again . Yeah. But its also hard to see a Prime Minister giving up one of the biggest trump cards theyve got, which is calling an election whenever they want. Totally, and then just to spin back to the here and now in terms of the motivations for talking up an election. If youre an opposition party, it helps to know when the election isnt going to be because, you know, the flip side of the point youre making is that it is a trump card for a Prime Minister. You can start to back time things to where you are putting most of your chips in private. Whereas your opponents have to do the chips around the range of possible dates, including, realistically, stacking quite a lot on the most imminent date in case the government goes early. And that takes money and energy and mental bandwidth, which the governing party, even if its not actually decided, because why would you necessarily 100 decide potentially a long way out . You can mentally stack your chips in a particular place and the Opposition Parties cant do that. So flushing out anything approaching Clarity Orjust more information, which as a result of this wave of speculation theyve managed to do, you can then plan around what you then know. Certainly, when i speak to folk in government, they do lean again back on that remark, that formulation from january about the Working Assumption being the second half of the year, which means sort ofjuly onwards, if you take that at the sort of letter of each and every syllable. Right, lets look at something that did actually happen today, rather than something that isnt happening. The government unveiled its new definition of extremism. This is the definition the government will use for itself when it comes to their dealings with individuals and groups and campaigners. Theres a bit of politics here. The government says its as a response to the increase in extremism and concern around all sorts of issues since the hamas attack on israel on the 7th Of October. So they feel that they can sort of own that a bit, or at least own the response to that a bit. But, of course, this has come in the week where a big conservative donor has been accused of making some off colour comments that maybe some people would say are quite extreme in themselves. So its never simple. And the person who was holding the pen for this new definition of extremism is the levelling up secretary, michael gove, because the other part of his department is communities and local government, and he came into the newscast studio to explain whats been going on. Michael gove, welcome back to newscast. Hi. We were talking about flats and rent last time, werent we . So you get all the, all the thorny issues of our era. Yes. The the department for levelling up, housing and communities is, you know, its a sprawling is perhaps the wrong word, but it covers a lot of ground. So everything from leasehold and renters to helping communities to fight extremism, with a big dollop of local Government Spending in the middle. Although, some people would say the dollop� s not big enough for some councils, but thats another, thats another episode. Another episode. Right, lets talk about extremism, then. So weve got this new definition. I will take a bit of time to actually read it out, just so that were all on the same page. So extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance that aims to, one, negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, ortwo, undermine, overturn or replace the uks system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights. Or three, intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in one or two. Why did we need a new version . Because the old version was a bit loose and it was more honoured in the breach than the observance. So we had a definition that was arrived at in 2011 and refreshed in 2015. And its important to stress that this definition is there to help government, to guide government in the organisations that we should engage with and that we should fund. And recent reporting by the media, but also recent reporting by the independent reviewer of prevent, william shawcross, showed that there have been occasions where government unwittingly had entertained or given support to organisations that were extremist. So the old version talked about British Values. Was the problem just that those values kind of werent defined enough and so what youve done is youve used actual words here to do that . Yes, weve sought to be more rigorous. And, of course, you know, you can have a useful debate about British Values and it was a it was a useful definition in certain respects. But this definition is more precise, and its drawn from a variety of different conversations with people across the piece. And its been tested, of course, by lawyers as well, so that we can feel more confident that it will be, across government, a better guide to whom we should engage with. Im always intrigued about the options that you had to reject or the things that you had to compromise on. Are there other other words and things you thought about putting in here but then you didnt . No, i mean, we had obviouslya big debate within and across government about what we should do and how we could take appropriate steps. And also, once we had a definition, how we would make sure that certain organisations were covered by it and others were excluded. But that was a debate about means everyone recognised that the end of making sure that we had a better way of Policing Government Contact with organisations was the right thing to do. And when you say government is that government at all levels, does that stretch down to like my local library which is run by the council . No, it is purely about national government. Right, ok. It is the case, once weve said that we think that an organisation crosses the line here, that that information and the reasoning behind it can be shared and then people can be held to account for their own decisions. But a local council can of course make its own decision about who it might rent out space to or whom it might invite to, you know, give evidence to a local council, sort of external Relations Committee or whatever it might be. But we think that it is helpful to have that definition and also helpful to have an informed debate about some of the ideologies that are of concern. Right, point three, which is this idea of people who intentionally create a permissive environment for people who say the other the other points. What is a permissive environment . Well, its those who are facilitating, egging on, providing support for the promulgation of hate and actions and words that undermine our democracy. And again, it allows us to apply these limbs in a way which make sure that we can be legally confident that when we make a decision about Government Funding or about government engagement, that we have the robustness of something that has been through the legal mill to underpin that. And, yeah, youre going to have this centre of excellence in your department which will be monitoring all these people and individuals and working out whether they meet these criteria to be described as extremist. Exactly. Will people who find themselves on that list be able to appeal it . Well, again, any decision by government about whether or not to engage can always be subject tojudicial review. But what we propose to do, of course, is to gather evidence and then in some cases that evidence may be put to organisations to give them an opportunity to comment on it. It may well be the case that an organisation will say, look, ourteam in charge are completely changed. Oh, so you wontjust do it unilaterally, youll engage with them potentially . Well, its, again, a case by case situation, but we will of course make sure that we exercise appropriate Due Diligence, gather evidence and if necessary, put particular concerns to organisations in order to allow them to inform us as to whether or not that is still their approach. I was watching you update mps in parliament about this at lunchtime on thursday. I noticed you mentioned a few organisations that you think might fall into this category. Why is it ok to name particular organisations before youve done the Due Diligence . Because, again, i think its important for parliamentarians and it was important to do it in parliament, to have an understanding of the sorts of organisations that may be in scope. And also at the same time for me to specify the sorts of organisations and the sorts of campaigns that would not be in scope. And again, one of the things about this debate, and i had the opportunity to explain this on the bbc earlier on thursday and also in the house of commons, is theres a particular challenge when it comes to defining islamism. People sometimes mix it up with islam, the religion. And its very important to draw a distinction between islam, which is a noble faith, a religion of peace, which inspires people to good deeds, to compassion and kindness, and islamism, which is a very specific ideology linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder, hassan al banna, and its principal ideologue. One of the other things you said on the airwaves this morning was that this is in part a reaction to peoples concerns after the 7th Of October attacks on israel. I mean, the things that people are worried about happening in britain as a result of that are horrible posts on social media and protests that seem to be getting a bit out of hand. What does this do to address t