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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep716: 6. Fragmentation of British Politics Guest: Simon Constable. Simon Constable analyzes the fragmentation within the UK's Labor majority and the emergence of the Green Party. Polling suggests voters are divided among tactical coalitions, making leadership c

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, News, Society & Culture, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

6. Fragmentation of British PoliticsGuest: Simon Constable. Simon Constable analyzes the fragmentation within the UK's Labor majority and the emergence of the Green Party. Polling suggests voters are divided among tactical coalitions, making leadership challenges difficult for Prime Minister Starmer. (6)
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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:29.9

Today. I'm John Bachelor with Simon Constable, my Englishman in the South of France, to help me understand labor, dominant in the parliament, led by Kier Starrmer.

0:56.9

But I read from Lord Ashcroft, who does a very, very helpful poll of the varieties of voters in Great Britain,

1:07.5

that the left, in America, the left, center left, left, left, has divided into so many

1:16.9

factions, I'm unaware how to sort this out. Right now, Lord Ashcroft is interested in how the vote

1:23.4

will go from a coalition of labor. They spell it with a U. That's why you can tell it's the

1:30.3

British Party labor. Lib Dem, I have no idea what that represents, and Green, which is a big party in Germany,

1:39.9

but not very noticeable in Britain until now, would people vote for that coalition?

1:47.8

Simon, I'm totally confused. Are these all labor votes, Lib Dem, Green?

1:53.8

No, they're not. So let's go with Lib Dems. The Lib Dems was basically created in the early 80s, and that was from people who were

2:04.0

thinking that the Labour Party was going too far left wing. And so they set that up. It's not really done a

2:11.6

whole lot. It's been there as a constant thing, but not actually able to win an election for themselves. So then you've got Labor, which is a very

2:22.0

big swath of people. It seems to be the majority of the members of Parliament in the Labour

2:28.7

Party who are in, or MPs. They tend to be a lot more left-wing than most of the people seem to want now.

2:39.0

This is post-election. I think pre-election they were thinking this will be good, but there isn't.

2:43.4

And then you've got the Greens who have some very strange policies for the economy, and they

2:50.7

don't really fit with what labor wants.

2:53.4

And in fact, there's a comment here.

...

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