Keir Starmer teeters. The defence secretary exits, and thereby seems to confirm the prime minister\u2019s demise. Andy Burnham scents a final, belated breakthrough, while most of the national talk is of violence, a country in crisis and malaise. And in Platt Bridge, a neighbourhood at the heart of the constituency where the fates of the Labour party, the current government and the country are all about to be decided, life still seems to be locked into an endlessly familiar pattern.<\/p>\n
Amid all the redbrick terrace houses, too many shops are shuttered and empty. The latest casualty was a proudly independent baker who had traded for 40 years, apparently to be replaced by another tanning lounge. The main roads are clogged with traffic, while other streets tend to be eerily quiet. People speak of closed-down pubs, impossible private rents, and that ubiquitous British complaint: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing for the kids to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is community spirit aplenty here, and optimism about a \u00a320m \u201cpride in place<\/a>\u201d grant recently confirmed by the government. But amid chatter about who people might vote for in this week\u2019s Makerfield byelection, what you feel most strongly is something that seems to run through this corner of Greater Manchester: the sense of somewhere stoically waiting for something better.<\/p>\n Outside the local bike repair business \u2013 whose owner, Paul Bullen<\/a>, says he makes almost no money, and sees what he does as a community service \u2013 I meet Billy, a twentysomething on his way to work as a \u201cmechanical and assembly operative\u201d at a local engineering firm. He says he has never voted before, but is determined to this time. \u201cCome on, Reform,\u201d he says, and then pauses. \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be able to fix everything, but they\u2019re a step in the right direction. Definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n What does he think of Burnham?<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s done good. I\u2019ll give him that,\u201d he says. \u201cHe has done good. But I think Labour\u2019s had their chance. They had 14 years to come up with a plan, and they\u2019ve just \u2026 flopped.\u201d<\/p>\n What kind of country does he want to live in?<\/p>\n \u201cA free country. Without two-tier policing. Where the British people are put first. Working-class people, who keep the country running.\u201d<\/p>\n Do the Britons he means include people who are not white? An inevitable tension suddenly intrudes; he steps slightly to one side. \u201cIt\u2019s not to do with what colour your skin is,\u201d he says. \u201cAbsolutely nothing to do with that. But I stand with Farage: like, if you\u2019re here illegally, you should be deported.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighbouring homes in Ashton-in-Makerfield show their support for Labour and Reform UK, 10 June 2026. Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Ten minutes later, I fall into conversation with Meah. In 2019, she thought she was temporarily relocating from London to the place where she was brought up, but decided to stay put. Platt Bridge, she tells me, \u201cneeds a lot of TLC\u201d; she talks animatedly about people still waiting for compensation after the infamous local floods<\/a> that happened more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI like Andy Burnham<\/a>,\u201d she says. \u201cYears ago, I started watching him. I just think he\u2019d make a really good PM.\u201d And if Reform won? \u201cI\u2019d die. I was born in the 50s. We fought against racism, and the National Front and the BNP. We marched. So I\u2019d be devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n There it is, instantly crystallised: the clash of morals, priorities and understandings of recent history at the core of this hugely consequential vote. On one side, Burnham\u2019s homely communitarianism, his emphasis on council housing<\/a>, local high streets and the urgent need to reconnect the political mainstream with everyday life. On the other, Robert Kenyon<\/a>, the conspicuously out-of-his-depth Reform candidate, whose party nonetheless issues messages that appeal to thousands of voters \u2013 about immigration, grooming gangs and such ground-level topics as fly-tipping. And to his right, the apparently lavishly funded campaign launched by Rupert Lowe\u2019s Restore Britain<\/a>, an attempt to pull the local discourse even further towards the fetid sludge of the far right, which is evidently causing Farage and co no little worry.<\/p>\n Some positives. The bookies make Burnham the favourite: at the time of writing, William Hill had him at 1\/5<\/a>, with Reform at 4\/1. In contrast to the strange, noncommittal mood that defined 2024\u2019s general election, it is not hard to find Labour voters, and enthusiastic ones at that. The idea that a Reform government would cut people\u2019s benefits and privatise the NHS has had clear cut-through. There again, Reform posters and placards seem to outnumber Burnham\u2019s (most of which feature a caricature by the Mancunian artist Stanley Chow, and simply say \u201cVote Andy for us<\/a>\u201d, with no mention of his party) by a ratio of two to one. At nearby Wigan\u2019s town-centre Premier Inn, whose breakfast room is packed each day with pundits, journalists and pollsters, there is a rough consensus that Burnham will almost certainly win, but some think that it might be a bit closer<\/a> than the latest predictions suggest.<\/p>\n One feeling in particular seems to sum up the local condition, not least among women, and it centres on a common left-liberal blind spot: an awful anxiety about crime and personal safety. At Tudor House, a community centre down the road from Platt Bridge in Hindley, I spend well over an hour chatting to a dozen or so women who are loyal members of a group called Craft Hive, and out it all comes: \u201cI never, ever go out in the evenings \u2026 It\u2019s just not safe \u2026 you look over your shoulder all the time \u2026 where are the police?\u201d<\/p>\n Up until a year ago, one woman I speak to \u2013 who wants to stay anonymous \u2013 ran a cafe in the middle of Wigan. She says she is still traumatised by a stabbing that happened nearby, and what ensued: people \u2013 including mothers and babies \u2013 sprinting inside her premises, as she frantically locked the doors. She recently split from her partner, and is now homeless: \u201cliving out of bags\u201d with her daughter, and wondering how she will get through each day. And she says she is drawn to backing Reform.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think we need to give someone else a chance,\u201d she says, \u201cand I like what they say about keeping the streets safe \u2026 there needs to be a change.\u201d This is what all the UK\u2019s progressive parties should really worry about: the kind of Reform-leaning voters who know about precarity and worry as a matter of everyday experience, and see the party as a last desperate roll of the dice, for want of anything more worthy of their support.<\/p>\n