Alexandra Topping

I do think that the path to number 10 seems clearer than ever.

What comes next, it's all on the table now.

If I was going to make a bet now, I don't think I would be betting on Keir Starmer.

Well, it was a huge night in Ashton and Makefield and I think everybody who's woken up this morning kind of surprised the scale of the victory that Andy Burnham had overnight.

I mean, we thought...

That it would be much closer than it was.

There was a real sense in the Labour camp that this was going to be a big moment and it really delivered.

What comes next is really, it's all on the table now.

There was a sense before this election, this by-election in Makerfield, that if Burnham lost, obviously it was going to be a very different situation.

Yeah.

Also terrible for Labour, but it would have shored up Keir Starmer's position as the leader of the party.

There was another option where if he just scraped through, you know, could Starmer allies position that as actually he is the person to take the Labour Party forward, to take the country forward?

But actually what we saw is that not only did Burnham increase the majority, I mean, he almost doubled it.

It was mad.

There was this argument before that the Burnham camp thought that they would be in a really strong position if they could say that Burnham had beaten the vote share that was gained by both parties.

Reform UK and Restore.

And actually, Burnham didn't only just do that.

He got more votes than all of the other candidates combined.

Yeah.

So he's in a really strong position this morning.