Switching Sides in Britain

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To pull off its landslide victory in last week’s election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party flipped dozens of districts in the “red wall” of British politics — a gritty stronghold of coal and factory towns that had supported the Labour Party for decades. Our correspondent traveled across the United Kingdom to understand what the region’s political realignment may foretell about the future of the country. Guest: Patrick Kingsley, an international correspondent for The New York Times, who spoke with constituents in Shirebrook, England. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:“Votes for the pro-Brexit Conservatives had 10 times the effective power of votes for the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats.” Our columnist writes that this is thanks to the electoral system used in Britain and the United States.On a road trip from London to Glasgow, our correspondent found a country longing for a past that may be impossible to revive.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp Therapy Online.
0:04.7	When you're at your best, you can do great things, but you can't be at the top of your
0:09.2	game all the time.
0:10.8	Working with a therapist can get you closer to the best version of you.
0:14.9	BetterHelp can provide access to over a thousand mental health professionals with a wide
0:19.0	variety of expertise.
0:21.0	Get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash daily pod.
0:25.6	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro.
0:32.6	This is the Daily.
0:39.6	Today, to pull off its landslide victory in last week's election, Morris Johnson's conservative
0:47.6	party flipped dozens of districts long held by the labor party.
0:53.6	Patrick Kingsley, on what that historic realignment looked like in one small town.
1:00.6	It's Tuesday, December 17th.
1:09.6	Patrick, tell us about this road trip that you took back in November.
1:22.6	In the run-up to the British General Election, I went on a 900-mile drive starting off
1:29.1	in London, but really aiming to get out of London, trying to get a sense of what people
1:35.3	outside the capital were thinking about the election, and in particular thinking about Brexit.
1:43.9	There was one place that I went to that really I felt a vote to a lot of these themes.
1:48.9	I'm just arriving in Dangle Shirebrook in constituency called Bolsova.
1:55.9	It's not a very important place on the face of things.
2:01.9	It's a place of 10,000 residents, perhaps living in 20 or 30 streets of Red Brick, one story
2:09.5	houses.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.