Lucy Fisher

Reform is well ahead in the national polls of Labour.

And Burnham showed that he could take them on and beat them.

So that's a good platform for him to argue he's done it locally.

Now, if Labour appoints him to the top job of the party in the country, he can take that fight to Nigel Farage nationally.

Well, there is the sense that he hates to be unpopular and therefore, you know, his critics argue he can barely open his mouth without making a spending commitment.

Certainly the bond markets are watching very carefully for any signal of weaker fiscal discipline under him.

He has confirmed that he will stick to the fiscal rules.

but had a pretty turbulent ride on Newsnight in recent weeks when he was asked to name what the fiscal rules were.

And he sort of insisted, well, I'm not going to face an exam by the BBC.

But it was the public, I think, was left with the sense that he wasn't necessarily quite up to scratch on all the details of that pledge.

And there is a sense that, you know, he hasn't been tested.

A contest could be useful just to put his policy platform under more scrutiny.

It was one of the criticisms made of Theresa May and her administration that because the person who got down to the final two with her, Andrea Leadsom, dropped out.

And there wasn't a multi-week contest where they had to go and fight their case and set out their prospectus in front of party members, that that made her government weaker for it.

So it's an open debate in Labour about how things should proceed.

That's right.

And we shouldn't forget that Andy Burnham's seismic victory in Makerfield is really important coming in the wake of Labour facing an absolute drubbing in the elections only last month in Scotland, in Wales and in English councils.

And in fact, Nigel Farage's Reform UK had swept the board.

So Andy Burnham winning here has brought a lot of relief to Labour MPs who've been gripped by a sense of panic.

that they are going to be routed at the next general election.