Getting ready for an election: What three by-elections can tell us
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Labour made history by overturning a 20,137 majority to take the North Yorkshire seat of Selby and Ainsty. The Lib Dems took Somerton and Frome in a victory Sir Ed Davey said showed his party was "firmly back in the West Country".
On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by political editor Beth Rigby and elections analyst Dr Hannah Bunting to break down the votes from each of the constituencies, and to look ahead to what this can tell us about the next general election.
Rosie Gillott - podcast producer
Wendy Parker - editor
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Neil Patterson and this is the Sky News Daily and once again we are back in our Westminster studio |
| 0:05.8 | because you may have noticed there's an awful lot of politics around three by-election results |
| 0:11.1 | which could have a very significant effect on how we view the political dynamics and of course |
| 0:16.3 | on that general election whenever it might be. The results themselves, well, if we start by looking to the north, |
| 0:23.0 | Selby and Aynstey, a fantastic night there for Labour, |
| 0:26.6 | taking the seat from the Conservatives with a swing of now on 24%. |
| 0:31.8 | We head down to the south-west, Somerset and Frome. |
| 0:35.0 | Again, another Conservative loss, this time to the Liberal |
| 0:38.2 | Democrats with a swing of 29%. The Conservative share of the vote there, 13 points lower than its |
| 0:45.1 | previous low point all the way back in 1997. But we need to look to one of the London seats, |
| 0:51.1 | Uxbridge and South Reislet, for perhaps the only glimmer of hope for the Conservatives |
| 0:56.0 | and what seems to have been an almost uniformly bad night. That, of course, the seat formerly held by the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. |
| 1:04.3 | Now, it's a Conservative seat, but with the massively reduced majority, just less than 500, in fact, with another significant |
| 1:12.8 | swing to labour, almost 7%. In a moment, we will be chatting with our political editor, Beth |
| 1:18.4 | Rigby and our election analyst, Dr Hannah Bunting, to examine what this all means for the state |
| 1:23.5 | of politics in the United Kingdom. But first, let's hear from the Prime Minister Rishi |
| 1:28.2 | Sunak talking pretty specifically about the one decent result he had last night in Uxbridge and |
| 1:34.4 | South Reisselip. Westminster's been acting like the next election's the done deal. The Labour Party's |
| 1:39.3 | been acting like it's a done deal. The people of Uxbridge just told all of them that it's not. |
| 1:46.1 | As mentioned, we are back in the Westminster studio with our political editor, Beth Ridby, |
| 1:50.4 | and our election analyst, Dr. Hannah Bunting. Lovely to see you both and so much to talk about. |
| 1:55.8 | But can we start, guys, with that which we just had from Rishi Sunak, I mean, Beth, no matter how you spin this, |
... |
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