By-Electioncast: Everything You Need To Know About Makerfield
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What is the significance of the Makerfield by-election?
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Hello, we're launching a new limited mini-series off the back of the success of ElectionCast, and we're calling it Bi-ElectionCast, so you can guess what the theme of this series is about. Some news has actually happened since we recorded the first episode on Thursday afternoon. The Green Party has said that its former Makerfield bi-election candidate has apologised for sharing social media posts which described an attack on ambulances run by a Jewish charity in North London as a false flag. Chris Kennedy had been announced as the party's candidate on Thursday, but withdrew just a couple of hours after that announcement with the Greens citing personal and family reasons. So we will be recording these episodes every Friday for the next three weeks.
But here is a primer, which we recorded on Thursday afternoon, about why this election is so important and some of the themes and some facts about Makerfield, the constituency, as a place. And if we're launching a new series, then that means we need to launch some new trademark issues. Newscast, in this case by-election cast, opening titles. Newscast.
Newscast from the BBC.
The political circus is coming to town. Makerfield has been given one heck of a responsibility. We're in this sort of holding pattern until that by-election.
I don't remember a by-election like that. Every man and his dog's going to be there.
The most important by-election contest in the past 50 years. Makerfield?
Blimey. Hello, it's Adam in the by-election cast studio. Going to have to get used to saying that. And one of the voices in that sequence was Luke Trill from More in Common. Hello, Luke. Great to be here. And congratulations for making it into the trademark newscast opening titles. That means you're a very significant person in British politics. Just before we drill into the details of this by-election in Makerfield, why did you say it's the most consequential one of the last 50 years?
Well, look, I mean, often I actually spend my time talking about by-elections saying, look, they're often local factors. They're a bit unusual. Don't read too much into them. Swings end up being weird. In this by-election, we're essentially going to get as close to the run of a general election that you can get in one single area. And the reason that I say that is, on the one hand, you've got – and we'll talk a bit more about the CSE, which should be prime reform territory – On the other hand, you've got Labour's most popular politician in the country. And which of those two kind of prevailing factors comes out on top, basically, I think, will chart a lot of the course of the next general election.
If Andy Burnham wins on reform turf, all bets are off. If, on the other hand, he is defeated by reform, reform's momentum is going to go gangbusters. And, of course, underlying all of this, all the sort of... The sort of what comes after the by-election is likely a leadership contest. This is Andy Burnham's audition for prime minister.
And I think a lot of those elements have played out in previous by-elections that we've lived through over the last few decades, but never quite to the extent that you just described there. We have experienced important pivotal things where big important theories about politics of the day are tested, or people who maybe would be successful crash and burn or whatever, or it leads to big changes in government policy afterwards.
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