Caerphilly by-election: 'a tale of two faces'
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the face of it, the Caerphilly by-election result is a disaster, a drubbing and a humiliation for Keir Starmer’s Labour party. A once secure bastion of the Welsh Labour heartlands fell without a squeak from the governing party. Their vote collapsed to a miserable 11 per cent, while Plaid Cymru won with 47 per cent and Reform surged to second place with 36 per cent. The result suggests Labour is on course to surrender a boatload of seats at the 2029 general election, both to Reform and to whatever protest party is best suited to beat the government around the head – be it Plaid, the Greens, the Corbynites, the Islamist independents or the SNP. But is there good news for the PM beyond the headlines?
Lucy Dunn speaks to Tim Shipman and James Heale.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:43.6 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:46.8 | I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joins by James Heel and Tim Shipman. |
| 0:50.4 | The results of a big Welsh by-election came in early this morning and Nationals Party, Plied Cunary, stormed to victory in Cuffilly. James, was this result expected? It was expected that Labour was always going to lose. And I enjoyed some sanguine briefing last night suggesting that Welsh Labour think they've lost this. It was like, yes, that's very obvious. But I don't think two things, it was not necessarily sure that Plied would win it, and certainly not win it by the margin they have done. |
| 1:11.2 | Plive won this 47.4% to the vote, reform 36%, Labor on just 11%. |
| 1:16.9 | And so that is a big 11 point margin. |
| 1:19.8 | Top line being, is this the death of the Welsh Labour Party? |
| 1:23.0 | 100 years, they've held this seat. |
| 1:24.3 | For 100 years, they've finished top in every Welsh devolved and general |
| 1:27.5 | election. But the second point is that the obvious disappointment of Reform UK, they were very |
| 1:33.6 | bullish in different bits of this campaign. Clearly, of course, they didn't have a candidate the last |
| 1:37.8 | time this was contested in 2021 at the devolved election. But I think there was a lack of expectation |
| 1:42.9 | management. And, you know, I think |
| 1:45.5 | most people, the betting markets certainly, and you talk to them, they were cautious optimistic on an |
| 1:50.3 | eye fedge. And actually talking to all parties last night at the count, they thought it was too close to |
| 1:54.2 | call. So to get quite a significant margin is interesting. And I think potentially suggest tactical |
| 1:59.2 | voting could be a big factor in the future. |
... |
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