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Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Times
By-election win a breather for Labour before spending review gloom
It was a brief moment of respite. At 3am on Friday the prime minister was woken by a call from an aide informing him that, against the odds, Labour had won the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse Holyrood by-election. There may have been just 602 votes in it, but for Sir Keir Starmer at this stage of his premiership a win is a win. It was, he said, a 'fantastic' victory. For one local resident it mattered more than most. Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, lives nearby with his wife Imogen Walker — she is the MP for the overlapping constituency of Hamilton & Clyde Valley — and is said to have taken a close interest in the campaign. The Times has been told that Starmer's decision to announce a U-turn on winter fuel payments earlier this month, rather than waiting until the spending review next week, was made partly with Hamilton in mind. Those on the ground said it had almost immediate cut-through, with winter fuel payments going from being the biggest issue on the doorstep at the start of the campaign to being relatively marginal. 'People got that we had listened,' was how one MP put it. But the win was far from clean. Reform UK went from a standing start to winning 26 per cent of the vote, just three per cent behind the SNP and five per cent behind Labour. It also showed Nigel Farage's party could siphon off votes from the Conservatives in Scotland as well as England, as support for the Scottish Tories collapsed from 17 per cent at the 2021 Holyrood election to 6 per cent. Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, claimed the result was 'truly remarkable'. The spending review promises to be one of the most challenging moments of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership THOMAS KRYCH/STORY PICTURE AGENCY A cabinet minister insisted that Labour's victory showed that the party could come through the middle to win next year's elections to the Scottish parliament. The SNP's tactic of telling voters to back them to stop Reform backfired dramatically. But any sense of relief for Starmer will be short-lived. The spending review next week promises to be one of the most challenging moments of his premiership. The government will seek to frame it as being about 'investing in Britain's renewal', with money going into security, the NHS and the economy more broadly. In one sense Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has a positive story to tell, with a £30 billion uplift in funding for the NHS, significant investment in the military and £113 billion worth of capital spending — including investment in local transport projects, nuclear power and other schemes. Reeves has been telling colleagues that the capital spending 'must be felt everywhere', with investment in shovel-ready projects across the country. But while the government would like to focus on the winners from the spending review process, many of the headlines are likely to be about the losers. The decision to increase spending on the NHS and the Ministry of Defence means that unprotected departments are facing real-terms cuts. Some of the negotiations between the Treasury and cabinet ministers have been brutal. Talks between Reeves and Angela Rayner, the local government and housing secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, are going down to the wire. The discussions between Cooper and Reeves in particular are said to have been particularly robust, with one Treasury official describing them as 'explosive'. Cooper has been making the case that without additional funding the government will be unable to deliver on several of Starmer's flagship pledges, including halving knife crime and halving violence against women and girls. Her case has been made both publicly and privately by the police. Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, has written to Starmer directly along with other police chiefs warning that without additional funding forces will face 'stark' choices about which crimes they investigate. When pressed on Rowley's intervention this week, Reeves's response was curt. 'We will be increasing spending on police,' she said. However she did not say whether she would meet the demands of police for a real-terms rise in spending, which lies at the heart of the row. JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES Rayner, who is seeking to protect local council budgets from cuts, is also said to have been 'forthright' in fighting her corner. One report claimed she had stormed out of a meeting with Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, slamming the door on the way out. Rayner's allies denied this, saying that while she had been tough in the talks she could not have slammed that door because the meeting had been held virtually. They added that they were now 'making progress' but were happy to go down to the wire. 'The deadline is when the document has to go to the printers,' they said. Reeves's room for manoeuvre is inherently limited by the state of the public finances and global events, something she alluded to at a CBI dinner on Thursday night. 'To be able to make decisions is a huge privilege,' she said. 'However, there's a lot of things that are out of [my] control as well, whether that is tariffs or what's happening in the global economy. You've got to be very agile and respond to the world as it is.' Paul Johnson, the outgoing head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that he has 'genuine sympathy' for Reeves and the difficult choices she has to make. • UK public borrowing tops £20bn in blow for Rachel Reeves Speaking at his leaving drinks in Westminster he said: 'We had an almost 20-year period of continual growth, a sense of real optimism I think, and that's really been sort of beaten out of the economy, and I think probably to some extent beaten out of the electorate. 'Not only have we had, up till the late 2010s, a period of really serious cuts to public services, but no increase in people's incomes either. There's just really hard trade-offs.' The question hanging over the spending review will be that of tax rises. The government's U-turn on the winter fuel allowance — which will cost about £700 million — will only add to the pressure on the public finances. Plans to reverse the two-child cap on benefits could cost as much as £3.5 billion a year. All of this against the backdrop of a growing hole in the public finances, and the estimate of some economists that Reeves could be as much as £60 billion in the red by the time of the autumn budget. Reeves did little to calm nerves at the CBI dinner, when she highlighted the huge tax rises of her inaugural budget and said she was 'never going to repeat anything of that scale' — which is not the same thing as ruling out any further rises. In the Treasury there are concerns that for all the fireworks surrounding the spending review the broader economic outlook is bleak. 'Everyone is talking about who gets what at the spending review but the bigger picture is that no one is really talking about the unsustainable path government debt is on,' one official said. 'We need politicians to start thinking about how we get on top of it. We don't have long before there is a serious risk of a debt spiral.'
The Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
Labour win shock victory in Hamilton by-election defying bookies' odds
Breaking SURPRISE RESULT The win is a major boost to Anas Sarwar's hopes of beating John Swinney to Bute House. Published : 1:37, 6 Jun 2025 Updated : 2:03, 6 Jun 2025 SCOTTISH Labour have won a shock victory in the Holyrood by-election - defying bookies' odds. And the win is a major boost to Anas Sarwar's hopes of beating John Swinney to Bute House at next year's Holyrood election. 1 The win is a major boost to Anas Sarwar's hopes of beating John Swinney to Bute House. Scottish Labour had been written off by many, with bookies putting them third most likely to win the seat behind both the SNP and Reform. Punters were offered odds of 11-1 on Labour before polls opened, and the SNP were 1-6 favourites, with Reform second favourites. However the party has defied expectations and lived up to the quiet confidence from some insiders that they were always in the race. The victory is a stunning defeat for the SNP who believed the seat was an easy victory following the death of popular local Nats MSP Christina McKelvie. Labour's campaign was seen as low key and Mr Russell came in for criticism from rivals for swerving TV appearances.
The Independent
17-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Hamilton by-election a two-horse race between SNP and Reform, claims Tice
The Holyrood by-election in Hamilton is a two-horse race between Reform and the SNP, Richard Tice has claimed. Voters will go to the polls on June 5 in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election sparked by the death of Government minister Christina McKelvie. The two frontrunners are widely believed to be the SNP and Scottish Labour but Reform's deputy leader claimed his party could be in with a chance, judging by the reaction on doorsteps and internal polling. Speaking to the PA news agency at the party's base in Hamilton, Mr Tice said: 'We're getting a great response, we're campaigning to win. 'It's a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform UK, and we're surprising everybody.' Asked what led him to believe his party was in the running, Mr Tice said: 'Just the response we're getting, the interest, the noise, the polls, our internal polling, everything says that. 'Yes, if you go to the bookies, they'll tell you the SNP is odds on but in politics you fight to win at the ballot box and that's what we're doing.' The MP even added that he believes next year's election to be a contest between Reform and the SNP. 'That's what we're building towards – could we screw it up? Yes,' he said. 'But we will work hard and push on, absolutely. 'Broadly in life, you make your own luck, so that's our job.' The party aims to use its record in the 10 English councils it now controls during its campaign over the next 12 months. Speaking earlier on Saturday during a visit to a gymnastics club in Blantyre, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said she viewed the race as one between the SNP and Labour. 'That's a reasonable assumption,' she said. 'But Labour are really struggling at the moment and, in my view, that's because Labour are getting the challenge to Nigel Farage woefully wrong.' It is understood Scottish Labour sees a slim margin between its candidate in the South Lanarkshire seat, Davy Russell, and the SNP's Katy Loudon, with other parties far behind. Mr Tice's visit comes after Reform UK took second place in a local council by-election in Clydebank which was won by the SNP. Despite winning, the SNP dropped almost 17% in first preference votes, compared to Labour losing 12% while Reform won 26.3% of the vote. Mr Tice said the result showed people in Scotland want to talk about issues like immigration – one of Reform's key topics. With less than a year left before the Holyrood election, Reform does not have a leader in Scotland and has little in the way of policy. Asked for one of the party's flagship stances ahead of the vote in May of next year, Mr Tice pointed to support for oil and gas. 'Drill Scotland, drill,' he said. 'Let's use the oil and gas treasure, let's issue more licences, let's encourage investment offshore and onshore. 'Because we've got all this energy treasure, we should use it, it's ours and that's the way to create highly skilled, highly paid jobs.' Oil and gas licensing is a reserved matter, with permissions only able to be handed out by the UK Government. Asked about the reserve nature of what he said was one of his party's key policies, Mr Tice said: 'People know that if we do well in Scotland, it will terrify Labour, it'll terrify the SNP, it'll terrify the eco-zealots. 'Then when we win, the people of Scotland have the opportunity to send a message to Westminster – we want oil, we want gas, we want more money in our pockets.' Mr Tice also laid out another of the party's key policies, saying: 'There are only two sexes, male and female, and we shouldn't be teaching gender claptrap to our children in schools. 'Because, you know what? When we campaign in rallies and events, that gets the biggest round of applause.' Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: 'The only party that can beat the SNP in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse is Scottish Labour. 'Every vote for Reform is a vote to help the SNP. 'Reform has already admitted that the best they can do is to finish third and Nigel Farage has even admitted that he doesn't care if the SNP win. 'It's obvious that Reform supporters in Scotland are being led up the garden path by Richard Tice. 'This is a Scottish Parliament election and the people know that only Scottish Labour can end SNP chaos and division. 'Only Scottish Labour's Davy Russell can beat the SNP and stand up for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.'
