Makerfield notebook

And I, for one, welcome our new Burnham overlord

Housekeeping: I’m going to take a little break — watch some World Cup, stay off social media, generally try to practice a modicum of gratitude. I understand other sources of news and unattributed Blair quote generators are available, but I’d rather you refrained.

Wasn’t it easier in the West End Final days? Write formulaic leaders (“the government should, the mayor ought to”), have a spot of lunch, plump for the biggest story of the day and hit ‘send’ on the newsletter at 4pm. It didn’t matter if no one so much as asked for my view — this was a job, after all.

Lines To Take is a different beast: less London-focused, more narrative-led, landing in inboxes far earlier in the day. I can write about anything from a history of inflation targeting to how I finally learned to rest my meat (a disappointingly safe-for-work edition).

Still, it would be frankly eccentric not to start with the only story Westminster is waking up to. Here are some early reflections on a seismic by-election result.

Makerfield, bat and bowl

• It wasn’t even close. Burnham¹ won with 54.8% of the vote to Reform UK’s 34.5%.

BBC

• But even this threatens to understate the comprehensiveness of the victory. As More in Common’s Luke Tryl observes, Burnham secured a fairly stunning 23-point swing from Reform to Labour in Makerfield since the local elections six weeks ago.

  

  (More in Common)

• Suddenly conscious I may have buried the lede here. Burnham is going to be the next prime minister. A win is a win, but size still matters in politics. Lot of Labour backbenchers will look at a 50% plus vote share and conclude: yes, please.

• Reform UK may consistently lead in national polls, but they have once again been punished by tactical voting at a Westminster by-election.

• For some time, the fear of many has been that, with a multi-party system operating under a first past the post electoral one, Nigel Farage could get into Number 10 with only 30% of the vote. It now seems as likely that the other 70% is a sufficiently motivated anti-Reform bloc to prevent that from happening. See: the Lib Dem + Green vote collapsing from 11% in 2024 to 1%.

  

  (BBC)

• It’s not obvious that Burnham won over many Reform UK voters. Then again and as per above, it’s not obvious he needs to.

• Restore Britain did not do as well as some had predicted, nor would adding its tally to Reform UK have prevented a Labour victory. Still, 3,111 votes and a retained deposit for a party that think me, my family and millions of others are not British and should be deported is at least 3,000 more than I’m comfortable with.

• A 59% turnout², even for a high-profile by-election, is pretty extraordinary. Fun fact: that is the same level as for the 2001 general election, the lines to take from which this newsletter gets its name. (Jack Straw suggesting a low turnout was in fact evidence of a contented electorate).

• Meanwhile, north of the border, the Scottish Conservatives impressively won the Aberdeen South by-election off the SNP with over half the vote. More than a seat, it further clouds any narrative about which party leads the right bloc. The Tories would, however, have to stop looking at how polarising Reform UK is and rather of emulating it, go: maybe we should be the normie centre-right alternative instead?

(BBC)