🚨If Burnham Loses This…Labour Has A big Problem..Starmer stays?🚨

[00:00:01]Hello peeps, it's the Hillbilly Arfur.

[00:00:03]How are you today? I'm just having a cup of tea in between sharing and I've just been listening to a little bit of the radio that was saying that Reform are odds-on win to win this next uh MP What's the name of the place?

[00:00:19]Macclesfield? I can't remember now.

[00:00:21]Anyway, it's on here against Burnham. I know I was thinking, "No, they're not." because uh Labour have won this seat for decades upon decades. It's a safe Labour seat, a mining town, and they've got the potential next Prime Minister, the one of the strongest ever Labour candidates running there. So, if Labour lose, it's going to be a political earthquake.

[00:00:45]Burnham should win. If he doesn't win this, they're they're in serious trouble. So, here's what we're kept saying. So, this is the election next week, the by-election to get Andy Burnham to be the PM, by the look of it. So, 70,000 people in Macclesfield will be basically deciding who's going to run the country.

[00:01:05]So, this is what I asked ChatGPT, the supercomputer.

[00:01:09]Yeah, so going by what I said earlier, the BBC was saying earlier that if Burnham wins, it's a good result, but going by what we know now, Burnham should win this because he wants to be the Prime Minister and is supposed to be very popular among Labour members. So, it's his election to lose, not Reform's to win. He wants to be the next Prime Minister, and one area, just one area, is putting him in as being Prime Minister material, where the other country is nothing else and can't do anything about it. So, this is a left-wing uh supercomputer replying.

[00:01:46]I can see the logic in what you're saying. Look- looking at it purely from a political standpoint, Burnham isn't standing as an unknown backbencher. He has been talked about openly as a potential replacement for Keir Starmer and a possible future Prime Minister.

[00:02:03]Reuters, AP, ITV, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others have all reported that a Macclesfield win could put him on a path to Labour leadership challenge. That's from The Times.

[00:02:16]So, your argument is Macclesfield is historically a Labour seat.

[00:02:21]Burnham is one of Labour's best-known politicians. He has a strong name recognition in the Northwest. He is campaigning partly for his personal popularity rather than just the Labour brand. Therefore, if he cannot win a traditional Labour seat under those conditions, that reflects badly on him and the Labour party.

[00:02:43]That's a perfectly coherent political interpretation.

[00:02:47]Where some commentators differ is that they focus on how much the political landscape has changed. Reform's local election performance in the area was extremely strong, which is why some journalists frame it as a major challenge rather than a routine Labour hold. That's from The Times. I think the fairest way to put it is historically, Burnham should be favorite because it is a safe Labour seat and he's one of Labour's biggest political names.

[00:03:15]That's from LabourList. Politically, the election has become much closer than Labour would have expected a few years ago because Reform has made substantial gains in working-class similar areas.

[00:03:27]That's from The Times. Narrative-wise, if Burnham wins comfortably, Labour supporters will say he proved his popularity. If he loses, critics will argue that Labour's strongest available candidate couldn't hold a traditional Labour seat. That's from The Times.

[00:03:44]On your final point about one area choosing the Prime Minister, constitutionally, that's not actually what happens. The voters in Macclesfield are only choosing their MP. However, because Burnham cannot become Labour leader or Prime Minister without first returning to Parliament, many journalists are treating Macclesfield as a gateway contest that could influence who leads the country later. That's why a constituency of roughly 75,000 voters receiving so much national attention.

[00:04:16]So, that's the Washington Post. So, I think your summary summary is a reasonable one.

[00:04:21]It's Burnham's election Burnham's election to lose more than it's Reform's election to win. Even if others would argue that Reform's recent rise makes it the race generally competitive.

[00:04:37]So, then what I say, yes, that's what I mean about being impartial. This is a safe Labour seat, and if Reform win it, it will be an absolute earthquake because for decades Labour have had this seat because they're not supposed to win it. And if Burnham doesn't win it, that will be a political earthquake for Burnham and the Labour Party because it's basically going to mean they're going to be destroyed during the next election, and the current Prime Minister will probably stay in place.

[00:05:07]I think that's a fair political argument, but I'd separate the parts that are factual from the parts that are predictions. The factual part is Macclesfield is historically a Labour seat and has been regarded as Labour territory for decades. That's from The Times. Burnham is not an ordinary candidate. He's one of Labour's best-known politicians. He's widely seen as potential future Labour leader or even Prime Minister at times. The by-election receiving national attention precisely because of what it means for Burnham and Labour's future. That's The Sun. Where it becomes opinion is what results would mean.

[00:05:43]It I think it's reasonably reasonable to say that if Reform won a seat that Labour has traditionally held, it would would be a major political shock. Many commentators across different outlets, not just left-leaning ones, has described it as a contest with potentially huge consequences for Labour. That's from The Times.

[00:06:05]Where I'd be a little more cautious is about the jump to Labour will be destroyed at the next election. British politics can move very quickly.

[00:06:13]Governments have recovered from bad by-election results before, and oppositions have won spectacular by-elections without immediately forming a government.

[00:06:23]What I would say is this, if Burnham wins comfortably, Labour will argue that the strongest candidate has held off a difficult seat.

[00:06:30]If Burnham scraped through by a tiny margin, many people will see that as a warning sign for Labour.

[00:06:37]If Reform actually wins, that would be a likely interpretation as a political earthquake because Labour would have lost a traditional stronghold.

[00:06:47]So, your framing of Birmingham by-election to lose is defensible is a defensible interpretation. It's not the only interpretation, but it's certainly one that many political observers, including some of the center-right, would recognize. The key reason is that Burnham is asking voters not only to elect him as MP, but effectively to give him a route back to whence Westminster so he can pursue the Labour leadership.

[00:07:14]And that naturally raises the stakes.

[00:07:18]>> [clears throat] >> One thing I think we can agree on is that the result will tell us far more about the current strength of Labour in its traditional working-class heartlands than it will about whether Makerfield was ever supposed to be a Reform seat.

[00:07:31]Historically, it wasn't. That's why the contest is attracting so much awareness.

[00:07:37]Well, there we are. That's a fair fair thing from ChatGPT. I'll just add to this. I think restore I think it's restore I get the names mixed up with Rupert Lowe.

[00:07:53]That party will probably end up losing the election for reform cuz they're running 8%.

[00:08:00]So, I'm not going to go on about that. I've talked about this before. I think they're more of a state-run party than anybody can realize cuz the things that Rupert Lowe says I like Rupert Lowe, but I it's very suspicious that he was working in businesses with Rishi Sunak's misses and he's close to the Conservative Party and he's let he's getting away with stuff that no other MP would ever get away with.

[00:08:29]They would have shut him down by now.

[00:08:31]So, I think that party is helping Burnham to win.

[00:08:36]But, if Burnham doesn't win, then perhaps Starmer will stay cuz he is like a stuck turd.

[00:08:43]So, that's just a little bit of one today where I was thinking openly about politics and this uh election next week.