IN 1938, as the world hurtled towards total war, Belfast poet Louis MacNeice wrote, “To turn the stream of history will take more than a by-election.”
Those words ring hollow today, as Andy Burnham claims victory in a by-election that everyone – including him – is calling “historic”. He has indeed turned the stream of history, and it could float him from Makerfield all the way to 10 Downing Street.
I was on the counting floor for Leigh Journal as the result came in. I heard the rapturous applause as the votes were read out. Burnham: 24,927. Kenyon: 15,696.
It's doubtful any other Labour politician in the country could return a result like that. It was widely reported his canvassers had knocked on every single door in the constituency five or six times apiece. The turnout was notably high for a by-election (58.7%).
People had mobilised, but it wasn’t an endorsement of Labour. It was an endorsement of Andy.
The night
I arrived in Wigan a few hours before the polls closed, wandering up through the town.
As I headed towards Wallgate, I walked up a bunting-lined street with not one, but four boarded-up nightclubs.
It seemed apt: I was heading for a circus where all the main players were promising to reverse this decline.
I arrived and furnished myself with some snacks as we waited for the polls to close at 10pm.
It was roasting hot in the press area, packed into a hive of journalists from every TV station, radio broadcaster and YouTube politics channel in the country, as the boxes full of paper slips arrived.
In the sweaty, buzzy air there was a notable absence of either Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage. Instead I jostled for a chat with Count Binface and Rupert Lowe.
I interviewed one of the Independent candidates, Paul Gould, who admitted he was the only person in there who genuinely didn’t want any votes. He was there to raise awareness about the Peak Cluster pipeline on behalf of the people of Wirral.
The controversial carbon capture and storage scheme has ruffled many feathers along the proposed pipeline route, from Chester all the way to Meols. Paul said he decided to stand because, “somebody” had to. “I’m just doing my bit,” he told me.
But back to the main event. Whispers early on said Burnham’s camp were confident of a win. In the wee small hours, there was a feeling of inevitability about it.
Even though Burnham’s favourability had seemingly faltered during the campaign, his main opponent in this two-horse race - Reform candidate Robert Kenyon - had struggled to come back from the sexism row and his poor Question Time performance.
Opinion polls in the run-up had indicated that Burnham's victory could rely on Restore Britain splitting the Reform vote. But as it turned out, their combined votes got nowhere close.
I spoke to Wigan MP Lisa Nandy just before the result came in, and she said she didn’t think the vote was split – “I don’t think they vote for each other, those parties”.
Elsewhere, she refused to say whether she would want a position in any future Burnham government, but admitted he was probably “the only person who can build back trust” with an increasingly despondent electorate.
The result
After hours of waiting, the candidates finally lined up on the stage at around 3am to hear the outcome of this monumental affair. It painted a strange picture of British politics.
Between an intergalactic dustbin and a human fox, Andrew Murray Burnham looked more like a judge on The Masked Singer than the last great hope of the Labour movement.
Yet here he was, humbly awaiting the news that he would be departing from his nine-year tenure as Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester and returning to Parliament.
And then the result. In the end, he didn't just win - he walked it.
Was it Burnham’s unique qualities which tempted Reform-curious people to vote Labour one last time? Or was the high turnout proof that people who usually don’t vote had come out specifically to stop Reform?
Whatever the reason, Makerfield will be remembered as a major blow to Nigel Farage’s insurgent party, which finished leagues behind Burnham despite increasing their vote share to 34.5%.
The strange atmosphere which has hung over the whole event became even stranger as Burnham stepped up to give his first speech as Makerfield MP.
Two candidates running on single-issues (one anti-BBC, the other pro-animal rights) beat him to the podium and started giving their own speeches.
Once they were shooed off stage, Burnham stepped up and began to speak. I thought it sounded, for him, a little stilted, as he tried to balance acknowledging the “historic” nature of the contest with the pretence that this was only ever about Makerfield.
“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”
To turn the stream of history will take more than a by-election. Or maybe not.
The constituency, Burnham said, “will never be a stepping stone for me, but it will be my touchstone.”
Yet everyone in the room — everyone in the country — knows this story isn’t over.
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