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BM Talks
BM Talks
BM Talks: Rob Ford, Professor of Politics, speaks about Makerfield By-Election
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We are joined once again by Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science at Manchester University and co-author of the definitive "The British General Election of 2019 (Bible of General Elections)" to discuss the Makerfield by-election. He is also the new Elections Analyst for Sky News and his Substack is The Swingometer.
We asked:
- Who is likely to win the Makerfield by-election?
- Who are the Makerfield voters?
- What is the path to victory for Labour and for Reform?
- What role will Rupert Lowe's Restore play?
- Has there ever been such a consequentual by-election in British political history?
Hello, and welcome to another edition of BM Talks with me, Helen Thomas, founder and CEO of Blonde Money, and it is another by-election special and a returning guest, which is Rob Ford. Hello, Rob. Hello. And Rob, you may well remember, Professor of Politics at Manchester University, and hot off the press, he is the new Sky News Elections Analyst. So we're very grateful to have you, Rob.
SPEAKER_02Pleasure to be here, Helen.
SPEAKER_00And I'm sure that there'll be more and more of this to come. I should also say, interestingly, in your um in your day job, uh, you are currently marking papers. It was very nice of you to take a bit of time out to talk to us about this very important by-election. But you are marking papers, I believe, with the essay title of uh How Economic Crises End Governments or something like that. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, d do economic crises do for governments? Is there uh uh can governments win re-election uh after an economic crisis or not? Is more or less the the broad topic of the question. The general pattern is no, um, which may or may not be bad news for whoever wins the Makerfield violation.
SPEAKER_00Great. Well, I love it. Very, very relevant. Yes, so we are here to talk about Makerfield. Now, before we dive into the questions, I just want to say one thing, which I know you know as well, Rob, which is there is not actually a place called Makerfield. It is the name of the constituency, but it is it there is a town there, and you'll talk about it, I'm sure, called Ashton in Makerfield. And one of my very good friends, I must say hello to his parents, Billy and Lynn, who live there, and would be very not happy if we started to uh not make it clear to everyone straight away this part of the Northwest. So that's right, isn't it, Rob? So tell us a bit about Makerfield.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's that's correct, Helen. And I mean it's it's an interesting continuation of a theme because with Gorton and Denton, um, a lot of people in Westminster got Gorton and Denton wrong because they failed to realise that most of the seat was neither Gorton nor Denton, so the seat name was misleading. In this case, you have a seat called Makerfield, and if people are coming up from Westminster trying to find a place called Makerfield, they won't find one. Um, the the name actually originated. There's two towns called Ashton in Makerfield and Ince in Makerfield. Ince used to be in the seat. In fact, if you go back 50 or 60 years, it was called Ince rather than Makerfield, but it got moved out of the seat. Um, so there are two places with Makerfield in the name, but one of them isn't in the seat even. Um, just to add to the confusion. But it's kind of appropriate because this is a place that isn't quite what it seems on the surface. So uh a slightly misleading name for a place that's easy to mislead people, I think.
SPEAKER_00Um, tell us so tell us, let's dig into this seat. Who who lives there? What kind of people? Uh and then, of course, their voting history, I suppose, where they'd be inclined to vote this time. So, yeah, tell us what we need to know, I guess, with the demographics, maybe to start with of the seat.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I mean, when I started to dig into this seat um to sort of do a profile uh of it, my expectation was that it was going to be a very classic kind of red wall type seat. The seat does have a kind of long, deep history with the mining industry. This is where a lot of the Lancashire mining industry um was based. Um, and for roughly 80 years, uh, they basically sent local miners to Westminster. That's what they did. Um, uh, so you've got a series of the the very first one was it was a really fascinating contest because uh um a local miner, the first Labour MP was a local miner who defeated a guy with a tremendous triple-barreled name who basically owned most of the local mines. Um but that is ancient history now, really, in this area. Um, I think what it does leave as a kind of cultural heritage, as it were, is a very strong attachment to the traditional Labour Party, a very strong sense of working class identity, and it's a very white seat as well. Yeah, this is you know, relative to say Gorton and Denton in Manchester, which we have is very ethnically diverse, big city seat. This is small town, semi-rural, very white, but and it's a big butt, it sits right in between Manchester and Liverpool. You can commute to Manchester, you can commute to Liverpool, but the properties are bigger and they're cheaper, and the schools are good, and the roads are pretty good. So, what is it now? It is in fact not a seat of horny-handed sons of toil, of miners uh going down beneath the surface, it is a seat of aspirational middle-class commuters, as much as anything. Um you've got about 75% home ownership here, you've got very high rates of car commuting here, you've got um pretty much national average rates of uh employment here. So, although you have this very distinctive and very kind of you know traditional romantic labour heritage in terms of the mining industry, and people who lived lived here all their lives are still very attached to all of that. It's a very big sense of the place. You've also got led on top of that, what would look like I mean, you know, if if you were to just describe the seat in the abstract, it would sound potentially like a seat um in Essex, um a seat on the edge of the London commuter belt where you'd say straightforwardly this is probably going to be a Tory leading seat or a swing seat, but it's not, it's never ever done anything except return Labour MPs. Yes. Um so it is red wool in in kind of its heritage and and identity. It is not red wool in terms of the kind of people who live here, but it is also very, very Labour. The other thing that surprised me about the seat is it's never really done, UKIP have never really done very well here going back into earlier periods. Boris didn't win here in 2019, unlike, for example, Lee next door, which used to be Andy Burnham's seat. Lee flipped to the Conservatives as part of the big sort of red ball wave. This seat did not. Um, and although there's been a lot of talk, and for good reason, about the huge wave of gains that reform made in the local elections here last week. They won every single ward in this seat. If you go back further in time, there isn't evidence of this seat being very consistently a seat with a radical right leaning. It's not like you know, you go and look at places like um Boston and Skegness, um, Grimsby, you know, the Lincolnshire type areas, um, uh Essex as well, Thurrock and so on, you'll see like big UKIP votes in like the 2010s. You don't see that uh here at all. So it's an in it's a really, really interesting seat. I mean, if I were like Andy Burnham's campaign manager and I was saying, could you design me a seat that would demonstrate that I can appeal beyond what is now the traditional Labour electoral coalition? A socially mixed commuter seat with relatively few graduates of relatively few ethnic minorities, it's more or less central casting to make that case. So um it is, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean it's it is, it is, it's well, it is. I think that's a extremely good point to make about how, in many ways, for the candidate for Andy Burnham himself, this is uh kind of well suited. And actually, as we we keep hearing, but it is very true, if he can't win here, then there are bigger problems for the Labour Party. So, in that sense, it will be it's such a bellwether anyway, despite everything else that's riding on it. Um just a moment to talk before we move away from the um geography, because so this is the other thing. You mentioned Lee. So Andy Vernon was the MP for Lee, the neighbouring seat. I believe he lived his house is on a road that is between both constituencies.
SPEAKER_02Uh uh, anyway, but it keeps pointing down the road in his videos and saying, I live down there, so clearly it is very nearby, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And his and I mean his daughters went to this school that you mentioned is a very good school there in the Makerfield constituency. Um so he is he is local. Now it I was actually struck though. Do you know what's interesting to me about Andy Burnham for anyone who knows anything about the Northwest? It's fascinating to me. A guy born in Aintree grew up near Warrington, ends up, worked, went to Cambridge, worked as a Labour MP, you know, down in Westminster, and then ends up being this hugely popular mayor of Manchester, greater Manchester, and he's an Everton fan. So I was quite struck when you said that that this particular city is between Liverpool and Manchester, that perhaps again it might suit the kind of chameleonic um uh elements of Andy Burnham, which amazingly has played off pretty well to manage that because there are very distinct local heritages here, right? I mean, you well, you live up there nearby-ish. Well, you're in Manchester anyway, Rob, but tell us.
SPEAKER_02I am, yeah. And my son, who's a great example of local integration, because as you can hear from my accent, I wasn't born in Manchester, but he's got the thick Manchester accent, and he even supports Manchester United for his sins.
SPEAKER_01So, integration in action.
SPEAKER_02Um, you're you're you're right though, that the the the one of the other sort of stats that surprised me when I was like crunching the numbers on this, I tried the commuting times for Makerfield in Liverpool. It's actually for most of the bigger towns in Makerfield, it's quicker to get into Liverpool than it is to get into Manchester, and I think that's probably reflected in where people come from and where people work. Um, I suspect it wasn't an accident that that Andy donned his um Everton shirt for his announcement, which I you don't see as often when he's on the campaign trail in central Manchester. But maybe he doesn't wear it all the time. Um, I suspect there probably are as many Liverpool and Everton fans around Makefield as there are Manchester United fans, and it feels like a place that's got kind of cultural affinities to both big Northwest cities, but that may be, and this is me um getting a bit armwavy and speculative here, but I think you know, for justified reasons, it may be another thing that's like uh playing in Labour's favour and possibly Burnham's favour too. I mean, Burnham can can point to Liverpool and Manchester aspects to his heritage and identity, that's very helpful. But also, one thing we know about Merseyside is it's a massive outlier in terms of its voting behaviour, particularly in the last few decades. Yeah, it's very white, very working class, especially the outer boroughs of Merseyside, and yet there is an absolute monolithic unwillingness to go over to the right, either the Tories or really even UKIP either, or reform. Um, this the sort of Scouser identity seems to be a very strongly aligned with Labour identity. Uh, and that might account for where why, for example, Makerfield stays Labour, Lee, just a few miles to the east, bit closer to Manchester, bit more of a Manchester identity, ends up going Tory. Maybe there were just enough Merseysiders here to keep uh to keep it red. So that would probably play um in Burnham's favour.
SPEAKER_00Interesting as well, with the is a it was a leave voting seat. Well, if you can deduce it, but um yeah, Makerfield, I mean, you know, didn't both of them were.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, both both look makerfield and both two-thirds leave.
SPEAKER_00Two-thirds leave, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um, but there are other wrinkles to this whole story of local identity and local politics, though, because reform perhaps learning their lesson from Gorton and Denton, where they picked a candidate who did his best to make himself sound like a local, but it wasn't really very convincing. Um, they've picked a guy who could not be more local.
SPEAKER_00I mean born and bred, I think, as he keeps saying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a there's a kind of weird, I'm more local than yelled sort of um bidding war going on in the sea at the moment. So he's going about he's a local plumber, he's been sort of basically fixing local toilets his whole life. Uh, he loves Makerfield, he's never been anywhere but Makerfield, he never wants to go anywhere but makerfield. Um, you know, and Burnham is going around saying, My kids are at the school down there, I've lived there 20 years, stop saying I'm not local. So, you know, and in a way that's kind of charming because this is a sort of perennial of by-elections. People love to emphasize their local credentials, but it's kind of acquired an almost surreal intensity in this case. But it's smart because he's not just a local, he is a you know, he's a he's a working class kid, but he's not a novice. I mean, reform because he's been like a little bit controversial as some of his social media that they've dug up, they're like, oh, but he was uh he was just a plumber a couple of weeks ago, he's got no experience in politics. That's not really true. He's run for local office three years running for reform, three different wards. So he's clearly been active uh in politics for reform a while. Uh, having watched some of his videos, I think he comes across very polished very well. Um, he's very good at telling that, you know, local working class, not traditional political elite story. And of course, that enables you to get into the narrative of Andy Burnham went to Cambridge, Andy Burnham went to Westminster, Andy Burnham's abandoned places like Makerfield before you can't trust it. So, in terms of uh a contrast uh candidate, they've done very well there.
SPEAKER_00Um and this, and we should say so reform came second in the last well, in 2024.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it was one of their strongest performances, and that's the other local politics wrinkle. Here is if if you watch um the reform guys' videos, you'll see him talking about how Makerfield has never had local MPs, they parachute people in. Now, never had local MPs is definitely not true, but the parachuting bit he's clearly referring to is he's punching a bruise from two years ago. Makerfield featured one of the probably most contentious late selections by uh Labour, uh Josh Simons, formerly head of Labour Together, um, where he's been no stranger to controversy recently either. Um, basically an apparatchic uh with no connection to the the Northwest. I mean, I believe he spent some of his early childhood in Bury, so that's the closest he has is a connection to the seat. But he went to school in Cambridge, he then went to um do his doctorate in Harvard, then he came back to be a policy wonk, and then days before nominations closed, the long-standing MP here retired and he was parachuted in on, I believe, on a short list of one. I don't know, or if it wasn't a short list of one, it was one of those situations where it was pretty clear who the NEC were going to pick. And that plays into, I think, the distinctive heritage of this seat because, like I mentioned, for 80 years, what they did here was send local miners straight out of the pit to Westminster to basically stand up for the local people and industry of Makerford. So voters with longer memories and attachments to this seat would know that this was a place where you know it wasn't Labour tell you who your MP is, it was you tell Labour what uh what you want for Makerfield, you know, you send a local representative. So I think reform have been very astute picking up on that particular um controversy and that particular resentment. And it presents, I think if if if anyone other than Andy Burnham was on the ballot, then it probably would be a sufficiently knockout argument for them to win with, um, particularly in an anti-Labor climate. But because Andy Burnham is himself someone who has a strong story to tell about I'm not like the National Labour Party, I have argued with the National Labour Party, I'm not like Westminster, I have fought against Westminster for places like this. It's harder to pull off. Um, but it still gives them an in. I mean, this is why it's such a fascinating by-election. It really, you really can, like, here we are two weeks out from voting, you can construct a plausible story by which either candidate narrowly wins. Um, we don't know which story will be true, but you know, the the they're both going into this with with clear strengths and weaknesses.
SPEAKER_00If we zoom out, then we've done lots of the and I want it to be hyper-local because local, local, local is what we do keep hearing. And you you're you by the way, everyone should read the swingometer, which is Rob Substack, where he has some very witty uh uh captions to his photographs, which uh I enjoy about some of these local things being pointed out by local candidates. Um but but then we have this national significance, uh which I think, and I hate using this word, but I think it is unprecedented. And maybe Rob, you're you've got the you've got the political history knowledge, but have we ever really had such a specific by-election where the people of Makerfield look like they will be choosing the next Prime Minister?
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's only one by-election I know of where you know the voters were essentially choosing the next prime minister, and that's when Alex Douglas Holm um ran in a very, very safe Tory seat. It was like 75% Tory, and he'd already been picked as Prime Minister, but he in by convention he wanted to sit in the Commons, he was in the House of Lords at the time.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, of course.
SPEAKER_02That was more like you already have a Prime Minister, but he needs a seat.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Whereas what's weird about this is Burnham is not the Prime Minister, he's not even officially a candidate to be Prime Minister or Labour leader, but everyone knows that's what's going on.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so you get this really surreal situation where the by-election campaign is essentially hate Starmer, vote Labour.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02That's the kind of implicit method.
SPEAKER_00Which also neutralises some of reform's argument, I would suggest. Where reform have done quite well, obviously, in those local elections, they were, I think, explicitly campaigning on get Starmer out, vote reform.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was that was their slogan. And you know, uh if if Burnham was keen to up Manchester's recycling rates, he could just take all of those leaflets and just TIPEX out uh reform and put Burnham, vote Burnham, get Starmer out. That's basically the message here.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's quite, can I just say if people haven't seen the campaign literature, the picture, the poster that is vote Andy for us with a kind of cartoon picture of Andy Burnham. And somewhere in tiny writing you can't even see it says this is for the Labour Party and all the promotional stuff you have to put on for legal reasons. But it is quite astonishing, right? It's a red background, so I suppose that's your nod, but it's very much about Andy Burnham, not the Labour Party, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It's it's red and yellow. Uh they've they've even tried to sort of downplay the the sort of red list, you know. But you're you're absolutely right. It's an incredibly personalized um uh campaign material, um, clearly focused entirely on Andy Burnham. Um and that's because that's the that's the circle they're trying to square. They can't actually, much as it would amuse me if they did run with vote Burnham, get Starmer out. Um, but um vote Andy for us, well, for us versus what? Versus an out-of-touch Labour government versus reform. You know, you can pick your enemy, but clearly it's not exactly a message that's about about the the merits of the current Labour government. Yet, because of the nature of the sort of Westminster um game, you know, you're having people interviewing him and saying, Oh, would you support the current government? He's having to pretend that he does, and Starmer is having to pretend that he's fine with all of this. And my favourite one is there well asking, like, oh, would you like it if Keir Starmer came and campaigned in in the seat? Which is like, I I think the happiest person, if there was a really high-profile day of canvassing by Keir Starmer in the seat, I think the happiest person in the country would be Nigel Farage. Very strange. Um, you know, no, I don't particularly want my leader to come and campaign in my seat.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean it's it is really an astonishing moment in British political history, and I I I mean, for you and me as people who love you know politics, it's it's a fascinating, it's fascinating. It is ex it's it is uh we often descend into hyperbole, I think, in the pol in political journalism, but actually this time around there is some merit to this fact. I do think the I think I'm sure the voters of Makerfield are aware, I think, in many ways. I mean, do you have a view on that? Like my my sense is if you feel like this person could then lead the country I I I in a way I would I would think that if you were Labour leaning or you'd voted Labour in the past, it it would make you more inclined to vote for Andy Burnham. I mean, unless you didn't like him for some reason. But yeah, what do you think of the of the element of I mean it's quite hard, there's no other real comparison for it, but how do you think it affects the the you know the voter is voters in the constituency to to weigh that up?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I think the whole thing will turn on on how voters understand this very unusual contest. Um, because I mean, just just to fire yet another stat at you, Helen, you know, um uh reform on every single ward in this uh constituency last month. So if voters treat it like they treated the the local election last month, you would think that reform would be racing favorites. But Andy Burnham won the borough of Wigham by more than two-thirds in 2024, um which which incidentally meant he ran well ahead of Labour, who also did quite well in that year. So if this was treated as a referendum on do you think Andy Burnham's a great guy, uh then he would like basically win it. But of course, the contest can't really straightforwardly be like the local elections because it's not, it's about electing a Westminster MP and we know it's about electing a potential leader of the Labour Party, but nor can it be a referendum on Andy Burnham's performance as mayor because he's not running to be mayor. And in fact, some people may not like the fact that he's running away from the mayoral job. So, how are voters going to understand this choice? I mean, I think if you're a disaffected Labour voter, all the polling suggests you probably like Burnham more than Starmer. Most of the voters that Labour have lost are the kind of people who like the kind of stuff they're hearing from Burnham more than they like the stuff that they're hearing from Starmer. But there's also an awful lot of recent recruits to reform in this seat. And how are they going to see this contest? Do they think, well, you know, I really don't like Starmer, and this is a chance for Need to kick him out and Andy's okay, so that's fine for me. Or do they think you know we really need to stop Burnham because he's the one thing that stands in the way of getting a reform government, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, you're right. It's yeah, that's like a two-level on uh yeah, it's that multi-stage game almost there, isn't it? Of of yeah, this is like a shadow race for the general election. I mean, it's always being fought like a general election. I mean, quite amazingly, we've got a situation where you know a Labour candidate is being uh asked about manifesto commitments. It's almost as if he's running, it's like a general election, and we're almost getting the old, you know, the opposition putting forward what they want.
SPEAKER_02And so it's extremely Yeah, we've we've already had a I mean, I was expecting this once he was running for the leadership, but before he's even had the by-election, we've already had a whole run of speculation about an early general election. You don't normally get speculation about an early general election in response to a by-election campaign, and clearly that's all to do with. I mean, everyone seems to have just decided if Burnham wins this, he's just going to become Prime Minister. That's the sort of Westminster Village view. Um whether or not that's the average voter in Makerfield's view, I'm not sure. But clearly they know this is not like a normal by-election conference.
SPEAKER_00You think turnout will be higher as a result?
SPEAKER_02I do, yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's normal, it's normally what, around two-thirds of general election turnout. Is it for by-elections or it varies?
SPEAKER_02I mean, nor normally in Labour seats it drops more than in conservative seats.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but part of the reason for that is that Labour voters tend to be more responsive to the stakes in the context of an election. So therefore, you would expect that drop to be more mitigated by this being quite. And in both Runcorn and Gorton and Denton, which is the two other by-elections in Labour seats you've had up here in the northwest, you know, seems like you know, this is where politics is. It is in both of those cases, the the turnout was was barely down from the general election, which is really very unusual.
SPEAKER_00That's very unusual. That is very unusual.
SPEAKER_02These were tight contests, high stakes. This is an even tighter contest with even higher stakes. I wouldn't be surprised if we actually get turnout going up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm just thinking that it could it could easily be higher. Yeah, because actually, one thing that you're seeing as well, I think with both the campaigns. So what uh again, it's by-elections are different from normal campaigns for the parties involved because they can tend to put a lot more resources into it. Um so um, you know, we're being told that every single Labour MP is supposed to visit this constituency twice. I believe there are two heads of the campaign, I think there's even four of them. Apparently there's it's it's thronging with uh with um you know Labour Party activists. I'm sure the people in Makefield are absolutely fed up with getting knocked on the door. But I do also think that that is I'm hearing that, you know, initially normally when you do a by-election, you kind of know your safe core voters, you know your waverers, there's the people you don't bother with. I'm told that Burnham really did want this to start off as being we speak to everybody. He apparently wants to have knocked on every door. Um, and that apparently even now he's going after the waverers, um, feeling, you know, that he himself wants to have this direct conversation with them. I mean, he was actually having sitting down with groups of voters in Gorton and Denton. He was there, he wasn't even standing there, but but he was. Which, by the way, um logistically is uh horrendously difficult and very unusual and very expensive, and you normally can't do it, but it's a sign of the stakes of this. Um and I'm sure likewise um, you know, that from what we can see, reformer doing that too. I mean, Nigel Farage is certainly um uh being even more vocal uh lately as well on this. So I think there is something to be read into the the the nature of this campaign is if you're going that hard. It seems to me that Andy Burnerman, quite understandably, would like to win big because the bigger the margin of his victory, the more momentum that would then ultimately push him into number 10 Downing Street. Politics is all about momentum, you know. And equally for reform, what we see uh in some recent polling is that their voters tend to be the highest turnout voters. The people most votivated to turn out are reform voters. There may be fewer of them in a seat, but they may be more motivated to turn out. So you've got quite, again, quite an interesting uh approach to this extremely high-stakes election, where uh I mean, I can't imagine anything like it, but that that you know, that people are getting knocks on their doors and the literal your candidate is there will chat with you for half an hour to try and to try and change your mind. I mean, is that what you're also seeing and hearing, Rob?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I I think that's right, Helen. And I I think it's interesting because I think there's a Burnham-specific reason for this, but also I think it's potentially Labour learning the lessons from what they've seen in a couple of the other recent by-elections. So, you know, Burnham is very proud of the fact that he wins big and broad in his mayoral contests. You know, he hasn't uh ever settled, you know, he could easily have just won like 55% Bosch in No Problem, but he has uh made a lot of um, you know, seeking to win across the length and breadth of a quite diverse um metro area. You know, I think in one of the mayoral elections, possibly the last one, he he claimed he won every single ward but one or something like that across the whole um metro area.
SPEAKER_00Pretty significant. It's a quite astonishing statistic.
SPEAKER_02So he has always thought I want to win everyone everywhere, I want to be a big and broad um uh leader with a big and broad mandate. So I think that's that's a philosophy he's brought to this seat. But it's also, I think, a little bit making a virtue of necessity because one of the things that I think uh the the banana skins Labour slipped up on, particularly in Runcorn, but also to some extent in Gorton and Denton as well, is in Runcorn I heard quite a lot that they felt they had turned their vote out. And when you look at their vote number, you can see why that was a number they thought was going to win if you made typical assumptions about turnout drops that we talked about. It didn't happen because a whole bunch of people who don't normally vote in a by-election showed up and completely upset their models.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Gorton and Denton, they also claimed that they were pretty close, and I think they weren't just spinning it, they were being sincere. And again, the vote share was way lower than they expected, and the turnout was way higher. So I think the lesson they're learning is that they're they they can't really predict who's going to show up in these kinds of contests. Uh and so, therefore, just going like blunderbus rather than you know, in uh sort of uh seeking the kind of rapier approach that they've normally done, the hyper-targeting Morgan McSweeney approach, find your 10% of the electorate that you can persuade and just talk to them. They've realized that that model's not working for them at the moment. So they, particularly in the by-election, when they can just really throw everything at it, they might as well throw everything at everyone and hope for the best. Uh, on the other side of the coin, that that may help neutralize the advantage that reform seems to have had in terms of higher turnout rate is because although reform will also be very active in the seat, reform are still a less organized outfit, they've got less intelligence, less past information to go on, less data and so on than um than Labour. Um, so a blunderbus approach is always the approach that they take. Um, maybe it helps a little bit if you hear from both sides. Um, or maybe alternatively, maybe you get really annoyed with all these people constantly knocking on your door and so on. So um it's I mean, the one other thing we haven't talked a little bit about, Helen though, on the reform side is of course we've got um the restore part also go tell us talk.
SPEAKER_00This is very interesting, go for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean the the big surprise from the one constituency poll that we've had so far was restore in third place on 7%, which is larger than the gap between Labour and reform in that poll, which would suggest Restore, who, for those who don't know, are a splinter group founded by Rupert Lowe, who was expelled from Nigel Farage's party for being too extreme, uh, and seems very much to have decided that you know that level of extremism was not the end point, it was the start point. Uh, he's now probably the most extreme politician we've ever had in the House of Commons. Um, you know, he's talking about mass deportation of millions of people as uh as a sort of policy platform. Um and he's backed very heavily by Twitter's owner uh Elon Musk. Um so a lot of his activists appear to be on the ground, and in a seat like Makerfield, that is potentially quite interesting because if you go deeper into Makerfield's electoral history back to the late 90s, early 2000s, what you see in some of these wards is quite a substantial BMP vote. So I said that UKIP never did particularly well here, that's true. The BMP did have some pretty high ward-level vote shares in some of these uh wards 20 odd years ago. So a more openly sort of racial nationalist, far-right vote that there might be some of that around uh for restore to appeal to. And that is a huge problem for Farage and reform because any vote that goes into the restore column was only ever going to go to one of two other places, either they were going to sit the election out or they were going to vote reform. These are not voters that were ever really going to be um gettable for Labour. So every single vote that those restore activists manage to win over is a mounting headache for reform. And here again, the unusual psychology of this by-election could play a role. Because imagine you're a very hacked-off reform voter and you think that reform are now becoming a kind of Tory light, you're not very happy about seeing people like Jenric and Braverman on the TV all the time. You were told Nigel was against those kinds of people, and now they're all parading around in your new party's colour. It's a sellout, it's weak source, as uh the restore people like to say about reform. You're thinking in this by-election, well, if Burnham wins, Starmer gets kicked out anyway. I don't like Starmer, but I also get to send a message to Nigel Farrell's that he's letting down the core reform vote. That reform losing this by-election might be a good way to send a message to reform that they're not listening to their own voters. So the big dynamic that reform have been capitalizing on for several years now of you're not listening to us, you've you've you're too far away from us, you've got too into the Westminster game, you've sold out your true values. That's the argument Rupert Lowe is now prosecuting against Nigel Farage. And this might be a seat where it works simply because for some reform voters, they feel like they can have their cake and eat it too. They can get Starmer out, which reformers telling them a month ago is a thing they should want, and they could send a message to Nigel Farage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, not often actually voters, as you say, would get a win-win. Usually they do have to make it a choice. Fascinating that uh the point about um some uh historical BNP um voting. You mean in local elections at ward level? Yeah. Uh are there any particular areas that that people should look for when you break out uh break down the seat, um, you know, the demography, or I'll give you a moment to maybe look at that. I don't know. But um but that is um, I mean, we're going to, I believe, I'm sure we will get more constituency polls. I know it's only two weeks ago, but we will. Which may in them may in themselves affect behaviour. That's the slightly quirky nature of these things. Um when you start to get people tactically voting, as you say, either to send a message or to stop something, you know. So so there there is that that that could add a bit of fuel onto the onto the fire. Um, there will be some unhappy Labour voters who desperately don't want reform. So if it looked like reform were doing better, then they may actually be more motivated to send out for Labour. So, you know, the this these polls will be important. Um do you just I wanted to ask about Restore. They um did do well in the Yarmouth, great Yarmouth uh local elections, didn't they? They got quite a spec I think all their candidates were elected. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02They basically prevented reform from getting a majority on Norfolk County Council because they won every single seat in Lowe's constituency, which I must say, I mean, it's so much happened in those local elections that that a lot's been forgotten about, but that's a really remarkable result. Yeah, the BNP never achieved anything like that. And let the it's important constantly to reiterate that you know, although Rupert Lowe is uh a posh bloke who ran a football club once, the politics he's espousing are the politics of the far right, they're the politics of the BMP and Nick Griffin. And so a result like that is really quite uh quite stunning, actually, to win every single ward they stood candidates in. It's probably what's given them the confidence to really go hard at this by-election thinking they'd make an impact because we had a kind of extreme right spoiler candidate standing Gorton and Denton, someone who'd previously been in reform and had actually run in mayoral contests and got reasonable shares of the vote. I said he was someone who was worth watching and he basically got nowhere. Um the restore story seems to be somewhat different, and I do suspect it's partly reflected to the fact that Lowe has built up a remarkably big social media profile, not just on Twitter that we all talk about a lot, but also and probably more significantly for the kinds of voters he's appealing to on Facebook, has millions of followers uh on Facebook. Um, you know, who and these are the kinds of people who have you know bought into messaging about you know, don't trust politicians, they'll sell you down the river being sold to them by Farage for years, and now they're hearing actually the politician they need not to trust who's selling them down the river is in fact Farage himself. Um, so it's definitely a a thing to watch. And I mean, if for example, Restore were to get a double-digit vote share uh or something like that, it would be concerning um for a couple of reasons. It's concerning on its own because it suggests a kind of far-right politics is gaining traction here. That's that's really quite ominous in terms of what they're arguing for, but also it's concerning because of what it will do to the internal arguments in reform. It will generate a lot of pressure to go in that direction within reform as well, because they'll point at Makerfield and said this was our chance to basically take out um the potential next leader of the Labour Party and really stamp our authority on this parliament, and we've whiffed it, and we've whiffed it because of Rupert Lowe. Rupert Lowe is our problem now.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I I I hate to mention this, but I'm only going to mention it in political strategy terms. But and of course, there's been a huge outcry over this terrible murder of uh of this young man, um Henry Novak. And look, by-elections um can do in your if we look at it purely in political science perspective, um does can an event change the course of you know a voting in a by-election, or or actually there's a lot of heat and but not much light and and and in in the end of the day, it doesn't have that much impact, or or what do you think?
SPEAKER_02I think it will definitely feature, and I think Burnham's response to it, which we're anticipating we're gonna get today, his um uh sort of mind has trailed that he is gonna put out a response today. That's that shows that he reckons it's it's an issue that needs to be wrestled with, and it will be a pretty crucial test of his communication skills, which are of course like the center of his brand appeal in terms of I'm gonna be a better Labour leader. You know, on the policy side, we haven't really heard a great deal, but the idea is he's a guy who can get voters to understand and relate to complicated, difficult issues. Well, you know, here you go, Andy. Day day five or whatever of the by-election contests, here's as it's as difficult as it gets. So we're gonna see how he does on that. And I think that, you know, some of the ways in which this issue is being discussed are are you know stick in the throat a bit because it's it's uh politicizing and polarizing family tragedy in a way that the family have explicitly said they don't want to see. But politics is politics, that was always gonna happen, unfortunately, given how polarized these issues have become. Again, it's one of those situations where I mean one of my favourite books, Helen, is Everything Is Obvious Once You Know the Answer. Um, which is a book by the guy, the guy who invented the strength of weeks uh ties, um, whose name I've now forgotten. I'll remember it in a bit. But one of the arguments he makes is that in social science we constantly get told, oh, it's obvious when we explain something. But in a situation like this, there's two explanatory narratives we could lay out, and one of them will be right in two weeks, but we don't know which one's right right now. It could be that that issue and that argument about anti-white racism, about double standards in the police really catches fire for reform amongst voters. You know, it it crystallizes a sense of resentment and alienation and ends up really boosting them. On the other hand, it could be that the scenes of violence and chaos that we saw in Southampton also this week crystallize amongst a different set of voters the sense that what reform is bringing is polarization and chaos and they need to be stopped at all costs. Now, either or both of those things could happen. Um it's very high stakes for both campaigns because both campaigns know either or both of those things could happen, but we don't we just don't know how voters are gonna weigh and react to those different competing narratives yet.
SPEAKER_00Okay, thank you for for um your thoughts on that. Um I'm gonna wrap up. Uh we've cantered through all of this. My goodness me, but it's such an important uh by-election. You know, we had to we just had to dig in, we had to go through it all. Um I'm I was gonna ask you who you think was gonna win, but yeah, I can see you're not gonna give me that. You're not gonna give me that. No, look, well, I am because that's that's the world that we work in, we have to. So look, our analysis is that Burnham will win and win convincingly, uh, and that that will then catapult him into number 10, that uh the the sort of pressure valve will be off and then the speed will be much quicker than people think because you just kind of can't sit around inert for weeks on end while everyone tries to deal with an old cabinet that's gonna be replaced by a new cabinet. You know, the the government itself will need to function. So I think the whole the transition will be much quicker than expected. I think we will have a Burnham Prime Minister, we will then likely have somebody like Ed Miliband, possibly Avec Cooper, as the Chancellor, um, and that that will uh you know, you know, we'll be talking about what's gonna be in that budget, you know, certainly for my client base, that's what they'll be focused on, um, in terms of of what will be in that budget, which could well come, you know, relatively quickly. You've got to give the OBR their 10-week forecast period. But I think there is a we're in a very, very unusual moment right now. Of course, the World Cup's about to begin, summer holidays are about to begin. I'm sure people are sick and tired of politics, everyone's sick and tired of everything. Oh, and of course, the small matter of boats stuck in the Middle East and huge cost shock coming through food prices and petrol and diesel and naphtha and everything else. So I get it, but but we need to be dispassionate, and that's how we talk to our clients, and we're saying, you know, look through um that and see that we're looking at, you know, three months from now, um, a Burnham, we're called, you know, the Burnham supremacy, if you like, um, is what we need to be looking at. I don't know many versions of the born identity we'll get with Andy Burnham. But anyway, we we we kind of need to be prepared for that. Um, but these, you know, the next two weeks will be fascinating. I mean, yeah, it's just under two, just just over two. Actually, when will we get the result? Do you where do you think we'll get the result, Rob? Will it be overnight?
SPEAKER_02It will be probably around dawn if the turnout is high as we were expecting it will be. Sort of four or five in the morning. So people will be waking up to the, you know, if if they're early rises, they'll be waking up to it. Um actually, Helen, uh on what you just said, one thing I would make a prediction about uh that I would agree with you on is that I do think if Burnham wins, the transition will be quicker than people are anticipating. Uh, I I agree. People the the the holding pattern we're in now is not satisfactory for anybody, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if if we almost end up with a kind of uncontested coronation. Um people forget that most of not maybe not most, but certainly uh at least about half of the prime ministerial or leadership transitions have ended up being uncontested. And or ever.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean not in modern history.
SPEAKER_02In the kind of modern era, you know, I mean, Sunak was, Brown was, May was. Um, some of them were not necessarily expected to be, but they were. Um, nobody necessarily in the Labour Party, regardless of their factional interests, wants to drag things out for three months with the membership and so on. So it may be that we end up with a relatively swift transition. I think that's that's that's what Well, we'll leave you with that.
SPEAKER_00People need to digest that. Get ready, get ready for Burnham in number 10 in the next few weeks. Good. Rob, thank you so much. That's been wonderful. Great to hear from you. Please do check out his Substack, the swingometer. He'll be on your TV screens as the new Sky News elections analyst as well. So we look forward to that. And thank you for your time, Rob.