The New Statesman

The Greens have won a decisive victory in the Gordon and Denton by-election.

Labour sunk to third, behind reform.

Is this the end of the Starma project?

I'm Tom McTague and this is The Daily Politics from The New Statesman

and I'm joined by our political editor Alva Ray who was here with me in our very new studio.

Mm-hmm.

It's my first time in it, I think.

I know, and mine.

Is it?

Yeah.

And it's our first time podcasting together just the two of us.

A brave new world.

So I'm going to just ask you the easiest and the hardest question.

So what does this mean? How do we make sense of this? Oh, so this is, I mean, from a journalistic perspective, this is the best possible result

in terms of just the sheer interestingness. And it's also the worst possible result

for the Labour Party. Because

I think other results

would have had easier narratives.

So if the Greens hadn't won

and reform had come top,

whatever the placement of the Greens and Labour, Labour would have said, you see, you know, voting Greens let's reform in, let's for us through the middle, this is the risk you have to get behind Labor.

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