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What can the Tories do to defeat Reform? | LBC
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Jun 8, 2025
Labour recorded a shock victory in the Holyrood by-election, seizing the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse seat from the SNP. The win comes despite Scotland's First Minister John Swinney having declared the contest to be a two-horse race between the SNP and Nigel Farage's Reform. Reform UK sources expected the party to come third in the by-election and both Labour and the SNP feared a possible surge for the seat from Nigel Farage's group. With the possibility of Reform becoming the second largest party at the next general election, what can the Conservatives do to pull back voters? Former adviser to Keir Starmer Peter Hyman and top pollster Sir John Curtice join Matt Frei to discuss the fallout from the recent by-elections. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #mattfrei #johncurtice #polling #pollster #politics #election #localelections #conservatives #tories #labour #reform #nigelfarage #keirstarmer #kemibadenoch #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
View Video Transcript
0:00
But let's start closer to home with a redrawing of our political map
0:04
The Hamilton by-election in Scotland, I'm using the abbreviated name, delighted Labour
0:08
They managed to snatch a victory from the SNP and they beat reform, contrary to many expectations
0:15
The fact that the latter is even a headline is in itself astonishing
0:20
Reform came from literally nowhere to get 26% of the vote, kicking the Tories, remember them, into fourth place at a mere 6%
0:30
We'll speak to Ian Dale later this hour about what this means for the party once described as the most awesome electoral machine in human history
0:37
But let's focus on Labour. They've had a tough time, really, since being elected almost a year ago
0:41
in getting any traction with the voters and convincing us that they have a coherent message
0:46
But are things now turning around for them? Rachel Reeves has been splashing the cash
0:51
on virtually every form of public transport north of London. There's been a U-turn on the winter fuel allowance
0:56
and they're trumpeting their progress on reducing illegal and legal migration. The next general election could be four years from now
1:04
God knows what state any of us will be in by then. But are there signs that Labour is finally working
1:11
To borrow a phrase. Two guests this morning to kick off the discussion, Sir John Curtis, polling expert and professor of politics
1:16
at the University of Strathclyde, you know him, and Peter Hyman, senior advisor to Keir Starmer before the election and previously a strategist to Tony Blair
1:24
Peter, if I can start with you, please. Is Labour finally working? Well, the result is a particularly good result in the Hamilton by-election because of all the troubles that Labour has had
1:34
and because at this stage, when delivery is not yet visible early in a parliament
1:39
to actually win a by-election when traditionally you often lose them is a sign that we, as Labour, can get a message together that is very strong
1:48
And as you said, it is that central message that's not yet come across, but is beginning to take shape in a way that you just outlined
1:56
The trade deals, the defence review, the fact that waiting lists are coming down, the fact that migration is coming down
2:04
Now, those are all, if you like, disaggregated things that need to then be woven into a story that says, actually, Britain is now being rebalanced in favour of working people
2:14
And that's what Labour was elected to do. I guess the tough thing is, and you just said it, they're disaggregated, they're kind of disjointed. The tough thing for Starmer is to come up with one sort of coherent umbrella ideology, policy, call it what you like. Has he done that yet? Could he still do that? And does he need to do it
2:31
He absolutely needs to do it. In some of his speeches in opposition, particularly when he was outlining his missions, which were always long term national 10 year missions, there was a sense in what it was all for
2:44
People have asked, they sometimes use the phrase, what's your irreducible core? Blair sometimes used that phrase. What's at the heart of him? And for him, I think, having talked to him a lot in opposition, it is about extending opportunity
2:57
I think he is actually the quintessential levelling up politician. He wants all parts of Britain to feel they're on the way up
3:05
And all those run down towns and high streets, all the places where there hasn't been investment, where there hasn't been a sense of opportunity
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His mission is to grow them and develop them. And so every person doesn't feel I've got to leave the town I was born in in order to get on in life
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And I think that is the core of what he believes. I don't think it's always been got across in that way in the last few months
3:29
Peter, without blowing too much smoke up your, you know what, I mean, you've just put it more succinctly than I've heard the government put it in the last year
3:36
I mean, that line in itself makes much more sense than a laundry list of five missions
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or is it 10 missions or was it eight missions The minute you have to write down those lists people begin to ask why are you doing that Why do you need to do that Well I mean it hard governing because I mean I remember this I invented years ago
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something called the grid, which was a way of organising. And don't forget, there are 20
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departments. There are five ministers in each department. That's 100 ministers spewing out
4:04
stuff that is very difficult to coordinate. But the public doesn't need to know that. I don't
4:09
I don't want to know how the sausage is made. I want the sausage. No, that's a very fair..
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But that's what I'm saying. All I'm saying, which is not meant to be an excuse, is government is difficult
4:20
When you're actually in the thick of governing, sometimes that central thread that weaves it all together is lost
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but it's absolutely vital. Tony Blair once used the expression that the prime minister needs to be the explainer-in-chief
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and that is exactly what needs to happen, that everything, whether it's, you know
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the original winter fuel decision, whether it's changes to disability benefits, whether it's what's
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going on in the economy, you can't assume people know the thought process. They have to be explained
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in a way that joins it all together and makes an argument. If you're not winning the big arguments
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you're always on the back foot. But Peter, in personal relations, as in politics
5:00
you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. I think it's a nice phrase. I don't think that's actually right. I think, as you said in your remarks at the outset, politics is incredibly fluid at the moment
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And people, personalities go up and down. If you think about, you know, you said at the outset of the program, Elon Musk and Trump were getting on like a house on fire only a few days ago
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It's now all crumble. The truth is, if you continue to both deliver and tell the right story, Farage who appears on the up at the moment, it's a very fragile party. We've seen the chair of reform resign in the last week. You know, they could be down again. So I don't quite. I mean, yes, we should have made a better first impression. I agree with that. Is is that game over? Not at all, because things are very volatile at the moment
5:54
And you've got four years left and who knows what state all of us will be. Stay there, Peter, don't go away. So John Curtis, you heard all that. And I saw you smiling a few times during that part of the interview. What does the polling tell you about the significance of the Hamilton by-election
6:09
oh i they uh i mean if you compare what happens in hamilton with what we would have expected to
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happen given where the scotland-wide polls are at then basically the result in hamilton despite
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the fact that labour won the seat very narrowly confirmed that support for labour is now well down
6:29
in scotland as to where it was uh this time uh last year and that indeed the parties is actually
6:36
in a slightly weaker position than it was at the time of the last Scottish Parliament election in
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2021. Just in case to explain, yes, Labour won the seat, but actually on a smaller share of the vote
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than they got in 2021. The really accurate way of portraying the Hamilton by-election
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is that the SNP lost it because the SNP's support in the opinion polls hasn't really gone up very
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much as compared with what happened to them last summer. And, you know, in losing 17% of the vote
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in Hamilton again. This was entirely consistent with that. But what we need to bear in mind
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is that what the opinion polls then also tell you is that while the decline in support
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for the SNP as compared with 2021 takes them to around a third of the vote
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in the case of Labour, a slight fall in their support in 2021 takes them to around a fifth of the vote
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at best when you're talking about Scotland as a whole. So I think you know the truth is that Hamilton doesn suggest that there has been some sudden remarkable turnaround north of the border Yes of course Labour it better to win It will help Labour morale
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And certainly because a lot of journalists, I think, had slightly exaggerated expectations about the fact that the SNP were going to win
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It's also helped them in that quarter as well. But it doesn't really change the story
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Now, I'd go back to Peter. I agree with virtually everything he has said
7:56
I think the only thing I would say is I'm not entirely clear that Sikir Starmer had a narrative before the election either
8:05
And that indeed one of the problems with this government was its failure to set a narrative before the election
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Because the trouble is that once you get into government and you are having to deal with the slings and arrows of misfortune and events, etc., etc
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If you haven't got a narrative before you start, it's very difficult to create one afterwards
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And the thing that the voters were constantly saying about Labour before the election is, well, yeah, we're probably going to vote for them because we think the Conservatives have been absolutely useless
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But I'm not quite sure what they're about. I'm not quite sure what they're for
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And one of the reasons, therefore, why things like particularly the cutting rental fuel allowance cut across people's impressions and caused the party so much trouble is that, you know, the ground wasn't cleared for this
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and what people have said to themselves, well, you know, I wasn't sure what Labour were about
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but I certainly didn't think that this is what the Labour Party is about
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So therefore, there is nothing, because of that lack of the central thread
9:07
people were relying on, well, what do we normally expect a Labour government to do? And this government was not doing what they expected to do
9:13
OK, well, let's put that to Peter, because he was one of the advisors before the election. You weren't smiling with your eyes when John Curtis just said that
9:21
So has he got a point? Is it a fair criticism? It's partially fair
9:27
In opposition, it is hard sometimes to crystallise that message. And I think where the missions which you've dismissed a bit earlier, Matt, as sort of, well, they're five or eight or whatever
9:40
Actually, behind the missions was a big narrative because what it was trying to do is saying there are 10-year goals
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We're not just rooted in the present. that Britain can be ambitious again, that it can look to the future, that here are ambitious things
9:54
we can do, like halving knife crime, like halving violence against women, like building 1.5 million
10:01
homes. There were a set of ambitions that were all under the umbrella of restoring respect and
10:07
dignity to every single person who felt left behind or not included in the national narrative
10:15
And I think Keir put that forward. Partly why we won was that unlike the Democrats under Kamala Harris, where they sort of lost sight of working people, there was very much a narrative about we hear you, we see you, we know you're struggling, we know the cost of living is a pressure
10:31
And therefore, when we're in government, we will rebalance the country to working people
10:35
I then agree with John that if one of your first acts is on winter fuel allowance, it seems to cut across all that
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And therefore, because it was not in a budget and disaggregated, it felt like, well, why are they going after pensioners as the first thing they're doing
10:49
And that, as I say, didn't help the message. But I think there is one there sometimes struggling to get out
10:56
But it is quite a clear message. And I think, importantly, it's one that Keir believes
11:00
um so john i mean one of the problems i guess and you sort of touched on it with hamilton is that
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labour got a landslide majority in the last uh election in the in the parliament of westminster
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on a smaller number of votes than jeremy corbyn got in 2019 so they got an enormous amount of power but they don have a lot of popularity And that disjunction seems to be a problem for them Exactly I mean the point is
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that we do just have to remember the Labour Party did not do particularly well in the last general
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election so far as claiming votes was concerned. They only got 35 percent of the vote. That's the
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lowest share of the vote that's ever been won by any for any majority government. So that was
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point number one. Point number two, I mean, Labour are talking a great deal about their emphasis on
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working people. One of Labour's principal objectives while in opposition was try to regain the support
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of those people who had voted leave in 2016, voted for Boris Johnson in 2019, and come disproportionately
12:00
from working class backgrounds. There is no evidence, I have not seen any polling evidence
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from innumerable polls that have been done at and around the 2024 election, that Labour
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succeeded in any way at all in reconnecting with that section of its electorate. If you want to
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know now, what is the core Labour vote? The core Labour vote is young middle class professionals
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living in London. That is the group amongst whom Labour are now most popular. It is not people in
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working class occupations living in the north of England. So we're talking about a party whose
12:33
support is no longer anchored in its traditional demographic, despite its best endeavours
12:40
Right. And therefore, you're talking about a party that won a lot of power, but won a lot of
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power on a thin vote and a vote whose level of commitment was always very, very uncertain
12:51
Finally, Peter, to you, isn't that a problem for Labour that, you know, all the both big
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parties, Tories probably more than Labour, are fundamentally confused about where their
13:00
core electorate lies at the moment. And that confusion was brought about largely because of the Brexit vote
13:07
That's partly true. But of course, we're building a coalition that will start out of actually what we deliver
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So I always think the sweet spot of a strategy is to think what are the things that whether and this is what Blair did particularly well is whether you're middle class or working class
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What are the things that hold the coalition together? And for me, it is a running a strong economy with growth so everyone can share in the growth and building public services, schools and hospitals, health and education that really delivers for people
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And if you get that right, there's obviously a question about boats and immigration as well
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If you get those things right, you can actually square the circle of can you win the middle class voters that John described
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as well as the Red Wall voters or the formerly Red Wall voters in the north and northwest
13:56
OK, very quick on to both of you. Do you think that reform will continue to outpoll the Tory party, that they will become the second biggest party by the time we reach the next general election, maybe in four years time
14:09
Very briefly, first you, Peter. Yes, I think they will for now, because the Tories simply don't know what they're for or what they're doing
14:17
And there's no evidence they've got a strategy for getting out of their hole and reform look as if they're on the way up and they've got some momentum and they feel like a different entity, which is attractive at the moment. John
14:30
Reform are certainly posing an existential threat to the Conservatives. The Conservatives this week did one thing that they needed to do a long time ago
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which is to disavow the List Trust fiscal event. They now need also to disavow Boris Johnson
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Those are the two things that, above all, brought the Conservative Party down in 2024
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They've now begun to address one of them. They now need to deal with the other before they're going to be able to get the kind of hearing
14:56
that might enable them to deal with Nigel Farage. And maybe they have to admit all the mistakes, the self-inflicted harm that was created by the referendum
15:04
But that's we'll leave that for another day
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