After Labour’s General Election victory in the summer of 2024, Andrew Marr glibly celebrated the result as a sign of stability and prosperity. ‘For the first time in many of our lives,’ he said, ‘…Britain looks like a little haven of peace and stability.’
As I listened to the fawning response of many leftwing and mainstream commentators to Andy Burnham’s by-election victory in Makerfield last week – and their gleeful reaction to Reform’s disappointing performance – I was reminded of Marr’s exaltations and, of course, the subsequent egg stains splattered across his face.
The presenters on Friday’s Today programme could barely contain their excitement. Even Tim Stanley and Camilla Tominey, hosts of the quasi-Right-wing Daily T podcast, inflated the import of Burnham’s victory, describing it as the ‘worst of both worlds for Nigel Farage’ and, tellingly, describing Tim’s friend ‘Andy’ – an advocate of open-borders and a Thatcher-bashing, bond market-denying Leftist – as a ‘moderate’. Jess Phillips and John McDonnell, moreover, along with the presenter on LBC radio, predictably lauded the result as evidence of the second coming.
Meanwhile, the Guardian’s John Harris claimed that Makerfield exposed ‘all Reform’s weaknesses’ and, when faced with a popular Labour candidate, its inability to translate activist enthusiasm into votes. Financial Times columnists danced to the headline: ‘Nigel Farage’s Reform UK suffers another by-election blow’.
Like Marr before them, these arrogant talking heads, peering excitedly through their Panglossian, rose-tinted glasses, think that Burnham can save the Labour Party, neutralise the threat from the populist Right and provide a model for its demise. He’s proved it, after all, winning 55 percent of the vote in Makerfield; more than 20 points ahead of Reform’s Robert Kenyon, storming to victory in a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU in 2016, and returned eight Reform councillors in May’s local elections.
Burnham is the ‘centrist’ saviour and Farage a busted flush. A sigh of relief can be exhaled as politics returns to normal.
This is of course wishful thinking. Burnham won in Makerfield for reasons that cannot and will not be replicated across the country. The self-styled King of the North was a popular local candidate. As Mayor of Manchester, it is widely recognised that he’s raised the city’s profile, tackled homelessness and, with the Bee Network project, improved public transport. ‘He’s done a lot of good with the buses here,’ one elderly woman opined during the run-up to the election.
He also had a trump card to play. He wasn’t – nor has he been tainted by association with – Keir Starmer. For the people of Makerfield, here was a unique opportunity to replace the most hated Prime Minister in modern political history and replace him, not in three years’ time, as a vote for Reform might suggest, but quickly, with an individual that scarcely acknowledges any association with the governing Labour Party. No wonder the people of Makerfield voted for him.
This doesn’t mean the King of the North will see off the threat from Dick Dastardly and his Reform outfit. Within six months he’ll be as unpopular as Starmer. Illegal and legal immigration will continue unchecked, as will two-tier policing; the drip, drip of illegal migrants committing unspeakable crimes against British women and girls will continue; rampant, uncontrolled welfarism will remain a drain on the national coffers, preventing urgently needed investment in our armed forces; and the economy will move ever closer to the precipice. The man who ignored the grooming gang scandal – which, let us not forget, his party’s ideological convictions did so much to facilitate – has no grasp of, let alone plan to deal with, these festering and deep-rooted problems. I suspect we might see a few egg-splattered ‘centrist’ commentators over the coming months and years.
Nigel Farage has not gone away. Reform UK will be the main beneficiaries of Burnham’s inevitable demise, even if Janet Daley, columnist for The Sunday Telegraph, interprets the Conservative victory in Aberdeenshire as evidence of a miraculous revival. Again, according to Janet, it’s nothing to do with Aberdeenshire’s unique local concerns that the Tories spoke to, it’s a demonstration of a UK-wide shifting trend, even if they lost their deposit in Makerfield. Pull the other one.
The Conservative brand remains toxic and, as for Restore, their threat is overblown, as shown by their pitiful performance in Makerfield. They received a lower proportion of the vote than the BNP in 2010.
That isn’t to say that Farage can just sit and wait for Burnham to implode. He needs to choose better and brighter candidates and, most importantly, make a positive case for voting Reform. There needs to be a big, overarching narrative that members can take to the country and articulate with verve and enthusiasm. It’s all too negative at the moment.
If they do – and with it, inspire the public to give them a clear majority in 2029 – the talking heads that inhabit our media and political class will have more than egg yolk on their faces.
Joe Baron is a teacher and a writer, published in The Spectator, The Sun, the TES, Breitbart, Conservative Home, The Conservative Woman and The Daily Telegraph. His blog can be found here.
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Why does anyone take the slightest notice of ‘talking heads’ (or for that matter opinion polls also)?
Make up your own mind – assuming possession of one. Based on a conversation overheard on a bus yesterday, it seems to me that some live their lives believing everything they are told and are happy to repeat these things to others as though
unquestionnably true.
“Even Tim Stanley and Camilla Tominey…”
Two of THE most lightweight commentators I’ve ever heard on ANY subject. I should put that in the past tense since I’ve studiously avoided watching/listening to them since the last time I suffered their banality which is quite some time ago now – “shallow” doesn’t cut it.
What astonishes me in all the coverage of the rise of Andy Burnham, is the lack of questioning as to how this person (so to speak) came to be the unchallenged replacement for Keir Starmer, well before Starmer had decided to resign. The build-up has been so obvious. Who didn’t know, weeks if not months ago, that we’d soon have a PM Burnham?
How must the sitting MPs feel: despite that huge Labour majority, none of them are deemed suitable candidates to lead the country, that a mere mayor (no offence to mayors the world over) had to be shipped in to stand for election in Makerfield. And – here I’m about to lose my reputation as being very anti-conspiracy theories – was that election rigged to ensure Andy won? And, even deeper into the mire, was the whole enterprise, the bringing down of Starmer and the rise of Burnham, all done at the behest of Davos? Who knows.
The entire process, however, leaves me wondering just how long it will be before the downfall of Andy Burnham – from what little I’ve learned about him, he lacks character and conviction. About anything. Maybe time will prove me wrong – but I doubt it.
One last thing. Joe Baron argues that Farage “needs to… make a positive case for voting Reform. There needs to be a big, overarching narrative that members can take to the country and articulate with verve and enthusiasm. It’s all too negative at the moment.”
In my working life, I was once pulled up at a meeting for being “negative”. The chief wanted everyone to be “positive”. I pointed out that I was struggling to comprehend how it was “negative” to identify problems and suggest ways of solving them.” I could have added “Instead of doing what you lot are doing, pretending that everything in the garden is rosy, pat ourselves on the back, and continue down the same old, same old road to meltdown.” But I didn’t. Cowardly, you might think, but it was almost time for coffee/tea break and I have my priorities right.
In short, I’m not into this “be positive about everything” – it’s a long time since I’ve met anyone who doesn’t think the entire UK is finished. Difficult to be “positive” about that – unless Farage identifies all that is wrong and proposes solutions. That’s me, thinking outside the box again!
How I agree with your penultimate paragraph. In my Tourist Board days, once the ‘wimmin’ had taken all the most senior posts, it was frowned upon to be anything but positive about anything – no matter how ill conceived or glaringly idiotic. I attended a meeting about the projected Millennium Dome Experience and towards the end was asked if I’d like to add anything. My response was ‘we need to develop a contingency plan in case it’s not as popular as those here say they are convinced it will be’. Response: ‘we can do without your negativity so don’t come to future meetings on this’.
It was not a runaway success, how I gloated!
I would have gloated as well in those circumstances. My own experience was in the world of education so I’m not exactly gloating as I see youngsters still being misled into thinking that evil is good and good is evil.
”Within six months he’ll be as unpopular as Starmer”
Optimistic forecast there. I’ll give it 6 WEEKS
Then again perhaps I’M being overly optimistic. ;o)
Perhaps! Or maybe not – the msm seem to love him, so he will be allowed to recover from any mistakes for a few months, at least – surely?!
Assuming he climbs to the top of the greasy pole (let’s hope not as his ascent is highly dubious) there will be a short MSM honeymoon period before they turn on him. Likewise Trump will initially claim he’s an OK sort of guy and a friend, before reversing.
This trend is endemic because we have such poor politicians these days – Kemi or Nige anyone? They will suffer exactly the same fate and rightly so. Fraser had it right, ‘We’re doomed’, thank God some of us lived in a better era.
Yes, I know what you mean. Back in the good old days, things were better. Reminds me of a conversation I once heard between a married couple – for your interest – and amusement…
Husband: “We should return to being like we were in the good old days.” Wife: “What do you mean, honey?”
Husband: “You don’t know me and I don’t know you (!)