our political panel is here to discuss what theresa may should do with her victory, and if she wantsjeremy corbyn to stay even more than he does. good evening. theresa may was on the losing side in the referendum. she's an unelected leader, with a small working majority of 16, one up from yesterday, having to lead the most complex constitutional negotiations perhaps since the act of union in 1707 — negotiations she never wanted in the first place. not a great position of strength, you might say, but this morning she led her party to victory in an area that's been held by labour since 1935 — the first time a governing party has won a by—election since 1982. her personal approval ratings are far and away ahead ofjeremy corbyn‘s, who today insisted that he was determined to carry on and appeared to joke that the situation was catastrophic but not serious. so this was the prime minister's day — she spent it in her new tory—held cumbria seat.

our political editor nick watt reports. for the moment, our unlikely prime minister reigned supreme, a by—election win in an area that had been beyond the reach of the tories since the interwar years leaves theresa may surveying a political landscape with few credible opponents. theresa may once likened herself to queen elizabeth the first, a woman who thrived in a male dominated world by knowing her mind. but she's never seen herself as a glory on a figure —— but she's never seen herself as a gloriana—like figure and she is one of the least assuming occupants of number ten. she's more likejohn major than margaret thatcher in her imperial pomp and, just likejohn major, who secured the highest number of votes of any tory leader, theresa may is not the slightest bit complacent and knows that around

every corner there are bear traps. theresa may has been shrewd in her position, she has a huge amount of authority and the conservative party believes she's an election winner. those three things give her immense power and so at the moment she's very strong. you always have to have a strategic view of what's coming next. the economy has been very strong for a long time, what will happen with that? brexit is very difficult but, if you have those three things, and you have that authority, if you're seen as a winner, you can command the scene. theresa may doesn't have any opposition, everyone has fallen away, the labour party can't deliver votes in its core seats, ukip has shown that they cannot organise a campaign, they can't turn a national message into success locally, and the lib dems are regaining their seats after a devastating loss, so the conservatives have the political landscape to themselves and the only real

enemies they have got plays to theresa may's advantage because they are slightly unpopular europeans that she can kind of go to war with. as something of a diffident figure, theresa may rarely shows much emotion, but there was no mistaking herjoy when she turned up in copeland this morning. the prime minister even woke up her husband in the middle of the night to tell him the news. if you extrapolated the swing from copeland, which was 6.7%, and put that on top of the results of the last election, you would see a uniform swing across the country, depending on the boundaries and the decisions of the smaller parties, you would end up with labour on about 150—160 seats, and the conservatives on something like 400, so you'd be looking at a very substantial conservative majority. jeremy corbyn made his way to stoke

to celebrate his party's win in the potteries but this did not have the feel of a triumphal march. after all, labour's share of the vote had fallen in each seat. internal critics largely bit their tongues, his allies were less restrained as they laid the blame for the party's poor showing at the feet of tony blair for criticising the leadership last week over brexit, the issue that is bedevilling jeremy corbyn. the great irony is thatjeremy is losing a lot of support among the people who flocked to the party, not over iraq, austerity, or nuclear weapons, the things that define him, but on europe, where many younger supporters are very pro—european and he at best is anaemic about it and that is the issue, combining the issue of ratings and popularity has. the ukip leader hoped to wake up as the mp for the seat he described as the brexit capital of britain but instead paul nuttall faces

a fight to restore his credibility after managing a modest increase only in his party's vote share in stoke. 0ne polling expert said that perhaps all is not lost for ukip. in terms of paul nuttall personally, he had a difficult campaign in stoke—on—trent. i'm not sure i'd say yet that the idea of ukip going after labour in the heartlands businesses assembly the wrong strategy because labour has a weakness in an area where ukip have strength, so clearly there will be some potential upside there and it doesn't seem like a bad strategy, but the problem is that they aren't executing on it. theresa may will no doubt allow herself a modest celebration this weekend. but one admirer says that, when the going seems easy, a wise leader makes preparations for more difficult times. the biggest problem you have when you are very strong is that you can't imagine a moment when you might not be and therefore you don't plan for it.

the long—term strategic challenge for the conservative party, with younger voters and more diverse voters and urban voters because you are doing so well because you're winning, you forget that you have to keep renewing your appeal, you have to keep modernising the party. you can do that by some extent with instinct but you require deliberate strategic moves. 0ur prime minister is for the moment britain's unchallenged empress. she will need no reminding of the role of the roman slave who whispered to the triumphant general to be wary of hubris, with the words, "remember, you are mortal." nick watt reporting. the shadow foreign secretary emily thornberryjoins me on the line from brighton. good evening. you've held copeland since 1935, why did you lose it? it has always been a marginal,

it has always been a fight, we had a majority of 2000 and there were particular factors happening in the constituency. the biggest employer was sellafield and the tories were putting out leaflets saying thatjeremy is against nuclear power. that came up on the doorstep all the time. even though we had conversations and said we were in favour of nuclear power, we couldn't have enough conversations to allay people's fears, so that was a major factor. the health service came up. i don't want to burst your bubble, i know you've had fun with that clip, but come on, theresa may was raised on the doorstep by people who pointed out that when she visited the constituency she had been asked four times about the future of the hospital maternity unit and failed to answer. the concern is whether she sees it as a green light to close the maternity unit at that hospital. let's leave that aside.

jeremy corbyn, there is this big thing about him being a man of principle but the point is, in his leadership campaign in 2015 he was against new nuclear because it created eco problems. is he saying he is pro—nuclear now? the people in sellafield didn't believe him. it wasn't fake news, they didn't believe him. what he did, after the nuclear disaster injapan he said that if we close down the nuclear power plant and invested in new energy, renewables, then we could fill the gap. that hasn't happened and that's why he says now we need to make sure that we keep the lights on, we have a commitment to closing down our carbon emissions, we need to be able to cut them down so we must invest in sellafield and elsewhere, which he committed to add theresa may didn't. and now, whether the result

was a disaster for the party. was it a disaster for the labour party? i think it was really disappointing, we had a really good candidate and we had a good ground campaign, and we lost and we are very disappointed. dave prentice, the unison boss who is traditionally a big supporter ofjeremy corbyn, called the result disastrous. is he wrong? i think it is disappointing, disastrous is too high a bar, i don't think it was a disaster. there were particular factors, the confusion about jeremy's attitude towards sellafield was important. a lot of people rely on it for theirjobs, for high skilled jobs. even though we tried to make it clear what the position of the labour party was... 0ur candidate's husband works in the nuclear industry, we tried to cut through the false news and stories being put around about the labour party

policy but we weren't able to and that's disappointing. would you say thatjeremy corbyn is the problem? i would say that the messages we have are absolutely the right ones and we must make ourselves sharper in terms of getting the messages out. jeremy corbyn said there was no question to answer when he was asked whether he was a problem. is that incredibly arrogant when the people of copeland clearly didn't believe he was on their side and he didn't allay their fears? he didn't seem to take any responsibility at all for what happened in copeland. i think it was down to local issues and it was down to whether or not we could convince local people that we were in favour of the major employer of the area. it's quite understandable. we ran a good campaign on the house service. my concern is whether theresa may sees this as a green light to close down the maternity unit,

because if she does she will have problems in copeland because people are up in arms about it. you had five by—elections and you have dropped votes in every single one. corbyn‘s personal ratings, —40, with every age group and region and social class, net unfavourable to labour party voters as well. how bad does it have to get? we have to fight on the issues and make sure that we make it clear to people that the tory government don't have the answers to the problems that we face today. but ifjeremy corbyn your leader can't do that, then he has a problem because he's been in his position for quite some time and if he can't make it clear, who can? if he doesn't think he's a problem, perhaps he is deluded? if you think politics is down to sop up, one person against another, quoting latin about one leader,

you are playing it in this way. i would like to talk about issues and what makes a difference in people's lives and what makes a difference is having the sort of government that will address the concerns of people, has some solutions. this government does not and we must make clear that we are the alternatives and we have alternative solutions that will work. it must be not laid at the door of one individual. but he is your leader. david miliband has said that labour is in the weakest position it has been in in 50 years and it doesn't get much more damning than that. we need to make sure that we have the answers to people's problems now. but you don't, clearly. we must make clear that we have those answers and we must keep working at it. you keep repeating that, when people in copeland are listening... you keep asking the same question.

you say you have to work at things but this was a major by—election for you in a seat you've held for 35 years, albeit the majority is 2,500. you would think that this is a seat that is naturally your territory and you couldn't hold on. and you sayjeremy corbyn has nothing to do with the result? the whole picture, there were two by—elections and in stoke, where ukip said that this was a moment when they were going to win the brexit capital of britain, they were going to use it as a launch pad to attack labour in its working class seats in the north of england, that's what they said, that's how it was built, people said ukip were going to win, or the tories... the labour vote went down in stoke. and we won the by—election, kirsty. but that is naturally your territory. and copeland... and copeland was a marginal,

it was a marginal with local factors. we've discussed sellafield and the problems we had in relation to sellafield and that is the picture, that is a truthful picture. you can quote latin and put on as many silly programmes and clips as you want, but let's look at the issues and the difference between the two seats and the fights we had. we had a pivotal moment in stoke and i think you should talk about that too. we will, thank you. labour drew some comfort in stoke — where the labour candidate gareth snell saw off the new ukip chairman paul nuttall — albeit with a reduced share of the vote. cut their majority in half and we've unified the party like never before and we'll go forward now. ukip‘s time will come. but stoke was dubbed the brexit capital in the referendum, where working class voters had voted

in their droves to leave the eu. so why did ukip not do better, and with their new leader at the helm? with us is neil hamilton, welsh assembly member, and leader of ukip in the assembly. could you explain why you did so badly in stoke? we didn't do badly. as you said a moment ago, we had a modest increase in our vote. we got 25% of the vote and beat the conservatives into third place. but that was an area where you did strongly in the referendum and you were not able to capitalise on that at all, even with your new leader. no, but it is a mistake to believe that just because people vote for brexit, they will inevitably vote for ukip. there were, of course, people in our own party who made that mistake, and expectations were raised unrealistically. we could have won in stoke if there had been tactical voting by the tories to defeat labour. now, that is what happened in copeland, because the ukip vote

in copeland was squeezed, and went to the tories, so they won the seat. it didn't happen in stoke, so we just failed to win it. so let's. .. we made a modest increase in our support and we fought on the ground the biggest campaign ukip has ever fought in a by—election. let's just say that ukip‘s finest moment was when you drove a vote on the referendum. and then you might say that your finest moment was when you got the brexit majority. yeah. no shame in saying job done. but ukip is far more than just a pressure group to take britain out of europe. in the welsh assembly, we fought an election last may and we got seven members elected. we hold the balance of power in the welsh assembly, and all the issues we debate our domestic issues. —— we debate there are. ukip now has to refocus itself, because after we leave the eu in two years' time,

we will be operating entirely in a domestic u k co ntext. what will the focus of ukip be to separate it from the other parties come and do you have a problem given that you have one mp in douglas carswell that you don't talk to? i talk to douglas a lot, actually. we have policies, such as, we would like to take £8 billion out of the foreign aid budget and put that into the nhs. we would like to cut 300 quid off everybody‘s household electricity bills by stopping subsidies for wind farms and so on. we would like to democratise the health service and we want a return to grammar schools. we have a range of policies which we think will be vote winners. labour is clearly in terminal decline. to have lost a seat like copeland, to have

converted stoke—on—trent central from a safe seat to a position where they got only 37%, ukip had no votes 25 years ago and now we have 25%. but would you accept that actually going after the labour vote doesn't work any more? of course it works. but stoke—on—trent central is one seat, but it was number 72 on our target list. there are 71 seats that are higher on the target list. yes, in different parts of the country, ukip will do, you know, better or worse. labour are obviously vacating a position in the political system they have traditionally held, and ukip are ready to move into that void. few would demurfrom the idea that this was a critical day forjeremy corbyn — even if he resolutely denies it. but what about the man who was one of the first to predict his leadership? what shape does he think labour's in now? here's a viewsnight from the new statesman

writer stephen bush. the by—elections aren't the end of corbyn. sincejeremy corbyn was elected, commentators on the right and the left have lined up to predict that this event that defeat will be the end of him. defeat in the copeland by—election and narrow victory in stoke once again has the punditocracy cheerfully predicting the death of coggan. the results are bad. 0pposition parties tend to overperform their general election performances at by—elections, so slipping back at this stage is a bad omen for the labour party. —— death of corbyn. but there are two groups that matter in labour, the corbynistas in the grassroots and labour mps. neither will be moved by all this. corbyn supporters will take solace from the defeat of ukip in stoke. so too will his opponents in the parliamentary labour party. why? because in their view, they tried to get rid of him in the summer, and it didn't work. they now think that their best approach is to stay quiet at westminster and spend as much time as possible in their constituencies. if stoke had fallen to ukip,

or even more worryingly to the tories, that would suggest that every labour seat was up for grabs. even labour mps with large majorities would have been worried. the group that matters is the "5,000 club" — the large group of labour mps with majorities of around 5,000. are they more scared of being got rid of by pro—corbyn activists or anti—corbyn voters? that stoke is still a labour seat will make them think and what about their colleagues with smaller majorities? well, that's politics for you. well, we'rejoined byjohn rentoul, who is chief political commentator at the independent, ava vidal, who is a comedian and writer and fraser nelson, who is the editor of the spectator. first of all, how healthy a state do you think politics is in at the moment? pretty healthy. imean... an effective opposition? well, no, but that is not how you judge a healthy democracy.

you can see parties responding to changes in the circumstances. the conservatives have reoriented after brexit. theresa may is more popular the further north in the country you go. you are seeing some signs of life in the dead lib dem bird, twitching away. and the labour party is is it's own personal agony right now. and ukip, you see them trying to supplant labour as the party of the working class, but kind of failing in stoke. but it is interesting, this idea that the 48% of the population voted to remain. but who is the effective voice for them?

it is not labour. but it's not — it was tony blair. but his position is not the position that the labour party can adopt. he can articulate it well. and take the blame for copeland? well, no. i think that's absurb. they have tried to blame everything — the weather, peter mandelson, tony blair, all the rest of it, all events in the labour party going back to the 19505. but no, i mean, copeland was a disaster. and you know, the labour party is going to have to deal with that. and how does the labour party deal with that? because it's interesting. jeremy corbyn resolutely, even in the face ofjohn mcdonnell and dave prentice, refuses to think that this disaster is anything to do with him. it is partly because of him, because of the way he has been treated. from the minute he stepped into power, he has consistently been undermined within his own party,

by the press, by the... even tonight, when you introduced it, you said the corbyn supporters are still clinging on to hope. the way you framed that is the way it is constantly friend when it comes to jeremy. he has notjust lost a massive by—election. the figures for labour were going down in copeland. lee young wrote a fantastic piece in the independent today. he pointed out that the figures for labour were going down in copeland since tony blair's days, since the working class felt abandoned up there, anyway. and labour had not done anything about it. that is the point. a labour minister called it a great position to be in. said what? kat smith said the result in stoke was an extraordinary achievement. right.

oh, well i was talking about copeland. but i do think that was a good achievement, actually, because the way that everybody was speaking, everyone had believed that ukip stood a chance up there. so the fact that labour held onto the seat, now how the did that is another matter entirely. jeremy corbyn has led the fight starts here, and it obviously, he voted in the lobbies with theresa may on the question of article 50, so it is a bit late to stop the fight. people don't think necessarily that this is — this behaviour shows someone ready for a fight. but if you look at the results, take stoke, a very pro—brexit constituency. they had a very pro—remain labour mp who actually won and ukip hardly did very well at all. so it doesn't seem as if — when he's talking about the fight starts here, it is not as if brexit has completely changed politics.

it has shifted it a bit, but if brexit was the defining issue, labour would not have won in stoke. so from the two elections, we can see a more nuanced picture. i think the tories would be happy if labour clung on in stoke, because they suspect we will cling on tojeremy corbyn for longer. does he want to stay? i don't think he does. he does. all right, he does. but i think he feels a sense of duty. the fact is that people love to paint jeremy corbyn as this week leader, clinging on. i don't do any one of us on this panel could take the amount of criticism that jeremy corbyn has to take, the amount of backstabbing within his own party. it is made out that he is a weak person. he is a very, very strong person. you have to be to tolerate what he has had to tolerate every week. he's having all sorts

of things thrown at him. he was a complete maverick on the backbenches. he did vote against the government, but he did it in a respectful way. he's not doing it in the way that people criticise him for. he is not sending around snide e—mails within the commons and calling people names. i thinkjeremy corbyn should be stronger. he keeps talking about nicer politics. if he doesn't know politics isn't nice by now, i'm sorry. i agree with you. one of the dogs here that hasn't yet barked is that there was no moderate saying he has got to go 110w. they have been very quiet, because they have worked out that the hard left in labour hasn't just taken over the leadership, they have taken over the membership as well. so even if you were to come up with the perfect candidate, then the labour membership, as it is now, would not have it. the unions are beginning

to sayjeremy has to take responsibility for what happens now. a couple of caustic comments does not show that they are losing patience with him. and a lot of labour party members would rather thatjeremy corbyn or someone like him captured the labour party and got into power. not everybody judges corbyn‘s success by whether he is knocking on the door of number ten. i think the most important thing is what will happen to the 300,000 members and supporters who voted forjeremy corbyn just five months ago. and i think a lot of them are beginning to be disillusioned. it may take a long time, but i think they were very upset about jeremy corbyn whipping his mps into the conservative lobby on the brexit bill. and i think the lost of copeland... but not actually chastising those who didn't. but that doesn't matter, that is politics. but losing copeland, i think, was such a serious blow. there will be a state of denial, where emily thornberry will say it is a marginal or something. but i mean that was the government gaining a seat from

the opposition, and that doesn't happen in british politics. i think he will go... before copeland, he could have survived until the next general election. now, i don't think so. either he gives up all the people around him will lose faith in him. it will have to be the people around him that lose faith in him, because while he has the support of so many, he is not going to let them down and go. he's not going to do that. thank you all very much. before we go, the government announced today that it would be providing an incentive to universities to offer more condensed, two—year degree courses. the move has sparked criticism that students will be rushed through the course material and not have the time and space to really take in what they are learning. well, newsnight has been given a sneak peek at what the new condensed history courses could look like. good night. music: we didn't start the fire by billyjoel # harry truman, doris day # red china, johnnie ray # south pacific, walter winchell, joe dimaggio #joe mccarthy, richard nixon, studebaker, television

# north korea, south korea, marilyn monroe # rosenbergs, h—bomb, sugar ray, panmunjom # brando, the king and i, and the catcher in the rye # eisenhower, vaccine, england's got a new queen # marciano, liberace, sa ntaya na, goodbye # we didn't start the fire # it was always burning since the world's been turning # we didn't start the fire # no, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it # joseph stalin, malenkov...# welcome to sport today. claudio ranieri said his dreams are over. sacked as manager of leicester. marvellous macae moves inverness from the bottom of the scottish premier premiership table. and

leicester on the brink of the top four with a win at the harlequins. lots for you. starting with claudio ranieri, the ex— leicester city manager and how the man who helped make one of the sports great stories has become one of its most famous victims. ranieri claimed in a statement this afternoon that his dream died. leicester are currently one point above the relegation zone after a string poor performances in the league. earlier, the team's interim manager craig shakespeare, who was his assistant, insisted ranieri hadn't lost the support of the players and that they needed the fans