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Coffee House Shots

What can we learn from the Uxbridge by-election result?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Daily News, Politics

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The dust has settled after yesterday's by-election results. Having narrowly avoided a triple by-election defeat there seems to be little sign of Conservative party in-fighting, despite their poor showing. There is however a war of words brewing between the London Labour Party and Kier Starmer who blames Sadiq Khan's Ulez plan for the failure to snatch Uxbridge and South Ruislip. What lessons will each party take from the by-elections into next year's general election? 
 
James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and pollster James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:06.1

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0:11.7

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0:15.4

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0:22.5

Hello and welcome to the special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots.

0:25.7

Joining me to discuss the bi-elections are Polster James Johnson from JLP Partners

0:30.2

and the spectators political editor Katie Balls.

0:32.4

Now Katie, what's the reaction in Westminster to the results last night?

0:36.0

I think it's quite a mixed bag if you look at the results in the sense that

0:40.2

the Tories have not done well. If you look at the fact they've lost salvy,

0:44.0

formally seen as Tories save seat, majority over £20,000 to Labour,

0:49.1

Summating and Freedom, they've also lost to the Lib Dems. I think that was more

0:52.7

expected when it was first called because we know the Lib Dems

0:55.7

had done successfully well in recent bi-elections over the past couple of years.

1:00.0

You put the two together and it looks as though the Tories are in course to lose power at

1:03.5

the next election, should nothing change. But then I think a small ray of light and perhaps

1:08.8

it's giving false assurances, but certainly in terms of how Rishi Tuneck handles today

1:15.6

in the coming weeks, there was a ray of light and the fact they kept hold of Oxbridge

1:20.8

and therefore you had a situation whereby only by a small amount, about 500 votes in it,

1:26.1

just under, which allowed the Tories to keep it and prevent Labour from taking it.

1:30.9

But that has just disrupted, I think, quite a better narrative. So yes, Tories doing badly,

1:36.7

but it's not that triple bi-election loss, which I think was widely predicted,

...

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