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- [00:00]
A
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. Hello. Here's another episode of Bile Action Cast on a Wednesday just to keep you on your toes. And also he's not been on an episode of Bio Action Cast, although he's on every episode of Newscast, so you wouldn't really have noticed. It's Chris. Hello, Chris. Hello.
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B
Hello.
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A
Do you like my completely arbitrary distinctions about what episodes are called?
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B
I do, I do. It continues a long standing newscast, Brexit cast, election cast tradition.
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A
Yeah, we'll just change the names and the hope people notice. Now you've been to Makerfield a few times now. Can you bring me any. As we would call in the trade. It's a terrible phrase, local color mainly. I'm asking this because I'm jealous that I'm not getting to go and I used to love pounding the pavements for by elections all around the country. So I miss just getting a feel for different places and meeting different people.
- [00:44]
B
Totally. And it's what I love about. About by elections in general and being out on the road in particular journalistically is the. Is the great. It is the greatest privilege of the job really. So literally the local color is posters on sticks of wood sticking out of people's gardens or driveways or window boxes or whatever. And you see loads for Labour, you see loads for reform, you see a few for Restore Britain, this outfit that Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP leads. I even saw Adam when I was there this week. Someone had a flagpole in their garden that looked like quite a permanent fixture. I don't think it had been put up purely for this exercise in democracy that a flagpole with a flag of. I forget whether it was Labour or reform, actually I think it was reform flying from it. So what you get, and you don't always get this in elections. I didn't see much evidence of it, for instance, in the local and devolved elections last month. Albeit the snapshot of the places I went to the by election confronts you just like that. So if you were a visitor from, you know, from the other side of the world and you happened to drive through the Makerfield constituency, you'd think, ooh, there's an election going on here. It's very, very visible.
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A
And those trademark election posters are made of a particular material and I won't say the brand name because we're on the BBC, but it is a lightweight, durable corrugated plastic made with fluted twin wall polypropylene.
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B
Is it really?
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A
And you just think it's a bit of card? No, it is not, there's a whole industry behind those posters and there's a whole lot going on in the Makerfield by Election, which we will uncover in this episode of By Election Cast.
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C
Newscast, newscast from the BBC.
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A
The political circus is coming to town.
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B
The Makerfield has been given one heck of a responsibility. We're in this sort of holding pattern until that by election.
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D
I don't remember a by election like that.
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E
Every man and his dog's gonna be there.
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B
The most important by election contest in
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A
the past 50 years.
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B
Makerfield. Blimey.
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A
Hello, it's Adam in the By Election
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B
Cast studio and it is Chris at Westminster.
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A
And joining us from the BBC's HQ in Salford, it's Kevin Fitzpatrick who is the political reporter there. Hello, Kevin.
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F
Hello.
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A
And joining us on By Election Cast for the first time from Manchester, it's Sarah Lester from the Manchester Evening News. Hello, Sarah.
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C
Hello.
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A
And I believe you were sat in the Manchester Evening News podcasting studio.
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C
I am indeed. That's why there's a bee on the
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A
wall and beautiful acoustics. We'll dig into some of the stories that you've been doing, Sarah, but what if you had to sort of come up with one kind of big headline that sums up what's been going on in Makerfield the last couple of weeks? What, what would you, what would you do?
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C
It's confused, I think.
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A
Oh, okay.
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C
Strong emotions. That's not one word, of course.
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A
I mean, a headline can have more than one word in it.
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C
Yeah, that's true. Yes. Very, very strong, very strong emotions. And I think it's more unpredictable than we thought it might be at the beginning.
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A
And so when you say confused, is that a reference to how the voters are feeling or just how sort of the politics is playing out?
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C
I think how the politics is playing out and how the voters are feeling. I think we've got really different. We've got on the edges, we've got. People are firmly pro Burnham, people are firmly pro reform. But there are a lot more people than I think maybe it feels like about 15, 20% who actually are undecided at the moment. I think that's quite interesting. And it feels like it's all to play for. I think if there's anyone but Burnham standing, standing there, we'd be having a really different conversation.
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A
Intriguing. So, Chris, we're recording this episode on Wednesday lunchtime. On Tuesday you were in the constituency and finally caught up with Robert Kenyon, the Reform candidate.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah. So I defer to our quartet, as we all are, of podcasters today in terms of knowledge of and feel for what's going on in those communities, broadly to the south of Wigan, because I'm conscious that I wear the hat of the guy from Westminster who turns up a handful of times, etcetera, etcetera. But yeah, I was there seeing Robert Kenyon, having to, what, 10 days previously been to see Andy Burnham when he did his launch. I think it was the first time, when I went to the Andy Burnham launch, I think it was the first time I've ever done a TV piece where every single element of it was shot in a car park, at the same car park on the same morning. Because he did a little semicircle of, you know, labor supporters and whatnot, and came in and did a little speech and then worked his way down the broadcasters and the journalists, you know, taking, taking questions. And Robert Kenyon did something in a pub in Ashton and he had Nigel Farage in tow. And it was a broader campaign about the future of pubs and the number of pubs that are closing. And I did an interview with him as well.
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A
And so, Chris, you put lots of this to Robert Kenyon in your piece for the 10 o' clock news, which was on. On Tuesday night. So yesterday, in terms of how we're recording this on Wednesday, and here is some of the exchange.
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B
You have said that Russia was well within its rights to invade Crimea, part of Ukraine. That'll sound to some people, won't it, like you're sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.
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G
Absolutely not, Chris. I've served in the Army Reserve since and I'm totally against the illegal annexation of Crimea.
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B
So you changed your mind on that?
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G
Well, it's. Whether it's. It's something I've said. I mean, something that you said 15 years ago. Is it more than 15 years?
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B
About 10 years. 10, 12 years.
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G
I mean, things have happened since. People change their opinions on things and I don't know what context that was taken in, but I'm a lot more informed now. I think that's what the best thing to say. I've become a lot more involved in politics, geopolitical politics, a bit more. I've learnt a bit more about. So I've formed a different opinion than what I might have had, you know, 10, 15 years ago.
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A
So, yeah. Chris, what's your take on that exchange?
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B
My stand back take would be, and I was talking to one of the other parties, not Labour or Reform, about this just a couple of hours ago, my stand back taken. And it gets into one of the many oddities about this contest is that you have someone In Andy Burnham, who is steeped in politics, has been in politics at a pretty high profile level, one way or another, for most of his adult life, in other words, for the best part of the last 30 years, both at Westminster and in Greater Manchester, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have a collection of other candidates who are frankly, just much newer to politics and certainly not politics, you know, haven't experienced politics at the kind of altitude, if you like, that Andy Burnham has. And that poses challenges in both directions. So it poses challenges for people like Robert Kenyon and others because they, well, they find themselves in the company of people like me, you know, and the rest of the Westminster press pack, asking them all sorts of questions about issues that, yes, might be directly of direct consequence on the communities of the Makerfield constituency and others that are much more big picture. And then it's a challenge for Andy Burnham because, you know, not wanting to, I don't know, come across as any way patronising towards his rivals or dealing with the political argument that's thrown in his direction by his opponents, which is that, you know, the argument that he's seeking to use this constituency is a stepping stone towards being Prime Minister and he's having to ride the. Or walk the tightrope, if you like, of setting out, to a degree, his wider ambition, which is clear, whilst also revering his. The longevity of his connections not just with Greater Manchester, but with this particular part of Greater Manchester. So that's probably a broader answer than you were seeking in terms of this particular interview, but that's kind of what I came away with. It had taken quite a few days for me to get to do that interview and I think, you know, reform our conscience of that reality, that this is a guy whose, even though he was there, Westminster, Canada last time around, and he is a local councillor now that he's pretty new to sort of frontline public life.
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A
And Kevin, I mean, that is a candidate's old tweets is a sort of political tale as old as the hills. Well, as old as the social media hills. But does it play out kind of on the streets, as it were?
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F
Well, I think the argument that Reform is probably trying to. To make by selecting him in the first place and building him up as this plumber and a local council and a really local guy, is that he is anti politics, he's an ordinary person and it's clearly been his scripted defense that, you know, everybody makes mistakes. I'm not a polished politician. So that's how they're trying to deal with the controversy that surrounded this narrative that has developed about his past tweets, he's trying to distance himself from that and say he's different now, he's now an elected politician. Clearly he wouldn't be saying any kinds of things like that again. But, you know, it has been a big distraction, I think, from the early part of his campaign where it's kind of noised out any arguments he wanted to make about the things he would want to improve in Makerfield.
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A
And Sarah, one of the, the old social media post stories that you've been writing about in the Manchester Evening News involves the, the, the now infamous Carol Vorderman tweets. And I should probably warn people that this bit of our conversation might involve some explicit language or language that people find misogynistic, because that's the accusation being made against Robert Kenyon for what he said online. I just wonder if we need to rewind a little bit and just explain what conversation on Twitter people are actually talking about here.
- [10:20]
C
Yeah, this is when Carol Vorderman got brought into this story, which gets stranger and stranger. When it came out that Kenyon had responded to a tweet, an explicit tweet about her, and he'd responded in a kind of, well, wouldn't you?
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A
And so what it is, is it's from 2021, December, actually, Christmas Eve, and somebody has posted a Twitter reply to Carol Vorderman saying, happy birthday, Carol. My God, I'd love to smell and lick your arsehole. That's what it says. Then somebody has retweeted that saying, if you're prepared to put this downward pointing finger on a public forum, I would suggest that your computer drive probably needs checking at Twitter. Question mark, question mark, question mark. To which Robert Kenyon's old, now deleted Twitter account says, he's only saying what we're all thinking, Chris. So that's the, that's the, that's the, the, the timeline of the messages and
- [11:18]
C
obviously that brought Carol Vorderman into it. We had an exclusive at the weekend because she wrote quite a personal letter to 6,000 women in the constituency saying that this showed a pattern of comments, a pattern of kind of comments about women. And she talks about, I want to talk to you woman to woman. I think this really matters. And she goes on to just say, consider what his views are of women. And what's been interesting about this is when his views first came out. We're sending out every day to Vox with different themes. We get some really great information about what people feel not Just in Makerfield, I think it stands for everywhere, towns and cities at the moment. But when, when we went out initially, I wasn't, we weren't really seeing that the comments were cutting through, but we have in the last week seen that they're really cutting through and quite a lot of women have been saying to us, well, actually I might go Restore instead or I might go. I go Burnham instead because I, I just don't like his views on women. So I think has cut through in a way that we, we were, we weren't seeing at first really. The other bit that, although we should
- [12:37]
A
say that's, that, that's, that's chatting to people and getting their views as opposed to like a representative sample.
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C
It's not a full poll, but I suppose the other thing that gets brought up a lot is a remark he's made about or an interaction he's had relating to abortion and that we've had that offered to us maybe six, seven times in the last week as something that has concerned various people. And we weren't seeing at the beginning, of course, huge number of pro reform people and it really isn't bothering them too much. And then on the other side, you've got the pro Andy Burnham lot who, you know, wouldn't, you know, think it's absolutely appalling. And. But then there is this group in the middle and so we are seeing some impact. And the one thing I wanted to mention was that this, the other thing we were actually discussing this in conference this morning is the, the language of building sites. So we interviewed Kenyon last week and had a similar sort of conversation in that he kind of said, well, it's the language of building sites. It's, it's, you know, how the working man talks. And I just wonder how disrespectful that is to people who work on building sites or the working class. Because certainly from my conference, you know, the conversation we're having this morning is, you know, maybe that is not, you know, it's not a fair thing to say, perhaps. So there's that view as well, really. So the shtick is, I'm normal, I'm not politically trained, that's my thing. And I'm just a normal bloke. And it depends how not knowing the system translates if he gets elected to actually being able to do the job, which, you know, will be interesting to see if that happens.
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B
It's interesting, isn't it? Just picking up, Sarah, on that, I found myself when I was thinking about how I would approach the interview that I did yesterday and how people, depending on their own outlook on politics or society or language or whatever it might be, might digest what they see. And it reminded me, Adam, of the conversation you and I were having the day before so on Monday, around the whole business of Peter Mandelson and all of those things that came out via the humble address, which is that whole thing about. And there's a wider kind of societal conversation around all of this, which is when you have this is not to excuse or condone or condemn or anything, it's just to try and understand and kick around the whole business of forums online or on social media, where what is now a substitute for previously ephemeral conversations, whether they're in pubs or workplaces or whatever. And as I say, I'm not seeking to condemn or condone anything around those conversations that now happen online and therefore are permanent and can be quoted back, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, they're part of the scrutiny of someone's character and all the rest of it, which is what I was seeking to do in the interview. You. But where, in a different era, those things would be, would just be ephemeral, wouldn't they? They would have just kind of, they'd have just kind of happened or not happened and then, and then gone because they happened in a way that isn't, that isn't recorded. And anyway, there's a sort of rambling half thought there, which I had to go at rambling through on Monday. And now I'm having another go at,
- [15:52]
A
well, no, I'll ramble too, because I was then thinking it's like, okay, a plumber with 15x followers. It was then Twitter tweeting this to a very tiny number of people is not the same as Emmanuel Macron tweeting it to the entire population of France. And also I suppose then deleting it is, is deleting it the actions of somebody who regrets genuinely what they've said because they've changed their mind and they've grown up a bit. Or is it the actions of somebody who knows that it would be embarrassing if it, if it got out? Do you know what, Chris? Why don't we hear a little bit more of your exchange, Robert Kenyon, where you put some of these themes that we've just been discussing to him?
- [16:28]
G
There might have been a few crass comments. You know, if I'm, as an elected public official, which I am now, I wouldn't make any crass comments because everything you do says under a microscope. But comments that I made before was involved in politics. You know, you'll be judged in the future by what you say and people
- [16:47]
A
can make up their own mind. If Crass is a good description of some of his tweets. And, Kevin, if we sort of put our smartphones down for a second and stop doom scrolling looking at people's tweets, what are reform actually sort of promising and offering on the doorstep in sort of the classic by election sense? What issues are they talking about? Do they have ideas?
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F
Well, as Chris mentioned, they've been in the pub trying to talk about support for the pubs. Their whole pitch is that life as we used to know it and used to love it is being lost. So they're trying to, you know, support the idea of pubs of local businesses. Interesting development today, which you might have clocked as well, said was that only yesterday we got an email from his press team saying that he was launching a campaign to save and rescue and bring back to life the library in Ashton. And only today we have a confirmation from Wigan Council. Labour led, of course, but with a big influx of reform councillors, most recently that they've found the £1 million needed to revive it and bring it back to life. And Andy Burnham has then put out a press release where he's like claiming that he was part of that campaign. So it's incredible how quickly things can move in a by election. To be fair to Wigan Council, though, you know, they have done a decent job over recent years of renovating it and bringing some of their big community buildings and libraries back to life. But I do think the issues that we've been talking to people about this week at Radio Manchester, we've been doing a different issue every day. Cost of living is a big talk point. We talked about public transport because Andy Burnham's clearly been championing things like the B network with the buses in a place called Abram. They're supposed to be getting a new bus route through there and people are pretty happy with the state of public transport. And then today we've been talking about immigration and real strong opinions on both sides of the discussion there. Lots of people just saying, it's obvious. Everybody can tell there's too much immigration in total, let alone the issue and the worries that they have about people coming across on the boats. But other people concerned that immigrants were being, you know, scapegoated and being used as a political tool in this by election. So, yeah, the full range of topics. But I do feel that reform, because of the controversy over these tweets and Messages and the fact that because of that he's avoided doing interviews, really. He did the Manchester Evening News and then he did Chris yesterday. He's only agreed to do BBC Radio Manchester tomorrow for the first time. So because of that, he hasn't really been getting out kind of trying to make his argument on what he would do in particular for the people of Makerfield.
- [19:37]
A
And then, Chris, if we then look at Andy Burnham, you talked about the little vignette about doing your entire piece in a car park. Glad you traveled far and wide for that. Well, you can only do what in front of you, I suppose.
- [19:49]
B
And also just for the newscasters may or may not appreciate this sort of insight into how we cover by elections, but in terms of how we work out how to journalistically approach a by election in a way that is proportionate to the levels of support that parties have recently commanded in the area. In other words, how do we weight the proportions that we give to various parties in this contest? The judgment is that Labour and Refor are treated equally and then the other parties are treated as everything else being equal, less significant, obviously, where editorially, any of them say stuff that is interesting, then we of course reflect that. And so I went to Ashton to do the Andy Burnham launch and it was all happening in the car park. So we just sort of thought, we'll just do the whole thing here. I'm going to go back next week and do some stuff where I'm properly mooching around in Platbridge and Henley and oral. And by the way, I've noticed, and I'm sure you guys with your focus on the northwest of England are acutely aware of this that lots of people are talking about in Makerfield because it's a shorthand for the constituency name, but actually it's a, you know, a collection of communities of many different names around the south side of Wigan. And therefore, yesterday, just to complete the thought, Adam, I did an entire piece in a pub.
- [21:10]
A
And Chris, I'm conscious that just because of the timing of when we've done these episodes of By Election Cast, we didn't feature a big chunk of your interview with Andy Burnham from that now infamous car park. So would you like to introduce some of that from a few days ago?
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B
Yeah. So just as we heard there with Mr. Kenyon, it's absolutely right that he is scrutinised and absolutely right that Andy Burnham is scrutinised too. And of course, being scrutinised on multiple levels, Mr. Burnham, because of this sort of double pitch that he's making yes to people in the Makerfield constituency. But then this wider pitch to the Labour Party and therefore to the country around his Prime Ministerial ambitions and therefore in particular, how he. In just the same way we were looking back at the track record of what Robert Kenyon has said in the past. What about what Andy Burnham has said in the past and the extent to which he stands by that. Andy Burnham, you said last autumn that the country needed to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets. These are the people and the institutions that lend the government money. Do you accept now what your critics have repeatedly said, that that was cavalier?
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H
No, I have never said ignore the bond markets. That wasn't what I was saying. It was a political attack manipulated for that purpose. I was saying that politicians have left the country in that position because we gave up control of large swathes of the economy.
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B
Last question for me. You once said that only a small minority have a problem with trans women, biological men in women's toilets. Do you accept the new guidance out this week from the Equalities watchdog? It's been backed by ministers that says that single sex spaces must be used on the basis of biological sex.
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H
Those comments were made quite a number of years ago. Of course I accept the Supreme Court ruling.
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B
Were you wrong?
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H
It has to be implemented. But also there was a second part to the Supreme Court ruling that, you know, this should not be a kind of victory over other people in society and that marginalized people should not be marginalized further. My mum and dad, let me say this. My mum and dad brought me up to live and let live, live and let live. And Britain in my view, used to be a bit more live and let live. So we implement the guidance, but you do it in a way that kind of finds is fair to everybody.
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A
And Chris, as a nerd, the thing that sticks out for me there is the fiscal rules one, because actually that means he will be operating in very, very similar sort of constraints in terms of what he can raise in taxes and spend and public money to Keir Starmer completely.
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B
And then that gets to the essence of the challenge that, that any incoming Prime Minister between general elections faces. And, you know, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. But that's, that's the, that's the journey he hopes that he is on, which is how to, to what extent do you keep going with what is the existing mandate? In other words, the stuff that got labor elected originally, when your argument is that they've not got it right and it's not popular, but if you stray too far from it, then where's your legitimacy? Grounded. So that's, you know, and we've seen. We saw that with Boris Johnson and we saw that with Liz Trusson, we saw that with Rishi Sunak and we will see it with any. Whoever it turns out to be, successor of Takir Starmer prior to a general election.
- [24:25]
A
Now, Sarah, I was watching one of Andy Burnham's prodigious tiktoks that he does because he does them every day, and there was one where he was talking about his running soundtrack and I was like, oh, I'm always on the lookout for new music to listen to and I have to say, it wasn't really my taste, but he did say, oh, I listened to this. No Katy Perry, no, no Lady Gaga. But if he becomes Prime Minister, he'll have to have a running playlist for everyone. But he talks about this band he's been listening to called the Manchester Orchestra and I'm like, oh, who are they? And actually they're an American band. And it just made me think with Andy Burnham, it's like everything in his life is at Manchester. Is it like me in 1993 with my Jurassic park pajamas, bedspread, curtains, posters, lunchbox.
- [25:06]
C
Yeah, he is the most Manchester of Manchester people. And that's from me, and I'm a fairly Manchester Manchester person as well. So, yeah, no, everything's very Manchester. Of course, Bigfield, where he is, is looks as much to the sort of Scouse side as it does to the Manx side, depending on which bit you're in. So he has to probably temper that a little bit and we'll probably. One of the things he's got to convince people of is the fact that he's not just using it to get to number 10 when we all suspect. Well, we know that's what he is doing. So one of the things we've had from people out and about is, you know, what's he. Is he. Is he going to be here for us afterwards? And that's a big theme that we're hearing.
- [25:46]
A
And Kevin, just in terms of how his record as Manchester Mayor, sorry, Greater Manchester Mayor, and his plans for the future as potential Prime Minister, how does that play out when he's out knocking doors?
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F
Well, he's really trying to big up the things that he's done as mayor and suggest that they've helped Makerfield and if he was Makerfield mp, he'd be able to do even more. I mean, and there are some Things like the B network, the buses. He can claim that that's starting to have an impact, cheaper bus fares for everybody in Makerfield. But it's interesting, almost a pivot that he's had on some issues like this. There was a big housing plan in Greater Manchester that was really quite controversial because it redesignated bits of greenbelt to meet the housing need based on the targets given by the government. And that was really upsetting communities across Greater Manchester, including some in the Wigan area and the Makerfield constituency. And now, once all that has gone through, and it took years of rows and big protests to get it through, he's now talking about some local development plans and saying that actually, it's really important that all the infrastructure is in place to support these plans as they go forward. Suddenly, he's got a slightly different hat on to the one where he was Greater Manchester's regional lead, saying, we need to push ahead with these houses because everybody needs houses. Suddenly, the minutiae of the local detail is coming back at him, but he's trying to negotiate it and pivot it to say he's fully across all these local issues. He supported them as the mayor, but it might be that local people have a different perspective on that.
- [27:23]
A
And, Chris, loads of people from Westminster are going up to campaign for him, even though actually, kind of technically, subtextually, what they're doing is campaigning against their current leader and prime minister.
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B
Yeah, there's a real sort of oddity to that. So when I was on the train to Wigan yesterday morning, there's this absurd moment where I got. We got on the train and I discovered, entirely by chance, and to the horror of the person in question, that I had a seat next to a government minister, literally one of those two seats. Not like a table, like two seats. And anyway, there was a bit of diplomacy and a bit of shuffling around and all the rest of it, and we had a bit of a chat and a bit of a laugh about it, but, yes, so loads and loads of Labour MPs and ministers, alongside representatives of the other parties and in particular Reform, are making regular trips. And, yeah, there's this central absurdity. It was there at the Andy Burnham launch where you had Jonathan Reynolds that the Chief Whip, the guy in charge of discipline and delivering this government's agenda, winning votes for Keir Starmer, stood there with a placard in his hand behind Andy Burnham. Now, of course, Jonathan Reynolds is also an MP in the northwest of England, and of course he's going to want a Labour candidate to win the by election. But there is some head spinning kind of combinations if you like going on there. But actually, and this is where you guys will be closer to this than I am, the more important head spinning conundrum for the electorate in the constituency is to what extent do they buy or not the idea that a vote for labor is to change labor when it sounds like a vote for Labour is to endorse labor, if you see what I mean. How does Labour prosecute, how does Andy Burnham and his campaign prosecute that argument where they say vote for me to change Labour? Which was what he said at his launch and he repeatedly says where the binary nature of a cross in a box is to endorse one party and then therefore by definition reject another one. I find that conundrum, that kind of cephalogical conundrum for people in Makerfield who suddenly find themselves with this massive privilege, responsibility, bind, annoyance depending on their outlook. How do they weight that? I think that's fascina Sarah.
- [29:45]
C
Yeah, it is exactly the conundrum and what we, what is overwhelming is the desire for change. And that's why I think it's going to be much tighter. It feels at this point like it's going to be much tighter than we expected. So many people are so fed up that it's whether that they, whether they believe that Andy will bring that change or not and is. It's a bit, just to explain a bit the Burnham factor in Manchester. So if I've ever had a coffee with Andy or done anything like that, it's like being with, it's like being with a rock star. It's really weird and I don't know whether this happens outside Great Manchester or not in that people are coming up for selfies and you know, they really want and that's the same in, in Makerfield. His kids went to school there. You know, he's really well known, everybody knows him. Some people say I he's really nice guy but I want change and Farage is going to bring change. And basically the voting for Farage but equally other people, that kind of local connection is also, you know, obviously was MP4 Lee next door that is also cutting through and that's why I'm finding it really hard to take the temperature. I think the, the poll, I know it's a small sample that came out probably judged exactly what we're feeling and also it could all hinge on Restore because we've been astonished by the scale of, of conversation around RESTORE that we're getting from people that they are Finding them an interesting alternative as well for change.
- [31:18]
B
A couple of things I think, going on there, if we take a bit of a step back from the northwest and from Greater Manchester. Part of it, I think, is the power of the mayoral model in projecting a central character in those roles. The whole model of having a mayor is about putting a face and a name on a pedestal above all other politicians in that area, in that region, in that city region. And the sort of first name thing that people might recall in London with, to use the first names, Boris or Ken, for instance, there was perhaps an element of it with Andy street in the West Midlands, in other words, folk who have kicked around in the job for quite a while. So I think that is a factor. What I hear from Labour folk at the moment, albeit heavily caveated, and there's two weeks to go, albeit postal votes are going to start landing pretty imminently, is that they think they probably have the numbers as things stand. They are conscious, by the way, of restore, although from their perspective, they would talk up, wouldn't they, a potential challenger to reform. And they talked to me about there being a sticky in the teens proportion of the electorate in the Makerfield constituency who are playing quite hard to get. And where does that chunk of the electorate break in the end?
- [32:48]
A
That reminds me of two things. Number one, Boris Johnson as Prime Minister would get stopped for selfies and get mobbed everywhere he went. And I'd see that sometimes, but actually nationwide, he was a lot less popular than the sort of the myth would suggest. And second of all, I remember coming back from Birmingham in the 2010 election on a train and the only spare seat on the whole train was next to me. And who should sit down next to me but John Craven, Is that right? Amazing. Yes. And we had a good chat about the country file annual that was coming out that year anyway.
- [33:17]
H
Right.
- [33:17]
A
Kevin on Radio Manchester, you guys have been doing sterling work speaking to getting around all the candidates. So who else? Who should we start with in our roundup of other people?
- [33:28]
F
Yeah, I can just bounce through them if you want. So we started with Andy Burnham because we had he ordinarily do a hot seat every week in our On Radio Manchester, where he takes calls from listeners. So when he was confirmed as the candidate, there was a big discussion. He hadn't done any BBC interviews until that point. Should we do that? He was up for doing it. So we did half an hour with Andy Burnham and took questions from the audience and put them to them. Reform have agreed finally to do an interview with us. So Robert Kenyon's going to be on tomorrow. He's doing about 10 minutes. And I think this feeds into this idea that he's not a Polish politician. Half an hour of hold into account, maybe a bit beyond his reach, he might end up repeating himself, I guess, and saying the same things. But last week, on Tuesday, we've had the Liberal Democrats, we've had the Greens and we've had the Conservative candidate, Michael Winstanley. I'll start with him first. And he was bigging up the fact that he is a real local candidate. They're all saying it, aren't they? But he's authentically been a councillor in the oral ward. He's been the mayor of. Of Wigan and then over the years, a decent run as a Conservative councillor. But he's big on this idea that he would be an MP for the area dedicated to that area. He's not using it as a stepping stone, he's not using it as a political pawn to try and push himself forward. He's talking about businesses and support for businesses being absolutely vital should he become the mp. The Liberal Democrats, Jay Costin, now, he was actually the Lib Demons candidate against Andy Burnham for mayor of Greater Manchester. And his big focus was the cost of living. And he was keen to talk about immigration in a positive way, saying that actually, you know, we need to highlight the real benefits of immigrants coming in, working in the NHS and other areas. And, you know, he was really against this quite divisive anti immigration conversation that he's developing. And then the Green Party. Well, this is Sarah Wakefield, she's a councillor just elected in Manchester. Of course, she's their second attempt at having a candidate, isn't she? And she talked about hope and joy being needed amid all the negativity and some better solutions to try and deal with the big issues that people are struggling with. And she highlighted some of the problems that they've had in the constituency, like flooding in Plattbridge and Abram and those concerns over development on the Greenbelt that we've talked about. So they've all got a slightly different pitch. You know, clearly they're saying they're in it to win it and it will be interesting to see come results time how many votes they're able to pick up and how much, if any, influence that has over the end result.
- [36:07]
A
And then this is going to start sounding very premature of me because we haven't even had the by election yet, clearly. But Sarah, do you think, can you pick up from the parties that they're preparing for the election that might come after this, which would be the by election for the mayor of Greater Manchester if Andy Burnham goes on to bigger and better things.
- [36:23]
C
Things, Yeah. I mean, there is.
- [36:26]
A
I shouldn't say bigger and better, I just use that as a phrase.
- [36:28]
C
Yeah.
- [36:29]
A
Being Prime Minister is better, but just phrase.
- [36:32]
C
Well, of course, Burnham did say this was the best job, but that was before another job became available or nearly available, I suppose. Yeah. There are preparations going on quietly. I would suspect we. We'd have an election in November, be our third in the year, so. Interesting. And there are. I think the Labour candidate, the strong favourite would be Beth Craig, who's the leader of Manchester Council. Very capable, very able, I think probably could have stood as the MP for the MP in Gorton had she wanted to. So she's a really strong favourite. The mayor at Salford is another person who might throw his hat into the ring. There's always been talk about Gary Neff level, but I don't think that will happen this time. So I think, quietly, there are some thoughts about that. And also I know that some in Labour are concerned that there is a possibility, or that theoretically is a possibility, they could end up with a reform mayor because of the massive swings we saw during the locals. But the way. I think the. I'm not in the weeds of this, but the way that the voting system's likely to change before then might make that less likely. But. So, yeah, lots of thoughts going into that and my very tired staff will. May have their third election. Well, fourth it'll be, of the year.
- [37:59]
A
Never have too much of a good thing. And, Chris, just to do some diarizing, Question Time has got a Makerfield By Election special on Thursday night.
- [38:07]
B
It does.
- [38:08]
A
In fact, tomorrow, I've just realized, as
- [38:09]
B
we're recording, it does. And I think that, you know, that is a reminder, not that we need it, but of the gravity of this, of this by election. And, you know, the thing I've really taken away from my first two trips to the constituency and I love by elections and I've covered dozens of them and I must admit, one or two of them, you know, won't trouble the history bugs. In fact, more than one or two of them probably won't trouble their history bugs. You get a real sense in the make a field contest that, yeah, this is massive. It's massive for labor, it's big, it's big for reform. Andy Burnham's trying to test that, the central proposition of his whole, if you like, political outlook, which is that he can change Labour. And what that really means is he can turn Labour into a competitive fighting force against reform. That's what his pitch is. And this by election is a case study in whether or not that's true. And therefore that is huge. And similarly, from reform's perspective, who are putting themselves forward as a prospective alternative government, the other side of the next general election, they need to continue showing the kind of momentum that they need to try and climb an incredibly steep mountain, given where they are right now in terms of number of MPs. So that's what the Question Time points to and it's what, well, hopefully By Election Cast points to as well.
- [39:32]
A
And so Chris and I will be watching that Question Time special on Thursday and then we will assemble very late on Thursday night to do our analysis of it. Sarah, I'm just thinking watching that from where you are will be quite amazing because it'd be a combination of a normal episode of Question Time, but coming from your backyard, which is always quite fun, a By Election debate program with the candidates and a sort of like American presidential election debate all rolled into one.
- [39:57]
C
I know, I know, it'll be good. We're actually hosting at the same venue. We're doing hostings a week later. So we've got all the candidates agreed for that. So I've got Give that a plug. I also want to plug Make Field Gambit, which is our daily newsletter. It might not make the cut of this, but it's absolutely fantastic. Written by Rob Williams and it's really looking in. It's from people who are here and it will be here afterwards. And it's really interesting. Look at what's going on. And I encourage people to sign up, but you'd expect me to say that
- [40:29]
B
when you have another subscriber within the time it takes me to do exactly that.
- [40:33]
C
Oh, it would be amazing. I'd have been in such trouble if I hadn't mentioned it.
- [40:36]
A
And Kevin, we've already plugged Radio Manchester as in depth coverage of all the candidates and all the issues every hour.
- [40:42]
F
That's right, yes. We'll carry on with that. And it all builds up just over two weeks to go.
- [40:47]
A
Kevin, thank you so much. My pleasure, Sarah. Good to catch up.
- [40:51]
C
Thank you. Loved it.
- [40:52]
A
And Chris, let's reconvene to do more episodes of Newscast and By Election Cast very soon.
- [40:56]
B
Cheers, guys. I enjoyed it.
- [40:59]
A
And as is tradition on episodes of By Election Cast, we've enlisted a celebrity voice to read out the full list of candidates who are standing in the Makerfield By Election, which is available for you to read on the BBC News website. But who's reading it for us today?
- [41:13]
E
Hi, Adam and newscasters, it's Alan Dedicote here, the National Lottery's voice of the balls and the voice of Strictly Come Dancing. And I'm here to read out the list of 14 candidates standing in the Makerfield by election on Thursday 18 June, in alphabetical order. The candidates are Jake Austin, Liberal Democrats Count Binface, Count Binface Party Andy Burnham, the Labour Party Dan Clark, the Libertarian Party Party John Dyer, Independent Ed Gemmell, Climate Party Paul Gold, Independent Alan Howlin, Lord Hope, the official Monster raving Loony Party Robert Kenyon, Reform UK Robert Pownall, Independent Rebecca Shepherd, Restore Britain Sarah Wakefield, Green Party Peter Ward, rejoin eu and Michael Winn Stanley, the Conservative Party. And that same full list of candidates, plus loads more information about the Makerfield bialect is available on the BBC website.
- [42:07]
A
Cheers, Adam, Alan, thank you very much. And you're the only person in the world who could make me wish there were more candidates in the Makerfield by election because I could listen to you reeling off their names all day. Thank you very much. And if you've got a suggestion for another celebrity voice, then let us know newscastbc.co.uk and then we will pester them like we did Alan this week. And so we ball last week. Right, that's all for this episode of By Election Cast. But you know what? I think we're going to drop another one on Thursday because Chris and I are going watching that Question Time special from Makerfield with some of the candidates which is on BBC1 on Thursday night. We will be watching it and I think we will then record our analysis and some of the best bits to send you away on the newscast feed. Bye bye.
- [42:49]
C
Newscast, Newscast from the BBC, from one
- [42:52]
D
newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do. In the words of Chris Mason, Ooze Stout. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on +440-330-1239480. Be assured, I promise we listen to every one.
- [43:37]
C
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