Tories reel from by-election blows
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Conservatives suffer a double blow, losing two safe seats to Labour, amid growing signs that Rishi Sunak’s party is losing votes to the populist Reform UK party. The FT’s Lucy Fisher is joined by political editor George Parker and the FT’s Rafe Uddin to discuss the by-election results in detail, along with elections guru Professor Sir John Curtice. Plus, Lucy sits down with the FT’s foreign editor Alec Russell in a week when foreign secretary David Cameron faced sharp criticism from right-wing US politicians for intervening in the row in Congress over aid for Ukraine.
Free links:
Tories reel as Labour wins two by-elections and Reform UK gains more than 10% of the vote
Reform UK voter support highlights threat to Rishi Sunak’s right flank
Keir Starmer and big business, a love story
UK’s ‘technical’ recession is politically toxic for Rishi Sunak
Keir Starmer under growing pressure to overhaul vetting of potential Labour MPs
Why Nato members are sounding the alarm on Russia’s aggressive posture
Sketchy Politics: the rules of the electoral race
Follow Lucy @LOS_Fisher, George @GeorgeWParker, Rafe @rafeuddin
Clip: Sky News
Sign up here for 30 free days of Stephen Bush's award-winning Inside Politics newsletter.
Presented by Lucy Fisher. Produced by Audrey Tinline. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Original music and audio mix by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | What doleers and online cheesemongers? Anyone? No, not earrings made of e-dam? |
| 0:10.7 | No, not a house made of cheddar. |
| 0:14.0 | Come on people, it's workspace. |
| 0:18.0 | With 4,000 of London's most original businesses already calling workspace home, |
| 0:22.0 | whatever it is you do, there's a space for you here. |
| 0:26.0 | It all happens at workspace, search workspace.co.uk. What next for the Tories after two bruising by-elections this week? |
| 0:39.0 | I'm Lucy Fisher and this is political fix from the Financial Times. |
| 0:42.6 | Coming up, Elections Guru and top political pollster Professor Sir John Curtis |
| 0:49.8 | is dropping in to crunch the numbers on this week's two by-elections. |
| 0:53.0 | And we'll look at why Foreign Secretary David Cameron |
| 0:56.0 | has annoyed some right-wing US Congress members this week. |
| 0:59.0 | And in the studio with me are my F.T. colleagues George Parker. |
| 1:02.0 | Hello George. Hi there, Lucy. And the F.T. colleagues George. Hello George. |
| 1:03.2 | Hi there, Lucy. |
| 1:04.2 | And the FT's Rafe Budden. |
| 1:05.4 | Hi Rafe. |
| 1:06.3 | Hi Rafe. |
| 1:09.5 | What a week! |
| 1:11.3 | Kistarma has suffered one of the toughest periods of his leadership, |
| 1:14.4 | only to end this week with a stunning double-by-election win. |
| 1:17.6 | The headline figures certainly look impressive, particularly in Wellingborough, |
| 1:21.6 | where a colossal 28.5% swing to labour was recorded, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Financial Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Financial Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.