Dan Hodges

So firstly, it was very clear there was a very strong personal vote for him.

And I think that will be significant moving forward because I think it does raise questions about the extent to which

The obviously incredibly successful campaign that was waged by him in Makerfield can be transported to other parts of the United Kingdom.

I mean, the other obvious factor was that this was a by-election that to all intents and purposes was primarily a referendum on Keir Starmer.

And as we know, the people of Britain have made their minds up about Keir Starmer months and months ago.

And Andy Burnham's strategy of saying, vote for me today and I'll get rid of Keir Starmer on Friday or basically next week.

um was obviously very successful at the ballot box and as we can see it playing out today seems also to be successful in terms of broader politics um but the other thing was and i you know i'm sure we'll get into this i think first i i think there was also an element of that this was a referendum

more broadly across the constituency on Nigel Farage, his offer and Reform's offer.

And I think what we've seen cemented in Maker Field is something that we've seen, and I think we've seen developed, developing for a considerable period now, which is the shine is definitely coming off Nigel Farage and Reform.

And coupled with that, we are now starting to see

quite organized quite sophisticated quite active anti-reform coalition that is developing in constituencies across the country and i think that has also has very significant implications for our politics moving forward

Well, I'll be honest, I wasn't massively surprised because I thought... I mean, I wasn't one of the people who thought, you know, this was a nip and tuck, you know, going to be a tight by-election.

From, you know, the first few days I was there, it seemed to me there was a strong move behind Andy Burnham.

I mean, I think what surprised me was...

To all intents and purposes, at the beginning of the contest, if you walked around the constituency, and obviously I'd been walking around similar constituencies just a few weeks before in the local elections, it kind of had the feel,

of what I would call a traditional reform constituency.

All the issues that you've obviously articulated on this programme, and we've all talked about before, about post-industrial northern working class British decline, it's all there in Maker Field.

You walk around sections of the constituency and you see significant

significant areas of the constituency which have, you know, union flags hanging from flag poles, etc.

And when I first arrived there, it seemed to me this was, as I say, you know, fertile ground for reform.