THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN- THE BASTARDS
They say the Ribble Valley by-election in 1991 killed off the poll tax with me losing to the Lib Dem's Michael Carr. The Makerfield by-election will be remembered for killing off a Prime Minister. It's not 100% certain that King Andy will grab the crown, but it is certain that the crown will not stay on Starmer's head.
A Sledgehammer is needed to crack this nut!
Whilst Andy is busy phoning his new mates in the Parliamentary Labour Party Sir Keir will be busy phoning Wickes to see how much 1,000 sandbags and a tin hat cost. Deals will be done, if already not done, to win those much sought positions in Andy's new cabinet and how Andy might be able to facilitate it. Wes Streeting will have already ensured Andy's number is firmly in the speed dial section of his friends and family on his mobile phone. Ed Miliband will have made the call some time back as will many of his acolytes. John Healey could be a contender and there may be others but the high level of 81 pledges of Labour MPs will necessarily lead to a thin field- if not a field of Andy and Keir.
Starmer will try anything to stay in power. He even let it be known, in one of the most humiliating of briefings, that he wanted to have Andy in a top job. Don't worry Keir there is only one top job that Andy has traded his Manchester mayoralty in for and that is yours.
Keir has also tried the ...."this is no time to divert our focus on an unnecessary leadership race with the Manchester Mayor by-election impending"........except if there is no timetable for Keir's departure the chances of holding onto the mayoralty for Labour becomes even riskier. Starmer is the boil that needs to be lanced as the price to win over working class Labour voters who have not only been flirting with reform, but have fully enjoyed several exotic positions only known to aficionados of The Kama Sutra. Winning back these votes of disgruntled former, guaranteed, dyed in the wool , Labour supporters will be tricky but impossible if free gear, never here, two tier Keir is in situ.
I canvassed for Michael Winstanley, the Tory sacrificial lamb, in the by-election and I heard time and again that they thought he was the best candidate but they were voting tactically for Andy to stop reform. I heard it only on 2 occasions that loyal Tories were choosing to be disloyal to the brand to stop Andy by voting reform. The small Tory vote almost totally evaporated and I had already warned Michael that this was likely to happen.
The Andy Effect and the Kemi Factor
There were two other Parliamentary by-elections on Thursday which paint a bleak picture for Starmer loyalists like Steve Reed and er Steve Reed. Aberdeen South and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry will be grim reading for the many Labour MPs who would rather like to keep their seats. It may all be too late for some of them but that will not stop them trying anything to remain as MPs.
Aberdeen South saw the Tories go from 3rd place in the 2024 General Election to leapfrog Labour and steal the seat from the SNP. Labour saw their vote crash from 11,455 in 2024 to 1,550 at the by-election. Even worse for Starmer and his dwindling Starministas was Reform got 2,478 votes and the Lib Dems were only 180 below Labours shocking low tally. Kemi visited 3 times and her rallying call of "drill baby drill" will have been music to the ears of Aberdeen folk who rather like the idea of being in a job and the expansion of the oil and gas sector will disproportionately benefit Aberdeen. Kemi is also popular with the public and her straight talking no nonsense approach to delicate subjects is winning her many new supporters who had otherwise given up on the Conservative Party.
In Arbroath and Broughty Ferry Labour went from a very decent 2nd place to 4th below the Conservatives in 2nd place and Reform in 3rd. Labour scored 14,722 votes in 2024, and only managed 3,651 at the by-election. The Conservatives scored 4,524 votes with Reform in 4,341.
In 2 of the local council elections in England on the day in Rochford and Rayleigh West in Essex Labour scored 1.7%, and 2% . In the 20 council elections since May 2026 Labour has scored an average of 14% of the vote winning only 1 of the wards and losing 10% of their vote. The Conservatives scored 24% of the vote as did Reform.
Time to panic Captain Mainwaring!!!!!!
This weekend will have Labour MPs phoning one and other seeking reassurances about the next election. This is a self lulling of false security which I first witnessed by some of my Tory friends at the 1997 General Election where they convinced themselves that they would be OK but John Major would be toast. These evening phone calls may have got my friends to sleep at night but it didn't get them through to the next Parliament. I phoned one of my 1992 ex colleagues to commiserate his result , but he was so shocked by his lost seat he said, "sorry Nigel I simply cannot talk" and he abruptly hung up on me.
If Labour MPs are not already panicking I suggest they start. The answer to the Question "who will give me the best chance of retaining my seat", may well be different for different MPs but one thing is for certain "Sir Keir Starmer" will be nobody's sane response.
Nigel Farage has already described the by-election results as disappointing and this seat should have been natural Reform territory. Rupert Lowe's one man vendetta against Farage didn't help, but his impressive 6.8% share of the vote did not cost Reform their win.
The Lib Dems were a total irrelevance and scored extremely badly in all 3 Parliamentary by-elections. Kemi will be quietly ecstatic but she knows that there is a lot more work to be done. It will be a very stressful time for Labour MPs. Andy Burnham will reassure them that there will be no early election, but Theresa May promised that to MPs when she replaced David Cameron, only to call an early election in 2017 and screw it up royally.
Meanwhile if Starmer tries to squat a second longer than is decently acceptable to Andy and his army then plan A will kick in- and that plan will not involve anything other than a quick call to Mr Shifter and his removal van to facilitate this full fault eviction of a man who has seriously killed trust in politics of millions of people who have generationally only voted Labour. If Britain is not broken then the Labour Party surely is. The Prime Minister has milked turning winning 33.7% of the vote in 2024 as some sort of national mandate for his agenda when the public are totally fed up with him especially as they didn't enthusiastically vote for him in the first place.
Andy Burnham may or may not be the answer to all the ills that are befalling the UK. That is not the point. He has just won a dramatic victory in a by-election winning 55% of the share of the vote on a higher turnout as compared to 2 years earlier against Reform in a seat which voted 2/3rds to leave the EU in 2016. Burnham is a winner in the eyes of Labour MPs in Westminster on a day when they were otherwise trounced in no uncertain way everywhere else. I was in The Commons for 32 years and I have seen the comings and goings of many Tory Leaders. If I was a Labour MP I would be reaching for my phone to call the great victor....having said that, knowing me, I would have done it months ago!