Chris Mason

In other words, the stuff that got Labour elected originally?

when your argument is that they've not got it right and it's not popular.

But if you stray too far from it, then where's your legitimacy grounded?

So that's, you know, we saw that with Boris Johnson and we saw that with Liz Truss and we saw that with Rishi Sunak and we will see it with any, whoever it turns out to be, successor of Takiyah Starmer prior to a general election.

Yeah, there's a real sort of oddity to that.

So when I was on the train to Wigan yesterday morning, there was this absurd moment where we got on the train and I discovered entirely by chance that

And to the horror of the person in question, that I had a seat next to a government minister.

Literally one of those two seats, not like a table, like two seats.

And anyway, there was a bit of diplomacy and a bit of shuffling around and all the rest of it.

And we had a bit of a chat and a bit of a laugh about it.

But yes, so loads and loads of Labour MPs and ministers alongside, you know, representatives of the other parties and in particular Reform are there.

making regular trips.

And yeah, there's this central obscenity.

It was there at the Andy Burnham launch where you had Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip, the guy in charge of discipline and delivering this government's agenda, winning votes for Keir Starmer.

stood there with a placard in his hand behind Andy Burnham.

Now, of course, Jonathan Reynolds is also, you know, an MP in the northwest of England.

And of course, he's going to want a Labour candidate to win the by-election.

But there is some head-spinning kind of combinations, if you like, going on there.

But actually, and this is where you guys will be closer to this than I am, the more important head-spinning conundrum for the electorate in the constituency is,

is to what extent do they buy or not the idea that a vote for Labour is to change Labour, when it sounds like a vote for Labour is to endorse Labour, if you see what I mean?