The Scotsman Bulletin Friday October 06 2023 #Rutherglen

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin

00:10 for Friday the 6th of October.

00:13 My name's Dale Miller, I'm head of news at the Scotsman

00:15 and I'm joined by our Westminster correspondent,

00:17 Alexander Brown, fresh back from Tory conference.

00:21 Looking forward to Labour this weekend, Alex.

00:24 - I don't know if I'm fresh,

00:24 but I am back and looking forward to Labour.

00:27 - That is good to hear.

00:29 Let's talk about the front page of the Scotsman very quickly.

00:32 The Dunhill Lynx is happening up here in Scotland

00:35 and Catherine Azita Jones was out on the course.

00:39 We also had our front page splash on a cycling event.

00:44 This is the World Championships and it was revealed

00:47 that it has gone eight mil over budget.

00:51 Culture Secretary, Angus Robertson,

00:53 put this down to inflation effectively,

00:57 but it sparked a fair bit of anger

00:58 because the admission comes as 6.6 million

01:02 in funding for Creative Scotland.

01:05 That was pulled and then reinstated

01:07 and then pulled again last week.

01:11 That decision was taken.

01:12 You can clearly put two and two together

01:15 and assume they were connected.

01:17 So a lot of people speaking out about that situation

01:21 and how they want to see more funding for the arts

01:24 and just calling on the Scottish government

01:26 to be able to manage budgets effectively.

01:29 We need to move pretty quickly though, Alex,

01:31 to the by-election, Rudley Glen and Hamilton West

01:35 that felt bigger than Ben Hur in terms of the buildup.

01:38 The buildup has been taking a long time,

01:40 but we've got the result now.

01:41 Was it what we expected?

01:44 - Yeah, and I think it also, we expected Labour to win.

01:48 We think the scale of it was perhaps a surprise.

01:51 I think that speaks volumes

01:52 by the party's expectation management.

01:55 After Uxbridge and South Royce slipped

01:56 where maybe they let people get ahead of themselves

01:59 and start talking about how it would be,

02:01 Labour are gonna win all three.

02:03 It's gonna be a disaster for the prime minister.

02:06 The briefing was that they would win,

02:07 but it would maybe be close.

02:08 This was not close.

02:09 This was not a chance that they might not have taken it.

02:12 This was a sweeping, resounding win

02:15 that will change the mood for the Labour Party in Scotland

02:17 and change, and it's already changed

02:19 what they think is possible north of the border.

02:23 - Alex, I mean, it is a seat that had switched hands,

02:26 Labour, SMP, obviously it's going back to Labour again.

02:30 There are, it's known that there are

02:32 traditional Labour voters in there.

02:35 The turnout was low.

02:36 Does that take any shine off what Labour achieved?

02:39 - That's how it will try to be spun by the SMP,

02:42 but turnout by elections is always low.

02:45 Nobody particularly likes going to vote,

02:47 aside from those of us silly enough

02:48 to be involved in this thing, thing of ours for a living.

02:51 So to an extent, yes, it's not gonna be representative.

02:54 There is not going to be a 20% swing to the Labour Party

02:57 at the next general election,

02:59 but generally those things are not that cut down that much

03:03 at a wider election.

03:04 So it's a fantastic result for Labour,

03:06 and their vote share was equivalent to what it was in 2010

03:09 when the Labour Party was a much bigger force,

03:11 and by that, I mean more than one in Scotland.

03:14 So they are celebrating, the mood is joyous,

03:16 and they're already talking about just how well

03:18 they can do in Scotland at the next general election.

03:21 - Weather could have obviously played a factor

03:23 in the turnout yesterday as well.

03:25 It was quite miserable.

03:26 You could see that from all the SMP umbrellas

03:30 that were out in Rutherglen on the day.

03:32 Alex, I want to talk about all three parties

03:35 going forward there.

03:36 Can you run through from Labour, SMP and Tories?

03:39 The Tories had to give back their donation money

03:41 that their turnout was, sorry, their vote count was so low.

03:46 So there are implications for each of the three parties.

03:50 - Yeah, I mean, I don't think the Scottish Tories

03:52 ever really expected to have any chance

03:54 of winning this whatsoever.

03:56 It's a bit unfortunate he's lost his deposit,

03:58 given that the language from Tory conference this week

04:01 was, oh, the polling Scottish Tories is better.

04:04 We're going to hold seats,

04:05 maybe put them on at the next general election.

04:07 But I think it was, I went to this Scottish

04:09 and Unionist night at Tory conference,

04:11 and when the prime minister was looking to say,

04:13 you know, thanks to Alistair Jack,

04:14 and then thank you to his candidate,

04:16 he hadn't been placed well enough for him to find him.

04:18 So it wasn't like he was being given ample billing

04:21 at such a big event.

04:22 He was just a man who was there.

04:23 So it's a blow for the Tories, but to be expected.

04:26 For the SMP, I think this is pretty damaging.

04:29 I think this is a seismic blow.

04:30 I think they have to completely reassess the whole approach.

04:34 This campaign was built on saying,

04:35 say no to the pro-Brexit and anti-austerity candidate,

04:40 ignoring the fact that the Labour candidate

04:43 is a charity worker and a teacher.

04:46 You know, neither of the things

04:47 that you'd associate with austerity.

04:49 The language this morning from David Linden,

04:51 a senior SMP MP, saying, oh, the reason it was so close

04:55 is because people just think that Labour and the Tories,

04:57 you know, you can't get a cigarette paper

04:59 between those two at the moment, which is just farcical.

05:02 So it's really difficult for the SMP.

05:04 They have to completely reassess, I think,

05:06 the way that they attack the Labour Party,

05:08 which has been such a key cornerstone

05:10 of Stephen Flynn's leadership.

05:12 For the Labour Party, this is just, I mean, it's all good.

05:15 The polling is fantastic.

05:17 Already mood had been beginning to change.

05:19 I recall speaking with senior Labour figures a year,

05:22 even two years ago, thinking, you know,

05:24 we might double our seat.

05:26 It was a running joke.

05:27 They would double their seat in Scotland and add one.

05:30 They've already done that without a general election.

05:32 It's another by-election for the Labour Party.

05:34 There has been no poll bounce for the Conservatives

05:37 nationally after Tory conference,

05:39 despite the fact that the Prime Minister

05:40 announced a series of measures

05:41 that he'd already announced, which he's now cancelled.

05:44 So I think this is a fantastic result for the Labour Party.

05:47 And they now just have to find a way to build on it

05:49 and make enough policy to bring over more SMP voters,

05:52 not just where they already had those heartland supporters.

05:56 But I think it's worth mentioning

05:57 where those votes came from,

05:59 a lot of the different wards within the constituency

06:02 weren't areas where Labour do traditionally well.

06:04 The areas where you'd expect Labour to do well, they did,

06:07 that which is never a given in Scotland.

06:09 And the areas they didn't, they piled on votes.

06:11 So I think it's a really exciting time for Labour,

06:14 but obviously given how precarious the situation

06:16 has been in Scotland, they won't get too comfortable.

06:20 - Look, you can read all the latest

06:21 on the by-election fallout.

06:23 It's clearly dominating the top

06:25 of the Scotsman website currently.

06:27 Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

06:30 Go and buy a copy of the Scotsman tomorrow.

06:31 You'll have all the latest about how the prospects look

06:35 for both the SMP and Labour out the back of this election.

06:39 Thanks for joining us.

06:42 (upbeat music)

06:44 (upbeat music)

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