Laura Kuenssberg Skewers Top Tory Over Humiliating By-Election Result

Laura Kuenssberg put a top Conservative under the microscope on Sunday with a brutal reminder of just how poorly the party did in the Makerfield by-election.

Labour’s Andy Burnham secured the north-west seat on Thursday with 54.8% of the vote while Reform UK’s Rob Kenyon came in second, with 34.5%.

The rising far-right group Restore Britain secured 6.8%, equal to 3,111 votes while the Conservatives’ Michael Winstanley came in fourth with just 997 votes – 2.2% of the vote share.

That means the official opposition lost their £500 deposit, as they secured less than 5% of the vote.

On her BBC show, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the presenter asked shadow chancellor Mel Stride to defend the shocking performance.

But the Conservative MP deflected by talking about the Aberdeen South by-election result, where the Tories took a seat from the SNP last Thursday.

“First win in a by-election in Scotland since 1967,” he said. “It shows what good, clear, policy offering can deliver.”

He continued: “In Makerfield, that has been a Labour stronghold for about 100, 120, years. I think the big story was actually the weakness of Reform in the face of that challenge…”

“But in 2019, you got 34% of the vote in Makerfield,” Kuenssberg reminded him. “This time you got 2%.

“In those kinds of parts of the country, that suggests you’ve gone way back.

“A leader like Boris Johnson had a hope in those in kind of constituencies.

“Under Kemi Badenoch, it doesn’t seem like you do.”

He replied: “In 2019, we swept away a number of red wall seats and that was not one of them. That has been historically Labour and solidly Labour for a very long time.”

“So it’s OK that you got 997 voters, then?” Kuenssberg said.

But Stride replied by once again referring to Reform UK’s performance, insisting they were coming down in the polls.

“They’re not surging [in popularity] the way they were last year, but you don’t look competitive yet,” she replied.

Nigel Farage’s party has long tried to position itself as the real opposition to the government by displacing the Conservatives.

But Reform UK struggled to compete against Burnham in Makerfield, making it the third straight by-election loss for the party after separate contests in Gorton and Denton, and Caerphilly.

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