Speak to Christopher Glass – the 80-year-old owner of Select-A-Carpet in Hindley town centre – and he’ll tell you he can’t keep count of how many journalists have been coming into his shop over the last four weeks.“Two or three a day sometimes,” he says. “From London and Manchester but further too. Europe as well. I gave an interview for Japanese TV the other day, which isn’t something I ever imagined I’d do.”A hundred yards down the road at Greenhalgh’s Craft Bakery, they can trump even that mileage. They had a reporter from an Australian newspaper last week. “She’d flown over,” says one woman between serving pasties and cobs. “Fancy it.” Thus runs the (global) interest in what some are calling the most important by-election in memory.Hindley sits at the heart of the Greater Manchester constituency of Makerfield which, on Thursday, will go to the polls in a contest that may ultimately decide the next prime minister.Christopher Glass has spoken to Japanese TV about the upcoming election, indicating just how much interest there is (The Independent)It is here that Andy Burnham hopes the 76,000 population will elect him as their new MP and, in doing so, provide him with the path to Downing Street he has long coveted.And, certainly, this week, in the area’s streets and shops, pubs and pavements, there is a distinct sense that, while the Reform Party has considerable support, Burnham’s personal appeal and long connection with the area will likely see him win through. There is a reason, it would seem, why – after a mid-campaign wobble – bookies now have Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor as the clear favourite.“For me, I think we need something new instead of the same old Labour-Tory-Labour-Tory roundabout,” says Glass, who has run his shop in Market Street for 56 years. “I think it’s a very good thing that Reform has come along to give us a third choice. But Andy Burnham does have a lot of respect around here. I don’t know much about politics but I know people like him. You listen to him speak and he has personality.”Indeed, the fact that people like him is not in doubt.It might be chance, but in a full day of speaking to people here in Makerfield – a collection of former coal-mining communities in the borough of Wigan – almost everyone has a story about being helped by, or spending time with, Burnham. Without exception, they all described him as approachable, decent and capable.Retired Susan Smith says that Burnham’s commitment to a Hindley bypass shows he cares about ‘helping people’ (The Independent)“I’ve met him various times down the years,” says one, Susan Smith, a retired IT business owner. “He actually went out with a girl I knew many years ago.”Did he? How did he treat her? “Very well, as I remember,” she replies. “He was a very nice young man, even then.”The 70-year-old will vote Labour on Thursday. For her, the red-rosette party is no longer radical enough. She’d like to see it go bigger on helping with the cost of living crisis, on improving the high street and on environmental issues. She believes, ultimately, that under Keir Starmer, the party feels too similar to the Tories.Would Burnham change that, does she think? “I do, yes,” the great-grandmother says. “At his heart – and you see this with things he’s done as mayor of [Greater] Manchester – I think he’s about fairness and helping people”.He has promised, she notes, to revisit long-abandoned proposals to build a bypass that takes traffic away from the clogged Hindley town centre. “People talk about him being the next prime minister and I think he’d be a good one,” she says. “But I don’t agree with this idea he doesn’t care about this area. He’s spent years showing he does ... If you talk about [a potential bypass], I think having a prime minister as your MP is more likely to make that happen, not less likely.”People call [Burnham] a career politician. I don’t get that. I was a career pharmacist. That meant I got better at my job as I got more experienced. Surely that’s the sameBarend Anthon, former NHS pharmacistBy rights, his winning on Thursday shouldn’t be in doubt.This, after all, is a constituency that has been red ever since its creation in 1983. Even before then, its predecessor seat – Ince – had returned an uninterrupted chain of Labour parliamentarians dating all the way back to 1906. More pertinently, perhaps, Burnham – who was MP for neighbouring Leigh between 2001 and 2017 – has repeatedly flourished in elections here. During the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral vote, he triumphed in every single electoral district across the region. In Wigan – which Makerfield is part of – he took two-thirds of all votes. He came away with an astonishing 58 per cent majority.And yet.In an area that voted 65 per cent for Brexit 10 years ago and which is 96 per cent white, there is certainly traction for Reform’s candidate Robert Kenyon. The professional plumber and local councillor is hoping he can repeat the turquoise success in May’s local elections when the party took all eight of the council wards within Makerfield.“It’s about fairness,” says Steve, who’s just enjoyed a post-work draught in the Market Tavern pub. “I graft hard every day – out the house early, all kinds of weather – yet there’s people living on my street getting a fortune on the sick. It needs changing and putting right.”Reform’s Makerfield candidate Robert Kenyon is hoping to beat the Greater Manchester mayor (Reform UK)He has concerns about the high street too. He would like – and this is not an uncommon musing – fewer barbers and minimarts in Hindley. There are five of the former within a five-minute walk on Market Street and – dependent on what you count as a minimart – a similar number of the latter. “I get my haircut as much as the next bloke,” he says. “But I don’t know how we need five in a town this size.”He may vote Reform but may also go for the harder right of Restore’s businesswoman candidate Rebecca Shepherd – who is currently polling at about 6 per cent. He will not, he says, provide a surname: “because I know how the media spins the things I’ve said, even though plenty of people are thinking it.”I graft hard every day – out the house early, all kinds of weather – yet there’s people living on my street getting a fortune on the sick. It needs changing and putting rightSteve, local manMichelle Ryan – a florist at the nearby Four Seasons flower shop – has heard much of this when she’s been out having a drink over the last few weeks. “Are people talking about [the by-election]?” she repeats. “Non-stop, yeah.”The 56-year-old is a Burnham supporter and bites her tongue when conversations become too pro-Farage for her. “I mean, did you see him [Kenyon] on Question Time?” the 56-year-old says. “No answers, no substance.”She (of course, of course) has met Burnham a few times. Back in the Noughties, she worked as an advocate for Embrace, a Wigan charity dedicated to supporting disabled people and their families, and he – the health minister at this point – worked with the group around issues of widening social understanding. “He wanted to listen and he wanted to help, and that has always stuck with me,” she says. Michelle Ryan, a local florist, says that Reform’s Robert Kenyon lacked ‘answers’ in his appearance on ‘Question Time’ (The Independent)Since then, his work on improving public transport as mayor of Greater Manchester has only won her over more, as did his empathetic approach to Covid-19. “I think we’d have dealt with that far better if he’d been prime minister,” she says.It is a point with which former NHS pharmacist Barend Anthon agrees.The 69-year-old will also be voting Labour on Thursday. He’s always voted that way, but he’ll perhaps do so with more enthusiasm this time – because he believes Burnham could be an “excellent” prime minister. “He’s a man of integrity and who is – from my experience – concerned with finding solutions to issues that matter,” he says.Many years ago, when he lived in Leigh, Anthon had been part of a campaign to save a local school from closing. “It was saved too,” he says. “And he [Burnham] helped with that.”Like others, he’s been very impressed with the mayor’s work on homelessness and likes the way he communicates as mayor – in particular, how he takes questions and addresses issues during a regular BBC Radio Manchester phone-in. And he has no concerns that Burnham is using Makerfield as a stepping stone to becoming prime minister.Barend Anthon remembers Burnham helping out in a campaign to save a local school from closing (The Independent)“People call him a career politician,” says Anthon. “I don’t get that. I was a career pharmacist. That meant I got better at my job as I got more experienced. Surely that’s the same.”Which perhaps brings us back to Ryan in the florist one last time.She, too, as it happens, was approached by that Australian reporter. What did she tell her? “I said it was quite exciting,” she says. “This could decide the next prime minister – it’s probably the most important election this area has ever had.”