The New Statesman

Wittell, Lindsay, Geoffrey, Plight Cymory, the Party of Wales, 15961

This is a special edition of the New Station podcast being recorded live here in Capelli, South Wales,

for the by-election here in the South Wales seat, which has for the first time voted for

Applied Cymoury to represent its constituents in the Welsh Senate. I'm Harry Clark-Azidio and I'm joined by my colleague

Ben Walker. Ben, it's been a very long and hectic few days. How are you holding up? Not. No, we're not.

I'm looking forward to sleep after this. Likewise. This is a seismic result. It is a seismic result.

This is, you know, it's a by-election for a

senate seat that is not going to exist in six months time because the Senate is moving towards

full proportional representation in which 10% of votes equals 10% of seats. This is the last,

probably, Senif contest under first-pass-the-post, and my goodness me, the people of Kaffirri

have spoken in a certain way that

is just not normal. Turnout is up from 40-something percent to 50 percent and the swing, you

know you're talking a Labour seat of a hundred something years, a Labor vote falling not to

second, not in reasonable composition, not in close proximity, but to a distant, distant third, at 11%.

A ridiculous fall, you know, Plyde are up 19 points, they're at 47%.

And Reform, who models and some polls predicted they would gain,

they come a pretty distant second on 36%.

So did the scale of the plied win over reform surprise you? Because it was framed as being neck and neck, like it was too close to cool in the buildup to this. And it was according to the polls, it was according to, to be honest with you, my Britain predicts model said it would be close. And the fact it wasn't, tells you something's gone on. So what's happened here, I suppose, the fact turnout has gone on. The fact we've had an abnormal level of turnout in an abnormal by-election suggests, I think, that a different kind of people are turning out to what you normally assume. So in by-elections, you always assume it's the engage. You always assume it's the old Reliables. Well, no, it's more than that. Something else has

gone on. We've had people texting to us tell us that, you know, people, my friends who

never ever engage in politics, they're coming out now, they're coming out for pride. And the one thing,

the current theme of that campaign, of this move, this increase in turnout is, I want to stop reform.

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