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Famous By-Elections: Trudy Harrison and Copeland 2017
20 Plays25 days ago
In this episode, Matt Davis sits down with Trudy Harrison, who won the Copeland by-election in 2017, overturning decades of Labour dominance in the constituency. Trudy reflects on the dramatic campaign that brought her into Parliament, the issues that defined the contest, and what it was like to step into national politics through such a high-profile victory.
From the pressures of campaigning to the significance of the result for the Conservative Party, this conversation offers a unique insight into one of the most remarkable by-elections in recent political history.
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Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Observations podcast and welcome back to our series on famous by-elections. Today we'll be talking about the by-election for Copeland in 2017. Less than a year on from the Brexit referendum, there was a lot of motion in British politics.
00:00:24
Speaker
In just the previous six months, David Cameron had resigned as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister and Theresa May, having won the Conservative leadership election, had become the new Prime Minister. As for the constituency,
00:00:36
Speaker
Copeland had long been a Labour stronghold, returning Labour MPs from its creation in 1983. And even its predecessor seat had been held by Labour since 1935. What's also surprising about this by-election is that it's the first by-election that saw the governing party gain a seat since 1982.
00:00:55
Speaker
So in many ways, this was a truly historical result. I'm joined by the winner of this by-election, Trudy Harrison, to discuss some of her experiences and what makes it such an important part of modern British electoral history.
00:01:09
Speaker
Thanks for joining me today. Oh, thank you, Matt. That was a lovely introduction. Took me back. Lovely to be considered historic, although I'm not sure how much of it was about me.
00:01:23
Speaker
An awful lot of it was about Jeremy Corbyn. Well, I suppose that kind of brings me on into my first main question. Given that you chose to run in this historic Labour stronghold, why did you think you could win?
00:01:36
Speaker
I ah didn't necessarily think I could win, but I knew the time i felt I was the best person for the job. um I thought it was about time that Copeland had a woman do the job and I was the first.
00:01:50
Speaker
I felt it was about time we had somebody that understood the nuclear industry, that would stand up for the nuclear industry, and that was absolutely head and shoulders above everything else, the policy that I wanted to campaign and win the election on.
00:02:06
Speaker
and we'll talk about that a little bit later. And the thought of a Jeremy Corbyn-led government sent shivers up my spine, and I wanted to make sure that didn't happen.
00:02:17
Speaker
So alongside that, I'm a mum of four. I've always lived in this area. I will always call Copeland home. My husband works in the nuclear industry. you know it absolutely puts the the food on so many of the tables in West Cumbria. So that does remain a really important thing. But he's also a blue collar worker. He's a welder.
00:02:40
Speaker
And I wanted to stand up for those blue collar workers. And that was part of why I voted to leave the European Union, because I want to to see much more um appreciation for the skills that we particularly have up north in industries like the steel industry.
00:02:58
Speaker
And I felt um well able to champion those industries. And it happened to be what the Conservative Party really needed. ah woman, woman. family person and somebody who would champion common sense industry.
00:03:15
Speaker
So moving on into a bit of that campaign then, um on the ground, nothing on doors, what do you think were the key issues of the by-election? Was it nuclear and Corbyn? Were those the main two?
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, it was definitely nuclear. But to group give credit to the Labour Party, they very, very successfully created a campaign that made it as much about maternity services at our local hospital, West Cumberland Hospital.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I must have said this a thousand times. I was born in that hospital. My four daughters were born in that hospital. One of my daughters went on to become a nurse training at that hospital.
00:03:56
Speaker
it meant an awful lot to me. So when the Labour Party paid for an advert on the front page of our new our um newspaper stating, I think it was, one in... and and this i can't remember the exact figure, but babies will die if you vote for Trudy Harrison.
00:04:14
Speaker
That made me even more determined, but it was a very, very successful campaign by the Labour Party. So I would say it was two things, nuclear and the local hospital. And of course, it was a load of rubbish. Maternity services were not at risk in that way. But we did bring in £140 million, pounds I think, from memory that the Conservatives put into the local hospital.
00:04:37
Speaker
i was wondering, during this campaign, was there a specific moment or perhaps like a few different moments, some turning points, maybe, where you realised that things were going your way and that you could actually win this?
00:04:51
Speaker
Um, oh gosh, it was a rollercoaster. I'd never really been... interested in politics. I'd never been involved in politics. i was blessed with naivety when I put myself forward for that role.
00:05:06
Speaker
And really, there was huge competition. There were about 200 other applicants for the Conservative Party alone. so you know, I was very fortunate to be chosen by the Conservative Party and to win the and support of my local Conservative Association, who were absolutely brilliant.
00:05:25
Speaker
The machine takes over. From the day when i was chosen to be their candidate, the machine takes over and it was knocking on doors, pointed towards interviews, hustings, business meetings from morning till night, seven days a week, not having a single day off for the whole of that period, but it was a short period.
00:05:48
Speaker
So it was very, very, very intense. It was a whirlwind. It was mostly incredibly positive. But I do remember you asked me about positive things. And I would say that was generally every day because, you know, I'm i'm well known in the area.
00:06:04
Speaker
my family go back many, many generations. So it was lovely to knock on the doors and find, oh, that's my old schoolmate. Oh, I used to work with you. Oh, we're related. That happened every day.
00:06:15
Speaker
However, there was a terrible moment about three weeks before the election would take place, and that was on the 22nd of February 2017, I think maybe the 23rd of February 2017, where there's this concept that you should never fight on the opposition's turf, the opposition being the Labour Party.
00:06:40
Speaker
But they had put up such a brilliant campaign that I was going to be responsible for the closure of maternity services at West Cumberland Hospital. I just could not live with myself if I wasn't able to defend it and fight it to the death.
00:06:58
Speaker
I was absolutely determined that this narrative couldn't be allowed to continue without being challenged. and machine mean The conservative central HQ said, don't do that.
00:07:11
Speaker
And I remember going in after ah a tearful night saying, i either do this my way or you find another candidate. I think they said something along the lines of, I'm afraid it's too late. Your only way out is if you are incapable of basically death, of, you know, taking forward this campaign.
00:07:34
Speaker
So thankfully, um they decided to support my desire to fight on the grounds of maternity services and we put up a right fight at the end. So that was about two weeks before, um so probably around early February.
00:07:53
Speaker
But it felt awful that my family and friends thought I would be responsible for the closure of that really important unit. Did you initially feel a lack of support from the machine before you went to ah to go and fight it there?
00:08:08
Speaker
No, not at all. I was overwhelmed by the support. having i mean I didn't know what good looked like. I was amazed by the media support and just took every hour...
00:08:24
Speaker
as it came every day, one day at a time and got through it. If I looked at the calendar, and could have definitely been overwhelmed because it was all out of my comfort zone meeting Michael Crick.
00:08:36
Speaker
Who's he? Look on, you know, quick YouTube. He's quite a scary guy. I found him to be absolutely lovely, actually.
00:08:46
Speaker
Well, there you go. Sometimes it's okay to meet these people. um I was wondering, did Brexit have any impact on the campaign at all? I know it was like was fairly shortly after, but yeah.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't really, because I think in 2017, certainly and in early 2017, there was still a belief that we were going to do it.
00:09:09
Speaker
There wasn't really a question in my Brexity area that we weren't going to get Brexit done, coin that phrase. But it certainly had a big part to play in the 2019 general election because by then there was huge amount of frustration that the will of the British people was not going to be followed.
00:09:31
Speaker
And without doubt, that is why my vote share went up considerably. It was the Boris factor. It was the Brexit factor. Yeah, but in 2017, no, I don't think it was really...
00:09:45
Speaker
So much of a big deal. So we'll now ah stop for a quick break before going into a few more questions.
00:09:59
Speaker
It begins, as it always does, with a vision. In the quiet streets of Brody Ferry, one man rose above the hundrum of politics of the day.
00:10:13
Speaker
His name was Bob Servant. Businessman. Dreamer. cheeseburger magnet, the only candidate, bold enough, to pay local dog owners not to walk their dogs in Dawson Park so the grass could reach its full majesty.
00:10:36
Speaker
He promised free wellies for every man, woman, and child. The color, council issue, the size, you'll grow into them. He vowed to put the ferry back on the map, preferably larger than Dundee, and N1 Unforgettable Hustings to tell the best bus story ever told.
00:10:59
Speaker
ah story involving why Lulu wasn't given the blind date job and how Scotland will always choose Sean Connery over Roger Moore. like Richard Haney rousing a packed hall, speaking of honor and destiny.
00:11:15
Speaker
But Bob's destiny was different. His speeches could leap from that bust story retold in ever greater detail to the sovereignty of the South Atlantic.
00:11:28
Speaker
And in his BBC debate, with the wind whipping in from the Tay, he delivered the words that would echo through the ages. Give us back the Falklands.
00:11:41
Speaker
From Dunny on the Wall's single vote to Brody Ferry's greatest son, we revisit the fictional elections that shaped our screens and the truths they whisper to us all.
00:11:55
Speaker
Brody Ferry. Independent spirit. Eternal legend.
00:12:08
Speaker
And welcome back. Around the time, there were few news pieces about Storm Doris potentially intervening in this campaign in some way. Was this something that was mentioned in campaign team talks at all?
00:12:20
Speaker
I think it was by the Southerners, but honestly, up here in the north, in the Lake District, there really is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.
00:12:33
Speaker
So the leaflets maybe got posted through the doors a little bit more soggy. Maybe some of the campaigners didn't turn up, but we were completely unfazed by the the high winds and the torrential rain.
00:12:47
Speaker
Just pretty normal up here. Now, you were one of the latest selected candidates in the field, being selected on the 25th of January, later than Labour, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats.
00:12:58
Speaker
Do you feel like this put you at a disadvantage? Because you mentioned you had quite a short period in terms of your kind of campaigning and getting your name out there.
00:13:07
Speaker
Possibly. um to be honest, I didn't really notice that because it felt very, very quick for me. i think I made the first kind of application to put myself forward early in January. So for that to turn around by the 25th of January um felt rapid.
00:13:28
Speaker
I don't remember feeling at a disadvantage, I remember feeling absolutely well supported and blessed by the team at CCHQ, who were clearly a very, very well oiled machine at by-elections.
00:13:45
Speaker
To be honest, I hadn't studied the odds of winning in terms of how often or how um unusual it is for somebody to win ah when they're standing for the governing party.
00:14:00
Speaker
and I was undeterred. I had nothing to lose. i had a very good job, which I did very much enjoy. had a point to make and I had an industry to fight for.
00:14:12
Speaker
And that was all I cared about. So just kind of went in there, you know, with your with your principles and ideas of what you're fighting and just making sure you ran the best campaign you could. Yeah, absolutely. It was a very internal fight.
00:14:26
Speaker
Who's going to do this job? Who is going to get a good nuclear policy for the UK? Who is going to champion an industry which is blighted with radiophobia, which is so important for nature, for clean energy? Even before we were really talking about k net net zero by 2050, I was hell bent on championing the nuclear industry.
00:14:52
Speaker
Okay. um On a kind of related question there, the outgoing Labour MP, Jamie Reid, had spent a decent much amount of time telling people in the media that his own leader was opposed to Sutherfield and was an unelectable disaster.
00:15:08
Speaker
Do you feel like this gave your campaign a boost at all? Yep, absolutely. It was the best possible poster we could have had that the former Labour MP had such a dim view of the potential leader of the country and already the leader leader of his party.
00:15:28
Speaker
And the other thing is, I completely agreed with him. I suppose that makes it nice and nice and easy. You can just copy those words and put them on your own posters there. um ah Do you have any memories from election night itself yes i do i mean it's a crazy crazy experience um polling day is probably the day when you put the most steps in ah it would have probably been something like 30 000 steps i should go back on my yeah
00:16:03
Speaker
on my phone to have a look, but it would have been an incredible amount of steps and I didn't want to give up. Oh, brings back tears. I remember being on an estate in Millam with the team, knocking on doors, have you been out to vote yet?
00:16:17
Speaker
Polls are open till 10pm, can I count on your vote? All that kind of thing. And we had this little group of kids that were about nine years old, cycling around the estate, cheering us on, Trudy, Trudy.
00:16:31
Speaker
And it was just the best feeling. um And then I returned from Millham, which was the last town I was in, because I worked my way down, you know, Keswick in the morning, then to Whitehaven, then to Cletamore, then to Egremont, stopping at villages on the way down to Millham, and then back up to Bootle where I live.
00:16:50
Speaker
to get ready, ah to get glammed up. We'd booked a hotel, um the Chase Hotel, and we booked both a family room for our daughters and then a double room for the the husband and I've got four daughters, and they were beyond excited as well. They were really, really engrossed in the whole campaign. It was a whole new world for them. They'd just met Theresa May in the school that they went to, which I was you know fighting to,
00:17:17
Speaker
Keep going. And we were sitting in the bar. I remember CCHQ. I wanted to order gin and tonic. ah Or it might have been a glass of Prosecco.
00:17:29
Speaker
think it was a glass of Prosecco. But that would have looked bad. And I wasn't thinking of this. But that might have looked bad had somebody taken a photograph of me pre-celebrating with a glass of Prosecco. So um but that wasn't allowed.
00:17:44
Speaker
Seems crazy when I think back now. And i got we were just chatting in the bar with some of our supporters. There was nothing we could do. By now it was kind of 10 o'clock, between 10 and midnight.
00:17:58
Speaker
You didn't really know which way it was going to go, but you knew that you'd done your best and you couldn't possibly do any more. So I was quite relaxed. Whatever happens, happens.
00:18:10
Speaker
And I think I was told it would be about 3 o'clock in the morning. Well, at about midnight, if I remember rightly, maybe half past twelve, I got a phone call saying, Trudy, looks like you've won.
00:18:25
Speaker
It also seems to have moved very quickly, so you need to be down here as soon as possible. Well, I hadn't had a shower, I hadn't done my hair, I hadn't got my glad rags on, so I dashed up to the bedroom.
00:18:38
Speaker
i wasn't allowed to tell anybody, um But I did ring my mum. ah My dad was still watching the news and my mum said, i remember saying, Mum, guess what?
00:18:52
Speaker
I think I've won. Oh my God, I don't believe it. Oh, goodness me. She was mortified. She was really worried what I'd put myself in for.
00:19:04
Speaker
ah And I won't forget that conversation. Typical of my mum, but I won't forget it. It was quite funny when I look back. Anyway, then ah me and my husband went into the Whitehaven Sports Centre, were dazzled by all the paparazzi flashing lights. My husband was absolutely a fish out of water.
00:19:25
Speaker
um Also, we weren't 100% whether we'd won. You know, this decision was made looking at piles of voting um cards. an And you never know whether it's absolutely accurate. So there was a still you know a degree of trepidation. i don't know whether you wanted to know all that information. No, that's a little quite interesting. It was like terribly recalling it all. And the best thing, Matt, oh my goodness, the best thing. I didn't know at the time.
00:19:53
Speaker
So I'd won, I'd made a speech. But the way they announced the winnings is they will give out ah the numbers of votes. So um they were called out. And Pat Graham, who is so sadly no longer with us, she was the CEO of Copeland Borough Council.
00:20:12
Speaker
um I'm not sure it was her, but somebody was calling out the numbers anyway. And later on, I watched the video back that my four daughters had took in the family room at the Chase Hotel, and they'd recorded the the telly.
00:20:29
Speaker
Their screams, I'm surprised they weren't heard in London. They were crying. They were over the moon. They did not know what was to come and how hated politicians are and everybody would be slagging off the mum.
00:20:42
Speaker
However, for that moment, their joy was absolutely tear-jerking to hear it back on the video afterwards. That's yeah that's ah that's a really lovely anecdote there.
00:20:55
Speaker
ah Now, often, by-elections are big media events. Now, there was also the Stoke-on-Trent by-election happening at the same time. you feel like you missed out on any media attention at all, or do you feel like you had plenty going on?
00:21:09
Speaker
Oh, I've had too much. Plenty for me. Yeah, definitely. um And it's definitely not my comfort zone. and That was probably the part of the job that I liked the least. Well, the hatred is absolutely, politics is the part that I hate the most.
00:21:28
Speaker
It's so nasty. um But the the media attention, I suppose, contributes to that. And I was definitely out of my comfort zone. But I recognised it was a part of the job I just had to grin and bear.
00:21:41
Speaker
So no, quite happy that there was at least some distraction down south in Stoke-on-Trent. Moving us forward in time a bit, quite a lot of by-election victories are reversed in the following general election, but you managed to retain your seats.
00:21:56
Speaker
Why do you think that is, ah considering the Conservatives lost seats in Parliament overall during that general election? And you can imagine my shock, horror, despair, concern when just got myself an office in the Houses of Parliament. Well, actually, it was in Normanshaw North, but on the Parliamentary Estate.
00:22:22
Speaker
I had one member of staff who was trying her best to rattle through the backlog of 6,000 emails that had accumulated from having my Trudy Harrison at Parliament ah email address and I just interviewed for a second member of staff, Rachel Flynn and we turned the telly on and there was all this fuss on the WhatsApp groups there's going to be an announcement I was new to this, I didn't know what it meant then there was something about um the conservative emblem being on the
00:23:00
Speaker
pedestal that would be outside number 10 which indicated it was likely to be something to do with a general election ah couldn't believe it and me and my family, friends, colleagues we just repeated that all day I can't believe it I can't believe it I really can't believe it I just can't believe it ah can't believe it that's pretty much all we said all day And then we just got on with it.
00:23:32
Speaker
You know, i just, my leaflets were still in the boot, to be honest. I didn't really need to do much. I just recycled the old leaflets, got back out there. It was tough, it was brutal, and it was even more hostile on the maternity services front.
00:23:47
Speaker
And I remember 2 o'clock in the morning, being in that sports centre car park, thinking, I really do not care whether I win or I lose, because this campaign has been brutal, horrible, in the gutter.
00:24:05
Speaker
This is not a world I want to live in. And the downside is if I win, I am stuck with it for the next five years. It was awful.
00:24:17
Speaker
Because you really can't get out of it. You can obviously trigger a by-election. It's usually expensive. It's just the wrong thing to do, really, unless you really, really have to.
00:24:33
Speaker
and I didn't... honestly want to win it had been so awful not just for me but you put yourself forward and I kind of knew what I was getting myself in for but I didn't expect the toll it would take on my family and my friends but I did win and I just had to get on with it I mean that says quite a lot about just how much was going on during that period in politics and, let's say, some of the toll it can take being being in the spotlight like that.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's just awful. It's so personal. And I worry that if we continue like this, the only people that will stand to become politicians in the future will be really, really thick-skinned people.
00:25:27
Speaker
So something needs to change if we want more sensitive, kind, caring, compassionate people to put themselves forward for public office. Well, thank you very much for that. And thank you very much for joining me today, Trudy. I really appreciate you coming on.
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much, Matt. Cheers.
00:25:57
Speaker
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00:26:10
Speaker
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