Makerfield - today's the day.

[Kayemm]

Having lived in this constituency all my life I used to want to live somewhere where I felt my vote mattered rather than in a very safe labour seat.

Now I'm here and living with the reality, I'm so very nervous.

It does absolutely amaze me that I know so many people who won't vote today.

You keep quoting the same thing which is not evidence that Kemi said she would form a coalition with Farage.

Response from Kemi herself on X:

This is bullshit. What I ACTUALLY said is we "cannot have another left-wing government. But I'm afraid that Reform has quite a lot of left-wing ideas. They want more benefits. They want nationalisation” I then said. On "deals, non-aggression pacts and so on....I'm just saying no. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

And you keep quoting the above! If that is what you to to believe. Fine ☺️. I have a different take. Hopefully we will never be in the situation where we find out the real picture. 🤞

Did you need a few more NOs from Kemi for the negative to sink in?

The NOs were to a different scenario ☺️

And we, in some areas, are getting a taste of Reform majority/led councils.

The people of Makerfield will be aware now of the inexperienced Reform councillors, their ridiculous, dangerous decisions, their unrealistic policy changes, their lack of understanding of their roles and responsibilities, the number who have resigned or changed allegiance. Reform MP’s operate under the same.

Sound bites are fine when you have no role, the real and very difficult work of a councillor is when you are in the majority and having to make very difficult, multi faceted decisions. You are accountable.

The council meeting I watched earlier this week in a new Reform council was a shambles of ignorance. Scary that they are making decisions on behalf of local people.

Makerfield have steered away.

She doesn’t want to do a pact or coalition at the moment. She would say if she did not keep it secret. She dislikes Farage.

End of discussion as far as I’m concerned.

Pretty much. It's a Brexit voting, mostly white, disproportionately old and non degree educated constituency and they overwhelmingly won the local elections the other week. These are the constituencies that Reform would need to win. It's not even just that Burnham beat them, it's that it wasn't even close.

The choice of candidate didn't help, but that's probably going to be an ongoing issue. Always a risk for parties that grow quickly.

Hopefully Wigan will lose 2 of our Reform councillors now too after their disgusting behaviour this week with the Jimmy Saville banner.

Exactly. I’ve heard the media saying how this is a bitter blow for Reform, and Farages popularity is going down.

I disagree. This was one seat. It was always more likely Burnham was going to win. It’s a safe Labour seat.

Theres still three years until a GE. Anything can happen.

In addition Burnham had the upper hand. He went for seat had a chance of winning. He knew when to call a by election. He had lots of time prepare.

A spokesman for Reform
was on LBC today saying that they only had four weeks to select a candidate.

So the conclusion is there is a dearth of competent candidates that Reform can draw on ?

(Looks at the UK)

Makes sense, actually. People who like marking things on calendars might want to write "politician spoke truth" on 19th June 2026.

A little puzzled as to the statement that it was Burnham who chose when to call the by election. It doesn't square with what I learned of the UK a while ago.

And Kenyon was the best they could find?

What were the other candidates like 🤔

Will they find a more suitable candidate for the GM Mayoral election?

And Kenyon was the best they could find?

That's now I read it. Although to be fair, it may be that had they had more time, they could have found a more suitable candidate.

Although I don't quite know what "suitable" in this context means. Does it mean "can get elected" or "best reflects Reforms values" ? It's unclear. And the two may not be the same.

I think Kenyon was the best they could find at the time. He obviously wasn’t good enough but Burnham was always a hard candidate to beat regardless.

He is already a councillor and also stood in 2024

So he was good enough then ? Although I understand it's different roles. Either that or the people of Makerfield have upped their standards since then ? I guess it doesn't do to be stuck in the past.

Re

1. Assuming Andy Burnham wins then economically there is very little that he can do differently to Starmer. He can't increase debt because it's already at record levels and the interest payments are already more than the education budget, he can't increase taxes because this will further slow the economy and he can't cut spending because the Labour backbenchers will block. To be fair this predicament would apply regardless of who was in power whether it be Conservative, Labour or, LibDem or Reform. The only one different is the Greens who plan to solve this predicament by simply printing money, which didn't turn out too well in Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe or Venezuela. As a result die hard Labour voters who have got their hopes up on Burnham saving the day will be even more disillusioned.

You are confusing debt and investing. If, for example the Government were to borrow to invest in Council Housing they would not have a problem because it is a sensible and profitable investment.

The 'debt' interest would be more than covered by the rents and would prove to be a popular and long term profitable choice.- enabling the surplus profit to be invested in more affordable housing. It would boost the economy because people would not be forced to spend so much on extortionate private rents so would have much more money to spend.

Similarly he can and should increase taxes on the very rich billionaires, stop the off shoring of profits, and spend less on private health extortionate costs of bank nurses etc bringing jobs back into the NHS eg. Incidentally more than 70% of the very rich here want to pay more tax. They like it here and would not leave according to the latest soundings.

Arguments are also valid for nationalising our services ie Water, Electricity, Gas, Rail, Buses etc. Our bills would fall as we would not be paying out £billions to corrupt, incompetent share holders and foreign companies. ( Who we should prosecute and fine btw.) In this way we would all not only have a better service ( indeed a service at all) but more money in or pockets to spend and boost the economy.

You are confusing debt and investing. If, for example the Government were to borrow to invest in Council Housing they would not have a problem because it is a sensible and profitable investment.

My understanding of the UK is that this isn't allowed, as it would negatively affect the profits of landlords and property owners ?

On this on debt and investing apparently it can be done under the ‘fiscal rules’ but still the cost if borrowing is very high atm.

That’s tax payer money going to service debt. If that debt servicing climbs higher how do you avoid just eating into tax funds with servicing?

Andy Burnham is as much a flipflopper as Starmer. He may seem less like a robot, but if he carries on with the unpopular polices of Starmer, he'll end up being just as unpopular as him in time...

But why do people think Burnham will change things for the better??He will face the same problems as Starmer..

The economy- 3 trillion in debt
Trump
Iran / Israel
Ukraine
Job market
Labour voters going over to Reform
The hard right of politics

You left out Brexit, which has buggered us for a generation and is a problem I can't see a way out of.

Because like most politicians he is promising to spend more money on stuff without properly explaining where the money is going to come from. Voters generally love this until either a) taxes rise to pay for "more stuff" and the economy slows or b) more money is not spent on stuff.