The sun is beating down and dozens of people are waiting expectantly in the car park of the Stubshaw Cross Community & Sports Club in Ashton-in-Makerfield: dozens of Labour party activists and MPs, plus press from the regions and up from London on the train (me included).
It’s still an hour till the main event: Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and, he hopes, Labour MP for Makerfield and then Prime Minister, is kicking off this by-election “launch” with a speech and chats with journalists.
Even though they’ve been pounding the pavements for a week already.
Welcome to the Makerfield by-election - the epicentre of British politics for the next month. A by-election like no other.
The stakes? Just who becomes our next Prime Minister and the future direction of the country….
Makerfield isn’t even a place as such, but a collection of small towns and villages south of Wigan and half way between Manchester and Liverpool.
77, 000 people here have the power to send Andy Burnham, “The King of the North” to Westminster, where he will become our next Prime Minister and may (or may not) save the Labour Party and turn things around.
Or they might choose Robert Kenyon, local plumber, ex army-reservist and Reform’s candidate.
Andy Burnham is desperately trying to rally support
|PA
This seat has been Labour since 1906, but in the local elections a fortnight ago, the area turned Reform turquoise.
The whole thing is utterly surreal. Both Andy Burnham and Reform are bringing a “politics doesn’t work for ordinary folk round here - I can change that” message.
And they are both intent on getting rid of the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.
So when Burnham arrives to a rockstar welcome and declares “hope is in the air!”, Jonathan Reynolds, the Chief Whip responsible for doing Sir Keir Starmer’s bidding and getting government legislation through the Commons, is standing behind him with a sign: “Vote Andy. For Us”.
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Mr Burnham speaking at his campaign launch in Makerfield today | PA Burnham’s speech stresses his local roots; his kids went to school in the constituency, he lives 2 miles away, the area has been his home for decades, and parts of Makerfield used to be in the neighbouring constituency of Leigh, where he was the local MP before becoming Manchester Mayor.
He says: “I love this place, I love its people…but I have inside a burning sense of injustice, that the proud community of this place face a Westminster system that puts them at the bottom of the list, when they should be at the top of the list.”
Andy Burnham is a good communicator. He’s affable, friendly, and he speaks like an ordinary person; a skill which eludes many in politics.
His speech promises the biggest expansion of council housing since the Second World War, cheaper bills, better technical education and opportunities for young people, cheaper transport. How any of this would be paid for is unexplained.
Keir Starmer will join Andy Burnham on the Makerfield campaign trail
|PA
He says: “A vote for me in this by election campaign is a vote to change labour.”
He admits they’ve “not been good enough” and promises to take Labour back to what it was: “The party that is solidly on the side of working class people and working class communities.”
Later, in a short interview with GB News, he insists he “gets it” on immigration and people’s concerns.
He tells me he’s behind the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms, though later, when pushed by another journalists it sounds like he’s squeamish about some of her proposals, which are still out for consultation.
After the launch is done and dusted, I and our producer Rebecca and cameraman Emil head to the station to catch the train to London.
We’ve just got time for lunch in the local Wetherspoons: scampi, chips and Diet Coke.
And very quickly I’m hearing from locals who are NOT impressed with Burnham.
“He’s a blagger,”, says one, who lives in Burnham’s former constituency. He brings up the wasted £100 million on the clean air scheme for Manchester that was abandoned.
“Opportunist” says another.
These are people in former Labour heartlands who are not buying the “Change” message again.
Five or six in quick succession say similar.
A Labour party activist later tells me he’s spoken to lots of people who had voted Reform in the local elections but will come back to Labour for Andy Burnham.
Andy Burnham says he loves the people in Makerfield.
Is that feeling mutual with enough voters here to send him to Westminster and on to Number 10?
It feels on a knife edge to me.
In four Fridays from now, we’ll get the answer.