Now on bbc news electioncast, with adam fleming. We are in this election because of brexit. We want to be getting out and buying our christmas presents. If anybody comes up to you and says they know what is going to happen, cocked an eyebrow, smile politely and turn your back. Evening, all. Welcome to tonights episode of electioncast. The answer to the question is Sirjohn Curtice on tv is yes. Weve got to talk about the continuing fallout of the attack on London Bridge on friday afternoon. We now know the name of the two people that died. Its jack merritt and saskia jones. And obviously, politics over the last few days has been dominated by what happened. Yesterday on the andrew marr programme, there was a very bad tempered interview with borisjohnson. Lets have a listen to this bit of it. Was out because he was on automatic Early Release. When the judges reviewed his sentence in 2012, they had no option but to comply with the law that labour brought in in 2008, which meant that, effectively. You say labour. Youve been in power. Effectively that he was out, they had to comply with the law as it stood, and he was out in eight years. And this was a guy, dont forget, thatjudge wilkie said was a very serious jihadi. And thats why. Ive been in office for 120 days. Your partys been in power for ten years. So obviously, that was talking about why usman khan was on the streets at all and not in prison. I listened to that interview. I was none the wiser about what happened when or why. John, just talk us through, what was your takeaway from it . Well, if we take that fairly short clip, it was rich in political content. We had borisjohnson, first of all, zeroing in on the fact that the terrorist, this London Bridge terrorist, had been released halfway through his sentence, therefore was able to commit this crime. That was clearly the strongest piece of point making that he had because, by definition, if usman khan had been injail and had not been released, he could not have killed these people. But it opened up a much, much wider debate about the treatment of terrorists, about rehabilitation of offenders, about the fact that borisjohnson was pointing the finger at the treatment of this man under past legislation, saying that, i have been there for 120 days, whatever it was. In that way, clear of responsibility, not answering for anything thats happened before. Despite the fact that, as andrew marr pointed out, weve had a tory government for very nearly a decade. So, look. Its become intensely politicized. I think that was absolutely inevitable. You can argue it was a necessary part of the process. But, of course, borisjohnson displayed his strongest card there and opened up an exposed plank as well to do with his government, his partys record in office. Its a really difficult judgement, isnt it, for Political Parties when this kind of thing happens . And unfortunately, this isnt the first time its happened. The last election, the Manchester Arena bomb happened during a general election. And rememberjo cox, of course, was murdered during the referendum campaign. So, unfortunately, these kind of incidences have happened before and a Political Party has to make a judgement. And i think the reason borisjohnson is going really out so hard on this is partly because of what happened last time, is that theresa may ended up in this row, really, with the labour party about police numbers. And, actually, people thought she came off worse during all of that. So how hard you go out to defend your position and borisjohnson is making the point that, actually, in the conservative manifesto we have looked this up, it is in there that they want to end the automatic halfway release from prison for serious crimes. So his point is, ive always been against this particular policy. It turns out its much more complicated than that and, actually, when you start coming through with our legal experts, our legal team in the bbc, its incredibly complicated sentencing law which has changed over the years and, actually, both sides have things that they can point to and things that they can go on the attack over. Well, the thing that Jeremy Corbyn pointed to he was doing a speech in york yesterday about foreign policy. Of course, he talked about this and he used it as an opportunity to attack austerity and how the cuts to Public Services could have had an effect on this incident. A failure to recruit has left huge staffing shortfalls, with staff supervising more cases than ever expected, posing again a serious risk to our security. You cant keep people safe on the cheap. I suppose one of the interesting things about this as a policy area is that its not like the nhs, where most people have had an experience with the nhs in the last few years, or a relative, so you can have a sort of personal feeling about how things are going. Actually, most people wont be on probation or know someone whos on probation, or know someone whos at risk of radicalisation, do they . No. Look, the Probation Service is not a huge emotional touchstone for the British Public in the way that the National Health service is. Its obviously labours strongest card for that reason. When they talk about running down the nhs in terms of resources, a lot of people are naturally going to say, absolutely, youre right on that. Not many people feel the same way about the Probation Service. But its also right and fair to say that the privatisation of the Probation Service and the shortage of funds in the Probation Service has been a live, very publicly debated issue in its own sphere for a good long time, ever since the then minister in charge, chris grayling, got stuck into all of this. It dented chris grayling. We know it rather dented the Probation Service. And whenJeremy Corbyn attacked it in the way that he has, look, its not opportunitism. This is his deepest, most heartfelt point about austerity, about running down the british Public Services, and thats where he goes as a kind of default position almost. When you see a problem well, not of this kind, you dont get too many of these but when you see a shortcoming of a Public Service coming into the spotlight, of course he is playing on all of that. And just as the whole argument over London Bridge has gone on fairly predictable, predetermined lines. When it comes to labour and liberal democrats, its resources. For borisjohnson and the tories, its about tougher penalties. They each have their point. They are each reaching out to an electorate, i suppose, which is more likely to see their point of view than otherwise. And i think if people are talking about this at home, i think they will be. Of course, peoples initial reaction is the horror of whats happened, the sympathy for the families and friends of those who have died. But, actually, a lot of people watching the tv on friday and over the weekend will be saying, how come so many was let out who was a convicted terrorist . How did this happen . Who was watching him . Why werent they watching him . How did he manage to convince the parole board that he was eligible for Early Release . Because they didnt have to necessarily go along with that. I think if people at home are talking about it, politicians do have to respond. And, of course, actually, for lots of people, it is distasteful but i think inevitable. And maybe its the right thing, too. Ive learned more about the sentencing system than i knew before, thats for sure. Yeah. And why shouldnt we be debating it . Why shouldnt our politicians at an election be debating these things . The Grenfell Tower disaster. Look, it took longer for the political argument to engage in the case of Grenfell Tower than it did in this case. In this case, it took, i dont know, a matter of minutes on a friday evening before Boris Johnson switched from being, i dont know, more statesman like and taking it a detached overview to making point about sentencing and all the rest of it. In grenfells case, more people died and there was arguably a need, a requirement, for more sensitivity and a little more space in the politics and the incident itself. But it got pretty political, if you recall. It got very political. Well, lets just have a quick listen to thejustice secretary, robert buckland, who was on the today programme this morning. I do think we just need to pause and get the tone of this debate right. But Public Protection has to be at the heart of the duty of any government, and i have to put that first and foremost when considering, first of all, existing offenders and secondly the future sentencing regime for terrorism. I make no apology for that. Weve got to get it right. So, yeah, thats him doing exactly what you just said. Pay respects, say lets not politicize it, lets be grown up, and then make your political point. I mean, hes got more experience in the system than we all have. He has been a barrister and, obviously, now he isjustice secretary. One of the interesting things that someone has talked about is that, actually, the turnover, the number of secretaries of state, justice secretaries. That there have been, its one of those ministries, actually, where people have been in and out very, very quickly and theres a lot of criticism about the way that policy has been introduced. Of course, what complicates this in a way when it comes to the sensitivities is those two young people who were murdered were there for a reason, because they believe in rehabilitation. That was the whole point of that meeting, why they were there, why there were ex criminals there, why there were ex police there, all sitting around discussing it, because of their particular view. And i think that does make it slightly more complicated, especially when you have Jack Merritts father saying, do not use this to put forward your own views when this is what he very clearly believed in. I think that does make it even more sensitive than it would have been anyway. And theres so many layers going on here, obviously. I mean, you read the secret barrister blog thats the lawyer who was then sort of copy and pasted. His tweets were copy and pasted by borisjohnson as a defence of the system and an explanation. But, actually, if you read his blog, theres a bit in there where he says, well, actually, lots of the prisons cant provide the courses that the people on the sentences would go on to prove to the parole board, if they were even in front of the parole board, that they had been rehabilitated. Secret barristers become. We dont know who he is. Its still secret but hes a big player in this whole political argument. For those of you who may not know, the secret barrister is the title, the name, of an author of a blog online who gives his opinions on matters of politics law. And in this case, he piled in. He said the facts were being misrepresented by all sides. He said borisjohnsons talk really added up to very little because the manifesto or the coming programme for government would have done nothing to stop the attack on London Bridge. He also accused the Prime Minister of lying after all of this, so i think these were blows that rather struck home in 10 downing st, and it underlines the fact that, whatever this story is, whatever the background is, it is not simple. And its fair enough to say this is a guy who should not have been on the streets. But when you get into rehabilitation, versus punishment and deterrence and all of that sort of thing, it becomes very, very, very tricky. But it does come back, i think, to resources. That is the point lots of people are making about, theres one prison, isnt there, where they work on all of this . They put in serious offenders, theyre absolutely put through their paces and things. Their re conviction rate is far, farlowerthan. But its a one off prison. Its one prison where this is happening. And this was a case where usman khan gamed the system, from what we understand. He was writing letters saying, ive got over this. Let me out and ill be a model citizen. For years, he presented that face to the authorities. 0ut he came, and then he committed these murders. And the question is, who was monitoring him . But, actually, when it comes to resources, i think the governments response to that is when it comes to security services, if that is their role in this case, they have had extra funding, maybe unlike other areas of the criminaljustice system. Im completely bamboozled by all the numbers, lots of sort of 405, 30s, low teens. Just explain to us what the picture painted by the polls actually is . Well, there are two things you need to know about what the polls have been doing during the course of the Election Campaign. The one is that theyve been showing a consistent conservative lead. The second is that both the conservatives and the labour party have made progress during the course of this campaign, but not at the expense of each other but rather at the expense of the brexit party in the case of the conservatives, and the liberal democrats in the case of the labour party. And the effect of all of this is there has indeed been a bit of a narrowing of the conservative lead in the course of the last couple of weeks or so, but the conservatives still enjoy, on average, at least, the kind of poll lead that ought to generate them an overall majority. Basically, during the course of the Election Campaign, conservatives start this campaign with about 55 of the leave vote, with the brexit part is Still Holding a fair chunk of it. That figure now stands for the conservatives at 70 . It is even higher, quite considerably higher, the conservative support amongst leave mac voters two years ago and that is the reason why the conservatives have been able to remain ahead. 0n the other side of the fence, deliver has made progress, primarily, not entirely, amongst remain voters. When this campaign started, the labour party were onlyjust a head of the liberal democrats amongst for may voters. Now labour is not far short of 50 and deliver democrats are back to below a quarter the liberal democrats are back to blue a quarter. Do understand what has been going on there, you need to understand the way in which the Election Campaign in the calling of the Campaign Just seems to have squeezed the vote of the smaller parties but in a way thats very clearly to do with the debate about brexit. Basically the conservatives, this is now the party of leave mac voters in the labour party, having lost the mantle earlier this year, has regained a lot of its position as the mental of remain voters. Do you think people are getting too excited about this now . Maybe overestimating the two horse race . Yes and no. I think that exaggerating it in the sense that we are still in a position, at least on the average of the polls, whereby the conservatives should get around 350 seats or so and borisjohnson should be able to deliver brexit as he is minded to do. And equally also, there is not much sign of a labour party being able to do damage to the conservatives. The labour party are losing just as much of the vote to the conservatives now as they were four weeks ago. To that extent at least, yes, there is a risk of exaggeration and certainly underestimating the way in which the conservatives really have managed to maintain their lead. That said, we do have to bear in mind that given probably borisjohnson needs a bit more than a six point lead before we say, yeah, he is all clearly home and dry, if the lead is indeed around ten points, he is not so far ahead of where he needs to be to get a majority for us to be sure that hes got it in the back. And again we do just have to remember that this is essentially a winery election in which either borisjohnson gets a majority, in which case brexit should happen, or he fails to get a majority and then theres a high probability that we will get a minority Labour Administration in charge. Its whether or not the conservatives get a majority or not that matters, not whether they have more seeds than labour. The other thing we do have to bear in mind is that the conservatives do now seem to have pretty much taken all the juice out of the brexit orange. There is only around six or 7 of the leave vote left in the brexit party. There were still about 20 of the remain vote in the hands of the liberal democrats. Given the labour party has so far demonstrated a nontrivial degree of success in squeezing that vote, maybe they could squeeze it further. Other words, the potential for labour to continue to make the progress it has been making in this campaign, at the expense of the liberal democrats, Committee Position for doing more is they are arithmetically still there. The conservatives have pretty much reached the high watermark of what they can so far. The leave orange has been squeezed. It is just skin and pips and pith now. I am trying to think of an equally sized fruit that has a bit ofjuice less dominic left. Maybe another orange a bit ofjuice left. Is there anything were missing . I think no. This election may not prove to be as couple gated as we were thinking. As complicated. Certainly, there is. It is very difficult to work out for more than repulse for ordinary polls, to work out what is the impact of geographical performance. The conservative vote is so much more of the leave vote that it was two years ago. Equally, the liberal democrats vote is much more of a euro file vote than two years ago. Lo and behold, a yougov poll came out a few days ago. This was essentially a way of analysing data to get results for individual constituencies. Two years ago, using that approach, they told us, we think there might be a hung parliament, when all the conventional pulling or nearly all the conventional pulling was staying there would be a conservative majority. There was no surprise this time. Their estimate of 359 seats and 11 point conservative lead was pretty much bang on in both cases. What youd expect given the state of the conventional polls when that polling was done. The Crucial Point about that is that although indeed, as we suspected, this polling indicates that the conservative vote is likely to go up more in places which voted heavily to remain and therefore probably rather less amongst those places devoted remain, that voted remain. It looks as though the net effect of this geographical variation may be approximate lead zero. And therefore the geographical competition of this election about which there is been a lot of fretting might come in the end, may not be proving to be so dramatic as it was thought. That is one thing we thought maybe was not clear. Back may this election is going to be straightforward as well. Maybe. You put that in quite technical terms. And i just wonder if actually that means some people wake up the morning after the election and be quite surprised at how things have turned out but youve done it in a very sort of technical way there, rather than a dramatic way. I can see why yougov go for mrp rather than. Such a mouthful welcome to statistics. If you take a simple two points, conventional polls, average lead, 11 points. Yougov come mrp come estimate leave yougov, mrp, estimated conservative majority. The number of seats the conservatives are expected to get according to the yougov mrp model, 359. Take a classic standard way of estimating the seeds from polls, assume that the ups and downs of part performance are going to be exactly the same everywhere, what you get . About 3511 355 seats. In other words, the mrp model, this time, rather than coming up with something new, is essentially saying its all pretty much the same as what the polls have said for the last three or four weeks. Youre probably sick of being asked this question and answering it, but how does the exit poll actually work and how come it is so accurate . I can tell you how it works. And whether or not it is going to be accurate this time, we will have to wait and see. Of course. The difficulty of doing an exit poll in the uk is that we dont count the votes by polling station. And therefore as a result, we cannot be sure that any particular set of polling stations is representative of the country as a whole. He might therefore ask, how therefore do we attempt to resolve this problem . The answer is, while the level of support for a Political Party varies very dramatically from one part of the country to another, the change in support for the parties doesnt very anything like so much. Pretty much any set of polling stations has a much better chance of estimating the change in vote share than it does the level of vote share. With that, therefore, will we try to do with the exit poll, rather than try to use sampling points, to estimate the level of support, we try to estimate the change. How do we do that . Basically, it is not one exit poll, it is two because what we do is we compare the exit poll results this year with the exit poll results last time, on the basis that it put a much every case, wherever possible, we are going and conducting the exit bullet exactly the same place as we did two years ago. Conducting the exit poll. In each polling station, we have an estimate of the extent to which a partys foot has gone up or gone down, and we get about 140 estimates of these. We know what constituencies these polling stations are in. We know a lot about the constituencies. We know where they are. We can then take those estimates and do a bit more statistical modelling, not that different from mrp, and say, 0k, what systematic paths to be . What sort of constituencies are labour votes going down in some constituencies than others . From which, you get an equation, which estimates whether how much we expect the partys for to go up or down. Once youve got an estimate of how much a party positive vote is exhibited go up or down, its not very difficult to then estimate what the level of support would be because you just add or subtract the estimate of change to what happened last time in the constituency, so that then gives you for every constituency an estimate of what the outcome is going to be. But the trick is, taking the exit poll results this time, comparing it with last time and focusing on change rather than on level. Thats that statistical trick in which we engage. In terms of the exit poll during the day, i am imagine you within sort of war zone, war room, with a big whiteboard, or a laptop . We have a range of laptops taking the data, ingesting the data, getting it into the former need to analyse it and running some fairly complex statistical models in order to investigate what is on. But, yes, then to facilitate thought, even creativity, yes, theres a whiteboard in which there might action be a few guesses as to where we might be at given the data so far. And you know the cliche there is about the exit poll. Everyone says, well ive never been asked to contribute to the exit poll. What is the statistical probability of a person being asked in the exit poll . Extraordinary low. Iam not i am not quite sure how many polling stations there are in the country but it is many, many thousands. The exit poll is done in just over 1110, so the odds are, if the exit poll was not happening in your polling station two years ago, it probably is not having this time either. It is all very much based on what is. What is a very small sandwich. We interviewed thousands of thousands of people in those polling stations but, actually, all we really get out of this poll is 140 estimates. Professor sirjohn curtis will be unveiling his exit poll on the bbc Election Programme in ten days and one hour. 0r Election Programme in ten days and one hour. 01 sooner Election Programme in ten days and one hour. 0r sooner if you are watching the repeat of this programme. Anyway, that is all for election cast. You can get the odd cast version from the app was not there is loads of other great content on there. Well be back there on your tvs at the same time tomorrow. I promise this week we will do a round up of what is happening in Northern Ireland because lots of people have been asking for it. Good night. Hello. Mondays mildest weather was found in the far north of the uk. And its not that often we get to say that whereas many areas stayed chilly, just one degree in parts of mid wales, highland scotland saw temperatures climbing all the way to ten degrees because of a feed of south westerly winds from the atlantic, bringing a lot of cloud, bringing some outbreaks of rain, but also bringing some milder air, which stays in place across Northern Areas to start tuesday, while southern areas have something much colder. So nine degrees there in stornoway, compare that with freezing in london. Some spots a few degrees below freezing, and with the potential for some fog. A met Office Yellow warning was issued for the risk of some dense fog patches in an area that includes some key motorways and some major airports as well. And even if it isnt foggy, its likely to be quite grey and murky, with some low cloud in places. So, Poor Visibility could cause some disruption and some of that fog could be quite slow to clear. But generally speaking across england and wales we should see some sunny spells developing. Whereas for Northern Ireland and scotland, there will be a lot of cloud, best of the brightness, i tihnk, across North Eastern scotland, eastern counties in Northern Ireland. Still a south westerly wind here, so ten degrees in stornoway, also 11 down in plymouth, but in many spots, we will have single digit temperatures once again. Now, as we move through tuesday night into the early hours of wednesday, again there is potential for fog across central and eastern and southern parts of england, another chilly night and chilly start to the day here. Further north and west, milder, but with some extra cloud, more of a breeze and some outbreaks of rain thanks to this frontal system here. This will be working its way in from the west as we go through on wednesday and you can see quite a few light lines, quite a few isobars on the chart, there will be strong winds across North Western parts as well. That rain getting to scotland and Northern Ireland, eventually into the far north of england, further south and east some of that fog to start off, which could be slow to clear. Then we see some sunny spells. Again, Single Digits for most but in the far south west, the far north west, well be up at 10 11 degrees. Now, as we head into thursday, were going to see persistent rain piling on in western scotland, perhaps enough to cause some problems, maybe some localised flooding. Its going to be a windy day for many, particularly in the north west. Steady wind speeds you can see there in the arrows, gusts of 50 60 miles an hour. Further south and east, not as windy, and again well see some spells of sunshine. Nine degrees there in london, but many more spots in double digits by this stage. And it will be milder for all of us by friday, 00 29 09,473 2147483051 51 19,451 but still quite windy 2147483051 51 19,451 4294966103 13 29,430 with some rain at times