The good people of Makerfield have the potential to do the funniest thing. It is in their gift to unleash the most hilarious chaos. With one swipe of their pen they could wipe the smirk off the face of every centrist-dad podcaster and leave the smug scribes of the leftish media scratching their heads in mournful bewilderment. All they have to do is vote Reform in the upcoming by-election.
They’re not dumb. They know the home he’s really eyeing up is Downing Street
Just picture it. In swoops Andy Burnham, their supposed King of the North, hoping to be crowned King of Labour too, but then the citizens of Makerfield say: ‘Nah, you’re all right.’ They have the power to block a coronation, to send the anointed golden boy of the SW1 left packing. It would be glorious. It would be entirely in keeping with the great English tradition of the little people occasionally saying a hearty ‘Nope’ to the cynical machinations of the powerful.
It would be a richly deserved blow for the cult of Burnham. There is something so mercenary in the gifting of Makerfield to Burnham, as if it were just another rung on his slippery ladder to power rather than a real place with real people and real issues. The incumbent MP, Josh Simons, says he’s standing down to make way for Andy and his much gabbed-about challenge to Sir Keir. And just like that, Makerfield is reduced to a glorified backroom in which clever men with rolled-up sleeves might plot their seizure of the throne.
