The Earthquake That Wasn't
What does the Makerfield by-election tell us about the state of the British right
On Friday morning, I was on the ground in Makerfield, conducting a post-mortem of Andy Burnham’s victory in a by-election that could dramatically alter the course of British politics. If Burnham now challenges Keir Starmer and becomes Prime Minister, then calls a snap election off the back of the inevitable popularity-bounce, Britain could have five more years of radical left-wing government instead of three. What a disaster that would be.
As I walked the streets of this average Northern town, people stood stupefied, gazing up at the sky in disbelief. I visited the local Games Workshop store where young men in pungent t-shirts were unable to paint their Primaris Space Marines, so violent were their fits and tremblings. Blue paint everywhere, including on the parts that should be skin-colored. The atmosphere at the gaming tables was funereal: heads bowed, silence, dice at a standstill.
All said the same thing: How could this be happening? We were told Restore would win…
Gradually, as these dumbstruck boys and girls began to recover from their collective stupor, I was able to extract from them a more coherent picture of just what went wrong for Restore.
Here’s what I discovered:
