The Two Matts by-election special: OK, is it clear enough yet Labour?
The Two Matts
The New World
4.2 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Maybe it’s sinking in now? The Matts agree that whatever mitigation there is, Keir Starmer’s Labour government does not have the cut-through with voters to win the next general election. The clock is ticking - just 175 weeks at most until the next election. Does Labour have enough time and the right person to see off the dual threat of a resurgent socialist message from the Greens or the ethno-nationalism of Reform? Enjoy!
Produced by Matt Withers
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Dear listeners, this is just a quick message before we get into another great two mats podcast. |
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| 0:39.8 | Give us your support. Go to the new world.com.uk forward slash two mats. That's the number two, |
| 0:48.4 | M-A-T-T-S. Thank you and enjoy the podcast. |
| 0:54.6 | Here was a victorious and clearly excellent green candidate talking about the things that I think animate a huge proportion of the population. |
| 1:06.0 | Reform picked the wrong candidate. They picked, they went, they reached for the furthest of the, of the |
| 1:11.8 | nutters within their spectrum. The problem for Starmel was that he framed this by-election |
| 1:19.5 | explicitly, I mean absolutely, so they could make it almost as the only party that could meet |
| 1:24.1 | reform is Labour and the voters told them to stuff it. |
| 1:31.9 | Hello and happy Friday morning. |
| 1:33.6 | Happy Friday morning, everyone. |
| 1:37.3 | It's, well, it's a day that feels historic. |
| 1:43.3 | Sometimes these days come and they feel enormous, and then this time next week, they feel less so. |
| 1:45.5 | But I feel like we are climbing or maybe descending a mountain is the better analogy yeah step by step and there is a |
| 1:51.8 | destination that is visible in sight now and it's not a pretty destination for keerstama |
| 1:56.7 | not for keerstama but it's an interesting one isn't it because um know, we're just processing the results of the Gorton and Den by election. And there's a lot there. I mean, one is the green surge is real. You know, there's no doubt that we've discussed this quite a bit, haven't we met on the pod. And, you know, interest in Zach Pallanski and his phenomenon it obviously |
| 2:19.4 | it is now real and something we're going to be talking about a lot yeah so that's one the second is |
| 2:25.1 | that reform can be beaten I mean you know reform would have I think prez Polanski hoped to win this |
| 2:33.7 | seat they didn't yeah they did they win this seat. They didn't. |
| 2:34.9 | They doubled their vote, but they didn't win it. |
... |
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