The Scotsman Bulletin Friday October 06 2023 #Rutherglen
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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)