Mark Harbor, this morning, there is just one conservative Metro mayor in England. There are 10 of fewer conservative police and crime commissioners, 500 fewer councilors. Can you understand that many of those in your party who lost their seats will be thinking this morning, This wasn't me. This was Rishi Sunak's fault. It was his failure.

Well, look, it's always incredibly disappointing when you lose hardworking councilors, police and crime commissioners, and fantastic mayors like Andy Street, who I've worked very closely with, who was doing a fantastic job. It was a testament to him, I think, that that result was so close, 1,500 votes out of millions cast. I can understand the people being disappointed about that. But I think the key thing that people need to do now is absolutely get behind the Prime Minister, focus on the things the government is, focus on delivering that are the British people's priorities around the economy, dealing with illegal migration, coalition and get out there and take that fight to the country ahead of the general election.

Well, why would they do that when they think, and we heard this in interview after interview and off the record briefings and so on, when they feel that they have worked hard, they've done their best, but they've been let down by the Prime Minister's, their various accusations, vacillations, failure of policy, lack of clarity, but that his unpopular, which is demonstrated in polls, is what dragged them down.

Well, look, let me pick that point up about the polls. I mean, you'll know because it's guys' analysis, Rawlings and Thresh are country's leading experts We have forecast that on the results this week, you'd have a hung parliament. That means Keir Starmer's not on course to win a majority. That's before an election campaign where Labour's lack of policy would come under scrutiny. What that shows for me is very clear. The polls are not correct. There's everything to fight for, and the conservative Party, under the Prime Minister's leadership, is absolutely up for that fight.

Well, look, we always want to be helpful here at sky, but this is grabbing at straws a bit, isn't it? You actually took a whacking.

No, I was very clear. Look, these were disappointing results, but the point is, what they demonstrate from that scenario is that Labour's not on course for that majority. Gerresheimer hasn't sealed the deal with the public. That means there's a fight to be had. The Prime Minister is up for that fight. I'm up for that fight. I know the Conservatives Party is up for it. We have to focus on delivering on people's priorities. That's what the Prime Minister is doing. Then we have to get out there and sell that message and then set out what we do after an election with a conservative victory.

Okay, well, let's talk about the weapons that you're going to bring to that fight. Andy Street was pretty clear to Tori colleagues last night on Sky News about what he What do you think you need to do now? Stop talking about leadership. Move to the center. Focus on delivery. Here's what he said to my colleague Sophie Ridge.

Are you worried about the conservative Party drifting to the right, over emphasizing the threat from reform and ignoring other voters.

I would definitely not advise that drift. The Sephology here is really very straightforward, isn't it? This is the youngest, most diverse, one of the most urban places in Britain, and we've done, many would say, extremely well over a consistent period. And the local council results across many of our councils here in the West Midlands yesterday were also extremely encouraging. So the message is clear. Winning from that center-ground is what happens.

Would you endorse that message?

Andy was absolutely right about the campaign that he's run. What he's talking about there is what I just said. He's talking about you focus on the priorities of the British people. That's what you do.

He said a little bit more than that. He said, Don't be seduced by those who You, for example, will be saying this morning, You didn't fight this like real Conservatives. You need to be more conservative, more tax cuts, move to the right, emphasize issues like immigration and so on and so forth. He's saying, Don't do that.

We're going to stick to focus you on the priorities that the Prime Minister set out, which are the government's priorities, the Prime Minister's priorities, but they're also the priorities of the British people about dealing with the economy, continuing to get inflation down. We've We've done a lot of work there, got it down to just under 4%, but there's still more work to do. We've got to get down to the Bank of England's target so we can see interest rates falling, which are important for working families who have mortgages to pay. We've made a clear commitment on stopping the boat. We've now got the Rwanda legislation through, opposed, I should say, every step by the Labor Party, who've, of course, set out that if they were to win, they wouldn't try and remove any of those people from the country that are here. They'd effectively have an amnesty for illegal migrants. That's not the British People's priorities. We're going to keep focusing on those, setting those out as we move towards that general election.

I'm wondering whether you've really got to grips with the scale of this. On Thursday, you won fewer council seats than Labor, and more importantly, you won fewer council seats than the liberal Democrats. I know that these are local elections, so you can't translate completely, but is it morally right that what is now the third most popular party is squatting in Downing Street?

No, I don't accept that analysis at all. Look, local elections- The liberal Democrats beat you. No, they didn't. It depended on the... If you look at the national equivalent vote share, the votes across the country, that's not correct. It just happens to be whatever councils were up for election. Look, local elections are always difficult for a governing party. I've been in politics for a long time. That's almost always true. The comparison for this set of elections, by the way, was, of course, very unusual. 2021, we had the vaccine bounce. I think independent experts acknowledge that that was a very high water mile. That was our best set of local elections since 2008. Compared to that, it was always going to be very, very difficult. That's what we saw. But we are very focused on the fight to come. As I said, we're going to keep focusing on the public's priorities. What these results show is that the result of the next election is not predetermined. There's everything to fight for. I know the conservative Party, under the Prime Minister's leadership, is absolutely up for that fight.

Yeah, but some very well-informed people think that your biggest problem is the public is no longer listening to you. Let me put the words of a fellow television presenter who's been at this a long time to you. He said, I think the public's already made their mind up. I think Rishi Sunak could fly over the UK tonight in a helicopter and drop a million pounds down every chimney, and they'd still vote him out. Now, as well as being a television presenter, Lee Anderson was the Deputy Chairman of your party. I imagine he knows what he's talking about. Hasn't he got the mood of the nation right?

Well, look, he's now in an opposition political party. And by the way, he's in a party now, reform, where, frankly, it's very clear from the results that any conservative who chooses to vote for reform just gets more labor people elected. So a vote for reform is a vote for a labor government, effectively, something to do the opposite of what most of those people want to see. But no, I don't think he's right at all. And I don't think people have stopped listening listening, actually. The evidence, if you take Ben Houchan's win, is that somebody who delivers- You're on one success in the last three days. But it's important. It's about someone who delivered, who in an area of the country, by the way, labor were really hoping to win that. They threw everything at it, Keir Starmer and the Shadow cabinet were there a lot, and they didn't. We had a very close race in the West Midlands, which given where the national opinion polls is a credit to Andy Street, actually. I think people are listening. The challenge for the rest the year is to continue getting that message out there.

You've pinned pretty much everything on Rwanda, on the Rwanda scheme. That's your flagship thing. You got the legislation through, tick. Prime Minister told us last week that the flights were taking off before summer, tick-ish. But his promise is not start the flights, it's stop the boats. This week, we saw the highest figure for channel Crossing in small boat ever. It's all going in the wrong direction for you.

No, I don't accept that. Look, that's a fact. The legislation took longer to get on the statute book than we would have liked. It was opposed by Labor and liberal Democrats. House of Laws.

They're not in to government.

You're in government. No, but you do have to get legislation through Parliament, and we don't have a majority of the House of Laws. But we've got the legislation on the statute book. The whole point of this legislation is to have a deterrent to break the business model of those organized criminal gangs who traffic people across the channel. And once we get flights going and we have a steady rhythm of flights, that will send a very clear deterrent message. And we've already seen from what the Irish government have said, that that deterrent effect is starting to work. We saw over the last year, so not one day's figures, we saw the number of people coming to Britain on those boats fall by a third. That was at a time when the number of people coming into the EU illegally was going up. So we've had some success, but I absolutely accept we've got more to do.

It is a bit of a cheek to claim people going to Ireland as the success of your policy.

Well, no, I'm just setting up what the Irish government said. They've said that people are going to the Irish Republic, other parts of the EU, because they can see that they don't want to be deported to Rwanda. That is exactly what we're hoping to achieve.

To be clear, you're not going to do a deal with the Irish, are you, for a return?

Well, we've made it quite clear we're not going to accept returns back from the EU via Ireland, where the EU won't let us send people back to the EU view to France. They've made it quite clear they won't do that, and our view remains very clear.

All right, last question. Is it really not time to put everybody out of their misery and have a general election? I mean, you're stringing it out. Great work for people like me, but the country is out there saying, Isn't it time that we settled this?

Well, no, look, the Prime Minister said right from the beginning of this year that his working assumption was the election would be in the second half of this year. That remains the case. I'll tell you why.

He wouldn't, by the way, say with me last week whether July was in second part of the year, which I think is a bit... That's quite a tricky thing, isn't it?

He was very clear. But look, it's for this reason, as I said. He is focused on the British people's priorities and about delivering lower inflation, stopping the boats, focusing on getting NHS waiting lists down. We've made a lot of progress, but I absolutely accept there's more to do on that, and he wants to continue delivering on those priorities before we go to the country.

Mark Harbath, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.