What I took from the Makerfield Question Time episode

Last night, the BBC put out a special edition of Question Time, their flagship political panel show, one focused on the Makerfield by-election. It featured several of the candidates: Burnham and Kenyon for Labour and Reform respectfully, were obviously there, as was the Tory candidate, the Lib Dem person and the Green. Some complained about the lack of an invite for the Restore candidate, which I have to agree with. Look, I dislike Restore as much as anyone and see them as a grave threat to British liberalism, but they are an important part of this by-election’s narrative. Even if they do poorly in the end, losing their deposit, they will still have been a key feature of the whole thing. If you wanted to write the story of Makerfield 2026, you’d have to give Restore at least a mention.

Given the Lib Dems and the Tories are almost certainly nailed on to lose their deposits, both polling at around one or two percent in the constituency, they seemed superfluous. But what did I take away from everyone’s performance last night? And how do I think it will ultimately affect the by-election result?

I’ll start with the Green candidate, Sarah Wakefield. Now, I really dislike the Greens’ politics and I disagreed with pretty much everything Wakefield said last night. But I thought she did perform well. Politics is about reaching your potential audience, and I don’t see how Wakefield could have done any better with the platform she was given. She got in a few good lines here and there and gathered some decent moments to clip. She also got to argue with Kenyon, which must have been one of her prime goals coming into last night.

The Tories and Lib Dem chaps were utterly forgettable, sorry to say. I mean, they were pretty much making up the numbers and are both essentially paper candidates, so I suppose they performed as well I could have expected.

Then we come to the main two challengers. Either Andy Burnham or Robert Kenyon will be the MP for Makerfield come June 19th, and everyone knows it. Therefore, the performances of those two were the ones to watch.

Burnham was, well, Burnham. He was fine but nothing more. He was polished but unexciting. I still don’t really understand his campaigning strategy, but I sort of get the sense that neither does he. I guess I should add here that I have never been privy to the magical spell Andy Burnham seems to cast over certain sections of the centre-left in Britain. I’ve always thought him competent but unexciting, fairly cynical in his political choices. Solid enough, the kind of guy who would probably run a department like Transport well, but certainly not a visionary of any description. And, Burnham’s performance was exactly that, solid but nothing to get excited about.

Where my most controversial comments will come is in what is to follow, namely my breakdown on how I thought Robert Kenyon performed. Some of you will no doubt think that because I have a book on Reform coming out, I’m inclined to give him an easy ride. But I promise, I am being as objective as possible here.

I can see Kenyon’s performance from a liberal-left perspective. And yes, from that vantage point, it was a car crash from the Reform candidate. He wasn’t polished, and he was clearly trying to remember his lines at different stages. Yet go back to what I said about the Green candidate’s performance: what’s important in politics is to reach your target audience. I said in my appraisal of Burnham above that I still don’t really understand Burnham’s campaigning strategy, but I completely get Kenyon’s. Lean hard on the “normal bloke, not a career politician” shtick, with the intent being to have him seem like the rebellious outsider to Burnham’s establishment hackery. Reform knows they have to squeeze both the Restore and the Tory votes hard, and that was the clear focus of Kenyon’s pitch last night. As such - from his and his party’s perspectives - it was a success for him, I believe.

Further, I think the reactions from the left and the centrists has been interesting. By being so snobbish about Kenyon (like when he is referred to as a plumber in unmistakably pejorative tones), I think they are making Reform’s point for them. Believe me, the stuff the left and centre go on about regarding Kenyon - his lack of political experience, his working class blokeishness, his colourful social media past - will not be seen as negatives by his target audience in Makerfield. Most won’t care at all and to some of them, all of those things could be seen as positives.

I guess what I’m saying here is that the reaction to Kenyon’s campaign and performance last night has once again demonstrated that the left and centre have yet to learn some very important lessons. I think a lot of you reading this are certain that Andy Burnham is going to win the Makerfield by-election and cannot in fact fathom Reform doing so instead. While Burnham is certainly the deserved favourite, it would not shock me at all if Kenyon won on June 18th.