Friday briefing: After two months as PM, is Andy Burnham passing his own test?

Good morning. Remember the Makerfield test? When Andy Burnham was elected as an MP back in June, he reassured wary voters that the constituency was not a “stepping stone” (to be fair, it was a bit) but a “touchstone”. He meant that the policies his government devised would have to matter on the high streets of Ashton and Hindley Green.

“A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will make sure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness,” he said.

As the Commons breaks for the jamboree of high ideas, low gossip and crap karaoke that is party conference season, it’s a good moment to ask how Burnham’s early decisions as prime minister – he’s been at it under two months, right enough – meet that test and what it tells us about his government.

I spoke to someone who, since that byelection, has immersed himself in the opinions of Makerfield voters, and those living in constituencies like it, Luke Tryl, UK director of the research agency More in Common. But first the headlines.

“Who cares what Makerfield man or woman thinks? I’m a Holborn and St Pancras via Caerphilly gal myself,” you might be muttering into your overnight oats.

But here’s why it matters: Makerfield, like dozens of similar post-industrial seats in the north of England, is the sort of seat Labour used to win so easily they could put up a ham sandwich as a candidate. Things have since changed. The area voted to leave by 65% in the Brexit referendum, and in the May council elections, Reform won all eight council wards in the constituency with about 50% of the vote.

In his byelection dispatches from Makerfield, Luke Tryl found a pervasive sense of being left behind and forgotten – despite being “at the centre of the universe”, as one constituent put it, for one frantic month of campaigning.

According to the voters Tryl spoke to, the Makerfield test should consist of three elements: Burnham showing that he “gets it”; a record of delivery; and a national plan to address the issues that Makerfield residents share with people across the country. So how has Burnham fared on some of the early challenges he’s faced?

Cost of living measures

“The top thing we heard in Makerfield was a sense that too much of life was a struggle,” Tryl tells me. And More in Common’s polling has found that, so far, Burnham’s early cost of living measures are very popular across the country: 86% of Britons had heard about the bus fare cap, seven in 10 thought it reflected well on the government; about 8 in 10 had heard about the VAT cut on household electricity bills (amounting to an average of about £45 a year per household), and 67% said that it landed well.

Voters in Makerfield-like areas are realistic, says Tryl: “They say: ‘£45 is not going to change my life’, but they see it as a statement of intent”. People who are slightly more engaged with politics specifically mention the budget as a test point: earlier this week Burnham warned of “difficult choices” ahead.

The cut-through of these measures to voters is striking: “Part of it is just the ubiquity of Andy Burnham,” says Tryl. Most recent More in Common polling shows people are more likely to have seen him on social media than any of the other party leaders. A fifth of Britons (22%) have seen “Cool Dad” Burnham on social media in the past week, compared to 20% for Reform leader Nigel Farage. I’m fascinated to see that for under-25s that rises to 35%, compared with 13% for Green leader Zack Polanski, who is often touted as catnip for younger voters.

Immigration

More in Common polling in June estimated that 62% of Makerfield residents consider immigration to be a top issue, making it one of the most concerned constituencies in the country about that issue.

Here, Burnham gets a mixed review. The idea of taking in refugees through capped, controlled routes is popular in Makerfield, where voters worry over a lack of control. That’s why Tryl argues that one policy that really does pass the Makerfield test is the community sponsorship scheme, part of Shabana Mahmood’s controversial asylum reforms.

But while Burnham has won back Labour-Green switchers over the summer, he’s not been so successful with Labour to Reform defectors – and Tryl believes that’s because he has yet to move the dial on migration. Take, for example, the shift in people’s perceptions: 52% of Britons now cite concern that local women and girls would be at risk of sexual violence as the top reason why they’d oppose asylum accommodation in their area (previously, they were more likely to refer to pressure on services). In socially conservative areas such as Makerfield, voters feel this “much more strongly”. “I think this is an achilles heel”, says Tryl.

Prisoner release

It’s not just constituencies such as Makerfield where voters think the criminal justice system isn’t tough enough: across the country, nearly two-thirds of Britons think prison sentences are too lenient.

“The case of Andrew Harper outrages people across the board,” Tryl tells me, “but particularly in somewhere like Makerfield.”

So Burnham played a bad hand well, by explaining the competing priorities to the public, and taking time to examine options before finding a partial solution. “Taking the public on that journey – especially in Makerfield where people are very distrustful of politicians – was important,” says Tryl.

Climate

Burnham, who is now facing intense pressure over whether to approve oil and gasfields in the North Sea, wrote in the Guardian yesterday that the UK must fully commit to reaching net zero by 2050.

While Labour-Reform switchers in places like Makerfield are often deeply worried about climate change, there’s also concern that net zero policies will unfairly punish ordinary people. For many, the issue of climate change falls below more pressing daily concerns like the cost of living crisis. In this context, More in Common’s polling suggests the main test for Britain’s energy policies will be whether they can lower household bills.

Party donations

Tryl’s fieldwork has found that the public aren’t deeply engrossed in the minutiae of donations limits, although they do want the system to be fair.

So Burnham’s early failure to support a domestic cap on donations is unlikely to be a decisive factor when constituents in Makerfield next head to the ballot box. But for the recipient of those crypto-millions, the damage has been done: more than one in three voters now name Farage’s “sleaziness and corruption” as a barrier to them voting Reform. Rather than the party’s core voters, who seem unmoved by the continuing financial scandals, it is Labour-Reform switchers in seats such as Makerfield whose faith has been shaken.

But Tryl cautions against over-stressing the issue. “At the next election, if the status quo on cost of living, core public services, andimmigration still feels pretty bad, I don’t think donations in themselves will be an issue” he says.

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