we got locked out of the studio in broadcasting house, and it's typical of what happens in an election campaign. well, let's hope that by the next half hour of people hadn't wished that we were still locked in the studio that we managed to get in. and before we were going on air, i was telling paddy about the last time i got locked out of my flat, and it was because i had to go and pick up a signed copy of michel barnier�*s brexit diaries. long, long story and also from a very long time ago, that's very on brand. but should we explain what we're actually doing here? yes. so newscast is our daily news podcast that you can get every day on bbc sounds. obviously, during the election, we are majoring on covering the election coverage, the election campaign of all the parties. and every saturday we're here live on radio four to bring you some kind of newscast style reportage of the week. we will look back at what's been happening all week in the election campaign. but if we've got some breaking news, we will start with the breaking news and there's a classic scoop coming our way. well, it's interesting. what's made its way into my hands is the note to memo that pat mcfadden, who is the labour campaign chief, sent out to all of labour's candidates yesterday. and it's really interesting because you start and we're going to see labour shifting its message a bit. so everybody listening i'm sure will remember the tories have spent a long time in the last week saying be very scared of a big labour majority. that's what all the polls are suggesting labour is and i think in quite a big way in the next 2a to 48 hours, going to try to push back that message and turn it into a sort of don't stay at home, don't let the tories fool you. this election is still up for grabs. and just to give you a couple of messages from this memo that i've been shown. mcfadden is essentially instructing his candidates to tell their voters. so, listeners, this may be what somebody says to you when they come and knock on the door, say, do not assume anything about the result. do not vote for a minor party which only helped the tories. the only way to stop the tories is to vote labour. now i think that there is part of this is a sort ofjust a campaigning tactic, right? you always have a get out the vote operation. but i think there is a genuine nervousness about the impact of poll after poll after poll after poll suggesting that there are these sort of crazily wild, enormous majorities for the labour party. and there's a bit of superstition in there. but there's also the reality that labour doesn't really think these numbers stack up. well they don't, do they, because the polls are so wildly different. the polls should be standing as a political party. i've heard more discussion of the polls than obesity. brexit. literacy. the learning of music in schools. the polls have become a candidate. they are an agent. what's happened? and they're wildly different. and you've got a leaked memo. did he know it would be leaked? and in which he says two things, which i think radio four listeners will chime with. one, there are a lot of undecided voters and that is completely under—reported. if i had a pound for every time, i mean, i'm not a betting man and i know many people are. that's an important thing to say this week of all weeks. but the thing is that the polls are getting all the coverage and undecided voters are not. and pat mcfadden, in his leaked? memo, is trying to get the message out. don't take these people for granted. and he uses a figure of up to a quarter of voters. so when you look at the polls, then they tend to say around 10% or a little bit more. so redfield and wilton, the political strategy firm who do lots of polling, put out an article about undecided voters on wednesday and their number is 9%. so let me tell you how labour gets to this. up to a quarter of voters haven't yet decided completely how they're going to vote. so there are two categories of voters who are basically still swithering. so, one, there is consensus. there are around about five million people who say they don't know. they genuinely haven't made their mind up. so if they're one of the people that a pollster turns up to with a clipboard and says how you're going to vote, they say, i don't know. there's a second category, though, of people who would name a party in that question. so, adam fleming, you tell me you're going to vote for the hypothetically marvellous narnia party. but as the pollster, i then say to you, and how sure are you that you are definitely going to vote for the absolutely marvellous narnia party? and you say, hmm, well, maybe not that sure. and they're known as the uncertain and there may be around about three million or so of them. so if you put the undecideds with the uncertainties and then you think they're not all going to turn out, labour hq reckons that they're probably around about seven million people who are probably going to vote who have not completely made a final decision. in other words, about seven million votes labour hq reckons are still in play. and that is why when they look at these polls, they have decided they're going to shift their political message to tell everybody listening, do not take anything for granted. this election still is not in the bag. and also there are elections throughout our history in which people promised the shining city on the hill, come with me towards the welfare state 1945. come with me towards an in—out referendum on brexit. david cameron, after he was frit by the european elections that we spoke about last week. come with me. i'm going to leave nato. i've had all of this in my life and this election is not like that. this election is different. there is no clear way to lure me into the ballot box. i know that's a big thing to say. different parts of the uk people will feel motivated in different ways. but i think what this leaked memo shows is that the campaign so far has been going with the opinion polls, some leader interviews, and it's not got that feeling of a giant moment in political history based on policy. but isn't that interesting, though? you're saying there's no giant thing or doesn't feel like there's a giant thing on offer at this election. but the polls are suggesting a change in government and the opposition party becoming the government. and i was at an event with nick robinson the other day there, and he was saying that's only happened three times in his in his adult life. and you realize actually that that's that's the potential big thing. and i sometimes wonder if we don't see the wood for the trees. but i think what you're saying and forgive me if you know, is that there's not an issue as an overriding issue. so what the polls suggest, what our conversations with voters or conversations with politicians of all stripes is a mood. it's a vibe election, actually, as some people might rather nauseatingly say. and what labour candidates and people in labour hq and people in tory and in all of the other parties, what they do say is clearly there is a big direction of travel here, which is conservative decline and people wanting, at this stage, and we are not predicting the outcome radio four listeners, we're not predicting the outcome at all. but that is the very, very clear mood is after years of very difficult politics, scandal and five tory prime and five tory prime ministers, there is a clear mood and move towards doing something else. but as you say, there isn't a kind of margaret thatcher coming in with swinging, swinging reforms of all sorts of different kinds, tony blair coming in and promising big changes. it's the ins and outs theory. the outs go in and the ins go out. and what i would like to say about this is that all please elaborate. well, the polling takes the public for granted. don't publish these poll after poll after poll. my vote is a very precious thing. and the way these polls are being wound on about all the time. well, look, i'll tell you what i did. i went to true blue essex, which is where i worked first as a journalist. it's a place i know very well, and it's a sort of battleground. essex man, basildon man. you know, you look at all the famous people who meant well. theresa gorman, don't forget, there have been many, many famous tory mps there who are female and priti patel is one of them. absolutely very popular in her area. i met a woman on the street and when we mention individual candidates, all the lists are on the website. but just to say that i met one voter who is undecided now, she said to me on the street, she kept me talking for a long time. i'm someone who remembers. i grew up with my mum telling me women didn't get the vote in this country for until onlyjust about a hundred years ago. we need to vote. and she says, but i've never been so confused. absolutely disgusting. i mean, would it influence how you vote? i'm not sure. ijust don't trust politicians now. we just had this conversation and i said, i don't know what to do because i've always voted and i do not know what to do. could someone still get hold of your vote? could you still be convinced one way or the other? i don't know. i'm very confused about it all. have you ever been this confused? no. well, thank you for talking to me. 0k. bye bye. so at the start, she's disgusted by the betting story, which we're going to come to. but she wanted to talk in greater detail about what the voting looks like to her. and how she's being unsure and so clear, just being unsure, saying, i don't really know. and, you know, people i've talked to in both the big parties who've been on the doorsteps do all say or they've all said to me, it doesn't feel as clear as the polls are suggesting. now, nobody is saying, oh, it looks like actually the tories at this stage have got anything up their sleeves that could change that overall dynamic. but it's really interesting to hear that sense of, ijust don't really know. ijust don't really know. just to drill into those numbers of of undecided voters, whatever the actual number of them is or whether they're actually undecided rather than uncertain rather than undecided and uncertain. yes, because i'm looking at my very bad handwriting. so i'm focusing on that rather than the actual words i'm using. yes. so according to redfield and wilton and other political consultants are available when you actually then try and drill down to find out where these voters are leaning towards, 20% of them are leaning towards the tories, 20% of them are leaning towards labour, 15% are leaning leaning towards reform uk. but the biggest group, 24% saying they probably won't vote at all. and the sofa vote, as we've talked about before, is going to be absolutely critical. the stay at homes and you know, that is potentially a massive driver is that the sofa becomes the winner and they sofa more comfortable than actually making making that decision. you know that lady that you spoke to in essex who feels confused, feels maybe a bit bit distressed. she sounded almost like, you know, kind of troubled by it. she might decide, actually, i just don't want to put myself in that position where i'm going to force myself into making a decision that i don't want to make. and i suppose the point about this is if there really are about seven million people, some of them might be listening. good morning to you who are not sure what they're going to do in the privacy of the ballot box on july the fourth or even at the moment are sitting on their kitchen table wondering about filling in their postal vote and they don't know what to do. that is a very, very big number of people, and their decisions, which are not in the bag, would have a massive impact on the potential range of outcomes in this general election. so we've discussed a leaked labour memo, we've linked it to one of the headlines in it from pat mcfadden, which is don't take undecideds for granted. that a quarter of people up in those sort of people are uncertain or undecided. so they are trying to chime in the game of thrones concerns. i was going to sayjust lastly, my favourite bit of this leaked memo is his salutation. it says dear and this is to labour candidates, this memo, dear friend, happy longest day, because it was written yesterday. right. there we are. did you put that in any emails yesterday? no, but i didn't know my emails would be read. now, look, we move on because i mentioned the woman of essex, the essex woman who i met and she said she was absolutely disgusted. i don't think i made it plain in that. so forgive me, i'm now going to go back in time by the betting snafu. and this is the situation where at least four people are being looked into by the gambling commission over alleged bets relating to the timing of the general election. and file this under political stories that you could not simply make up. even if you had tried, you could not have made up that during the election campaign, two candidates and even the conservative party's actual director of campaigning would have their behaviour being looked at by the gambling commission. the suggestion is, and they haven't confirmed this officially, but we know they're being looked into. the suggestion is that people placed bets on the date of the general election when they may have had inside information that was not yet in the public domain. one of them actually also on the side is a police officer who was part of rishi sunak�*s close protection squad. but this isjust a kind of, it comes under the extraordinaryjaw dropping and incredible thing to happen in politics. and it's allowed labour again to get up that argument that yes, the conservatives are in it for themselves. it's all about their own motivations. and of course rishi sunak was i think genuinely appeared to be visibly furious about this. but it came at a week when the tories actually had a moment of having some quite positive news because inflation had actually gone back to the target that it's meant to be at. yeah. and the pm had to deal with this when he was on question time in york on thursday night, taking questions from fiona bruce and members of the question time audience. aren't these emerging allegations about betting on the election- date the absolute epitome of the lack of ethics that we have had to tolerate j from the conservative party for years and years. - well, like you, i was incredibly angry, incredibly angry to learn of these allegations. it's a really serious matter. it's right that they're being investigated properly by the relevant law enforcement authorities, including, as fiona said, a criminal investigation by the police. and i want to be crystal clear that if anyone has broken the rules, they should face the full force of the law. and that's what those investigations are there to do. and i hope that they do their work as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. that was rishi sunak speaking on bbc one on thursday night, and we've had a statement from solicitors acting for laura saunders, who is one of the conservative candidates who is involved in all of this. the statement says that she will be cooperating with the gambling commission and has nothing further to add. they continue, it's inappropriate to conduct any investigation of this kind via the media, and doing so risks jeopardising the work of the gambling commission and the integrity of its investigation. the publication of the bbc story is premature, they say, and it's a clear infringement of ms saunders' privacy rights, and they say they will be considering legal action. i'm not a solicitor, and here's a statement from me. oh, no, no, no, no. the man who was running, the man who was running the conservatives campaign is no longer running the conservatives campaign. i don't want solicitors who listen to be offended, but that is certainly a public interest story. in the middle of a general election, this began in the rain. the man launched the campaign standing in the rain. he then came home early from d—day. then his director of communications has gone. campaigning. director of campaigning is gone. thank goodness you're here. she went last year. and of course, it is a matter of giant public interest. really, going back to the first point, i'm a voter. i don't want to be told that my vote is taken for granted. i don't want to be told that subjects are often off topic. this is perfectly on topic for the middle of a general, and also it's just that age old political thing of like if you as a political figure set a yardstick by which you're going to be measured, in other words, probity, we're going to be we're going to be whiter than white compared to the last lot, which is what rishi sunak did on day one. no surprise. if you're going to be judged by that yardstick by everyone else. well, everything that happens afterwards. well, i've got more to say on this. well, no, because look, the police officer who has not been found guilty of anything. no. has been suspended. the politicians, political people who have not been found guilty of anything have not been suspended. the director of campaigning has taken a leave of absence. yes, he has got ho, but the candidates are still on the ballot paper, which i think may give people pause for thought. because you can't take them off. yes, but i think she soon because actually i think he's going to keep getting that question. is it clear that's likely? is it being asked why that's okay for them to be running? is it clear why i'm interrupting you so much? i think it is because this morning you are outraged, just so i've got which is, is it clear that this is the final list which is, is it clear that this is the final list of innocent people who are being looked into? is there going to be more innocent people being looked into? possibly. do you have information? no, but there is lots of what i'll say. how around which we do like to share with you on newscast and you are listening to newscast rather than anything else on radio four. so if you're wondering what on earth is going on with me, outraged of fitzrovia, mr paddy o'connell to my left and adam fleming to my right. you are not having your normal radio for broadcast on a saturday morning but newscast during this election campaign. but there has been lots of howl round in political circles in the last couple of days about the possibility of there being more names and all sorts of scurrilous suggestions, which i'm not going to repeat. but, you know, the sunday newspapers are quite good at ferreting things out. who knows what will land on the newsstands tomorrow morning. and also, rishi sunak had that dilemma when he was launching the conservatives welsh manifesto on friday, and he was doing questions from the media about this. and someone said, are there more people whose names could come out innocent or otherwise? and he had to do that thing of like, i'm just not getting into this, which is not denying it, which means the story can live for a bit longer because then journalists can say, well, he didn't deny it, which suggests there might be. and here's a phrase i thought i'd never use. it's hyphenated and what it's data—scraping. so apparently the way this comes to light is you get hold of how the money's moving. and it's an unusual spike. and it doesn't seem clear to me that the number of innocent people who are being looked into adds up to the total amount of money that moved. therefore, there's a there's an arithmetic gap there implying there might be more innocent people to be looked into, presumably we'll be told prematurely. but it's not clear to me that the total number of innocent people adds up to the total amount of money seen moving. we will see. there is another interesting little kink around that is if we go back to that time when rishi sunak announced the election in a dreadful downpour. in the days preceding l