The Scotsman Bulletin Friday, July 21 2023
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00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Friday. I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy
00:05 Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown
00:10 to reflect on the big by-election results. Hi Alex.
00:14 Good morning.
00:15 Let's have a look first before we get to that at the front page. We splashed today on a
00:22 story in the courts in Scotland. The Law Society of Scotland raised serious concerns over a
00:29 staffing problem which are delaying trials and disrupting cases. The problem is with
00:38 the number of escort officers they have to bring prisoners to court. Much more on that
00:47 in today's paper. But Alex, big news overnight is what I want to turn to first. Three by-elections.
00:57 Police lost two of them, only narrowly held onto Boris Johnson's former seats. Give us
01:05 your initial analysis.
01:08 So I think this is a fantastic night for the Liberal Democrats. It's a quite good night
01:15 for the Labour Party and it's a disaster for the Tory Party. The Tory Party will try to
01:20 frame this by saying the fact they won in Uxbridge shows that they can win the next
01:25 election and that there are issues they can campaign on. But I think it's really interesting
01:29 to look at this not just in isolation but more across the three. There's a 21 point
01:35 swing from the Conservatives to the other parties. The Lib Dems overturned a 20-something
01:40 thousand majority. The majority they overturned in Selby is the biggest non-wartime majority
01:47 by-election that's ever been overturned. These are massive, massive results. And for the
01:53 Labour Party, probably Ulez has hurt them. When I was walking around the constituency
01:59 in Uxbridge yesterday, people were saying maybe they didn't like the Tories but the
02:04 idea they would have to pay £12.50 a day to use their car, obviously that's going to
02:09 hit working people.
02:12 Explain a little bit what Ulez is because it's possibly new to a lot of our audience
02:19 in Scotland.
02:20 So Ulez is essentially a bonus, like an environmental tax. If you have a certain type of car and
02:26 you drive in a certain zone, you have to pay £12.50 for the privilege. So it's aimed at
02:31 improving air quality but constituents in Uxbridge might say that they've already got
02:36 good air quality and they shouldn't have to pay more for having cars that they've already
02:41 got. You can make the argument, as Conservatives did, that it's going after working people.
02:48 Now that was the real issue. They turned it into a referendum on that issue in the seat.
02:55 But it's worth remembering that's a Sadiq Khan policy, not one shared by the Labour candidate
03:00 or by the Labour Party more generally. So people will try and look into the Uxbridge
03:06 and go, this is a route for the Prime Minister. But I don't think it's representative. It's
03:09 a Greater London seat that's being impacted by a specifically London issue and winning
03:14 a seat in Selby where Labour do have a bit of a presence but haven't for a long time
03:20 is far more significant, as are the Liberal Democrats winning in Somerton and Frome, seats
03:25 where the Lib Dems do well in the South West. That's when you get a Labour government.
03:33 Even though the Tories held on to Uxbridge, like you say, we still saw a huge swing there.
03:39 Yeah, I mean, there was a majority, the majority of 7,000 for Boris Johnson was cut to 495,
03:46 which is such a huge swing towards Labour. Labour don't need to win that seat now. Even
03:53 in the peak Tony Blair years, and I mean, Steve Reid, the Shadow Justice Secretary said
03:56 this to me yesterday, which is turning out to be quite prescient. Even in the Tony Blair
04:00 era, that seat was, I'm about to sneeze, even in the Tony Blair era, that seat was not held
04:06 by the Labour Party. It's not one they expect to win to be in government. It's just a bonus.
04:11 Sorry.
04:12 So, looking ahead to what's next, do you expect a reaction from Rishi Sunak? What can he do?
04:26 Could we be seeing a cabinet reshuffle coming up?
04:29 I think we'll probably see a reshuffle, though obviously it's now the parliamentary recess,
04:32 so that'll be in the next few weeks. When we come back after recess, then people will
04:37 be moved around, probably some allies into some other seats and some other roles that
04:42 maybe we hadn't expected. And, you know, Michael Gove has always, you know, the joke has been
04:48 in Whitehall that he runs the government. Could he get a promotion? Could Jeremy Hunt,
04:52 the Chancellor, be out? These are the real concerns among their allies. And Kemi Badenoch,
04:58 once considered the future of the party, is no longer anywhere near as popular as she
05:03 once was, but is it better to have her in the tent than without? There aren't any easy
05:08 answers. There is no easy route to remaining Prime Minister after the next election for
05:13 Rishi Sunak. And I don't think anything to reshuffle will save that or change it.
05:18 No, indeed. And he could have at least one more by-election coming, because Nadhim Darroch
05:26 still hasn't stood down.
05:27 Yeah, I mean, they're coming whenever she decides to. Having said, I'm going to quit
05:31 with the media effect. Nadhim Darroch has still not stood down. The Liberal Democrats
05:36 are really pushing in that seat. They've been campaigning relentlessly, even though currently
05:40 there is no vacancy. And she said she'll be doing it, you know, before Tory conference
05:45 or perhaps even during it. So whatever you think of Nadhim Darroch, you do have to admire
05:50 her commitment to general drama and making sure whatever she's doing, we're all watching
05:55 it, even if we are laughing.
05:57 Good. Interesting times ahead. Thanks very much for that, Alex. We'll have a full analysis
06:03 and updates throughout the day at Scotsman.com. If you are on the site, please do subscribe
06:08 if you can, and you will not miss a thing. And if you're out and about today, do pick
06:12 up a copy of the paper from me and from Alex. Bye for now.
06:15 Bye.
06:16 Bye.
06:16 Bye.
06:17 Bye.
06:17 Bye.