Mason Boycott-Owen, The Yorkshire Post's Westminster Correspondent, explains the results of the Selby by-election and what it means for Labour and the Conservatives.
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00:00 So it's been a historic night for Labour in Selby today, where the candidate
00:06 Kieran Mayfair overturned a 20,000 Tory majority to win the seat from the
00:10 Conservatives. He's not only won a 4,000 majority of his own to defend at the
00:15 next general election, but he's now the youngest MP in the House of Commons at
00:19 25 years old. This seat should really not be one that the Tories are losing. It's
00:25 always been blue since it was created in 2010, but we've not only seen the biggest
00:31 Labour by-election win since the Second World War, but also a very worrying night
00:35 for Rishi Sunak. North Yorkshire, it's a Tory stronghold and has always kind of
00:41 expected to be even at the next general election. This may put some doubts in
00:44 that. There have been a number of reasons behind the loss. Firstly, the
00:48 circumstances behind the resignation of Nigel Adams, the Tory MP who resigned. He
00:54 in what Tory MP described as throwing his toys out of the pram moment, stepped
01:02 down after he was denied a peerage of part of Boris Johnson's resignation
01:06 honours list. Nigel Adams has been a big Boris Johnson supporter over the years
01:10 and there was a sense that he was going to be rewarded for this in the
01:15 resignation honours list, yet he was kept off it. He was due to step down at the
01:19 next general election anyway, but this seemingly self-motivated nature of his
01:25 recognition has gone down very badly with many residents up in the seat. In
01:30 terms of policy, it's all about the cost of living. There are a lot of homeowners
01:34 and well-off people in North Yorkshire and the crisis of affordability is
01:38 hitting them as well, especially around things such as the cost of mortgages and
01:42 even things such as energy prices. And for the Conservatives, as soon as the
01:46 cost of living crisis starts hitting those who are slightly more
01:49 well-off, perhaps slightly more middle-class, then they're really going
01:53 to be in trouble because that is, at the end of the day, a big part of their voter
01:56 base, particularly in the north. It really can't be overestimated how good a result
02:01 this is for Labour. It was never really a realistic target seat, even when this
02:06 by-election was called, and even at the next general election where it is
02:10 looking a more favourable seat to win because of the boundary changes, it was
02:14 still not high up on their list of priorities. However, this result does give
02:19 a bit of food for thought for Labour in terms of where it goes with its
02:23 Green policies. Labour's unexpected loss or lack of gaining the Tory seat up in
02:29 Uxbridge means that the party needs to look maybe with a bit more of
02:35 a critical eye at the Green policies it has because when it comes down to what
02:40 voters want, if you put the options before them in a cost of living crisis
02:46 especially, is it a question of what you can afford or do you want more
02:51 climate change policies? A lot of people are going to be more concerned about
02:55 their pockets than they are about the planet at this moment in time.