Coffee House Shots: is Reform unstoppable?
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nigel Farage's 'teal tsunami' comes at the expense of the main parties – turning the two-party consensus on its head. The recriminations for Labour and the Tories have already begun. On the left, a number of MPs have broken cover and urged the government to shift its position on high-salience issues such as winter fuel. On the right, Kemi Badenoch’s leadership is looking increasingly shaky, with Tory MPs and staff warning that a step change is needed. Where do the main parties go from here? And can anyone stop Nigel?
James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and The Spectator’s incoming political editor, Tim Shipman.
This episode was recorded as part of The Spectator’s local elections live broadcast. You can watch the full coverage here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews. |
| 0:06.3 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online, along with a free £20 £10 £10,000 or Waitrose voucher. |
| 0:14.6 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:29.2 | Welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcasts. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm delighted to be joined by Tim Shipman, our incoming political editor and Isabel Harbin, |
| 0:34.1 | the Spectator's assistant editor. |
| 0:35.9 | Thank you both for joining me here today. |
| 0:38.5 | Tim, let's put these elections in some context. Reform doing very well, but how significant are they going to be? I think we overuse the word |
| 0:43.8 | unprecedented and I think we overuse the word historic when we're writing about British politics |
| 0:48.2 | and there's been a lot of crazy, big stuff happening, huge change over the last 10 years, but I think |
| 0:53.3 | these are potentially the most |
| 0:56.1 | significant local elections of my adult lifetime. And I think the future of British politics |
| 1:01.6 | and what happens up to the next general election is being framed in front of our very eyes now. |
| 1:07.5 | You look at reform achieving breakthroughs that UKIP or the Brexit Party never managed. |
| 1:13.1 | They are taking votes from both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, and that's the sort of |
| 1:17.0 | the big picture issue. The two main parties are no longer totally dominant in British politics. |
| 1:22.6 | You've got a new kid on the block that not only is a reciprocal, a receptacle, rather, for protest votes, |
| 1:30.3 | but he's actually taking councils. |
| 1:32.2 | They've already got two merities, they've got three councils, and the challenge for Nigel Farage |
| 1:36.1 | is not just to say, you hate these big parties, they've let you down for decades. |
| 1:41.4 | He now needs to be able to say in a couple of years' time, we actually |
| 1:44.6 | fixed stuff, we did stuff, and look at Lincolnshire, look at Staffordshire, look where we've |
... |
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