Dan Hodges

It seems to me, and I watch a lot of what you both talk about, I think we would all probably agree that one of the fundamental sort of fissures in British politics, in British society, is the fact... Julie was talking about the success of Nigel Farage and reform.

is that over the last 10, 20, 30 years, we have had a politics that has been shaped by a small... I'm going to be slightly simplistic here, but let's roll with it.

A small sort of Westminster clique, elite, what have you, that has governed in a way that a significant section of the British electorate

Primarily, if you want to call white working class lives outside of the big traditional metropolitan heartlands, particularly in the north of England, what has become badged primarily as red wall Britain?

was basically cast aside and was viewed by both of the main political parties as at best as expendable and at worst as an obstacle to the great liberal sort of progressive Britain that the two parties wanted to build.

Now, if you're looking for Andy Burnham's identity, whatever criticisms you have of him,

Andy Burnham is someone, and we saw this in Maker Field, we've just seen this in Maker Field, is someone whose, if you like, political identity

over the past five six seven years has been shaped firstly by engaging with a constituency outside of that metropolitan elite and more broadly as someone who is rooted and and you know it will become we'll all get bored with it in in in a year's or a couple years time you know northern andy all that sort of stuff but he is somebody who does understand and engage with

the broader problems of what I would broadly call red wall Britain.

And I was at his sort of victory rally thing today.

And he came up with something which if he follows through on it, I actually think could potentially have some significance, which he said is everything that we now need to do as a party has to pass the make a field test.

Which is, is what a Labour government is doing, is it going to directly, not indirectly through some sort of Blairite or sort of Thatcherite sort of trickle-down thing, is it directly going to benefit people here in Makerfield?

Now, I'll be honest, I haven't heard that from a Labour leader before.

Boris obviously tried to articulate something along these lines and obviously was, in the short term, was actually very successful in trying to articulate a vision.

So that is where I would give, if you want to look for Andy Burnham's political identity, that's where you start.

However, again, this is where I agree with Julia and I'm sure yourselves,

it's one thing that sort of have these things like the makefield test and manchurism manchesterism etc etc but to overlay that template onto the political reality of a country that has no defense has no borders has a welfare crisis has a pensions crisis is is obviously some on of a completely different order but equally those are the issues that will be confronting the country if it whoever became whoever replaced kia starmer not just andy byrne

just to pick up on on what you said and also the the point you made because you framed the question as andy burnham is going to be seen by labour backbenchers as the man who can neutralize sort of polanski in the greens obviously there's an element of that that's not why andy burnham is about to become elected leader of the led party in prime minister we we saw it yesterday we we saw it this morning at the at the rally we saw it in makerfield

Andy Burnham is the reason why Keir Starmer is being thrown out of the balloon two years after winning a 400 majority is because Andy and replaced by Andy Burnham is because in the eyes of Labour MPs, Andy Burnham has one job and it's not to save them from the Greens, although there's a component of that.

His primary job is to save them from reform.