Should Labour sack Starmer to beat Reform?
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Caerphilly by-election proves Reform can be beaten. But is Keir Starmer the man to do it?
Last week voters in Caerphilly confounded pundits by electing their first Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd (MS). Reform UK had expected to be the party to overturn Labour's 100 year dominance in the Welsh seat - but they were wrong.
The loss was a disaster for Labour, but came with a glimmer of hope: Reform UK can be beaten.
Now the party needs to ask whether their current leader, Keir Starmer, is the man to do it.
Back in Westminster, Lucy Powell has been elected deputy leader of the Labour Party - and she's not the winner Keir Starmer had hoped for.
In this episode, Harry Clarke-Eziddio and George Eaton join Anoosh Chakelian to analyse what the Caerphilly loss and the new deputy leader mean for the future of the Labour Party.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.0 | Last week, the bookies backed reform to win the Kaffili by-election. |
| 0:09.0 | They were wrong. |
| 0:10.0 | Voters came out in their droves to elect Welsh Nationalist Party, |
| 0:14.0 | plied Khumry. |
| 0:15.0 | Still a crushing result for Labour, but also a glimmer of hope. |
| 0:19.0 | Reform is beatable. But is Kirstama the man for the job. |
| 0:23.5 | I'm Anusha Kellean and this is the New Statesman podcast. And joining me today are Harry Clark, |
| 0:28.2 | Izidio and George Eaton. Hello. Hello. Hi. Harry, you went to Kaffili last week to cover this |
| 0:33.2 | by-election. Was the result seen as a blow to reform? Because they still came a strong second. |
| 0:39.4 | Yeah, I think you do have to contextualise it. Caffili is a place that for over a century had only |
| 0:45.4 | chose Labour at the ballot box. But it did seem that there was a lot of momentum behind the campaign, |
| 0:50.0 | not least in the media about what it could mean. But it was definitely a bit of a blow. |
| 0:55.6 | Nigel Farage came up to the constituency on the get out of the vote day, polling day. |
| 1:00.1 | And he'd been there before. |
| 1:02.2 | Before as well. |
| 1:03.2 | And was really, really adding to the cause. |
| 1:05.6 | And there was in the town this sort of excitement. |
| 1:08.5 | And that was reflected in the turnout was 50.4% compared to, I think, |
| 1:13.4 | around 41 at the 2021 Senate of election. But it was definitely a blow. Clare Powell didn't take it |
| 1:20.2 | particularly well. That's the reform candidate, exactly, and didn't take too kindly to my questioning. |
| 1:26.4 | But in terms of plied, they definitely did decimate the Labour vote share, |
... |
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