Skip to main contentSkip to navigation Close dialogue1/4 Next image Previous image Toggle caption Andy Burnham on the campaign trail in Makerfield, where ‘people are genuinely quite shocked when he turns up to see them in person’. Photograph: Jon Super/AP View image in fullscreen Andy Burnham on the campaign trail in Makerfield, where ‘people are genuinely quite shocked when he turns up to see them in person’. Photograph: Jon Super/AP Power games in a pub garden as MPs seek Burnham’s favour in MakerfieldHundreds of Labour activists and MPs have ‘made the pilgrimage’ to the seat, where they are pounding the streets For a few short weeks, the centre of political gravity in Britain has shifted from the Palace of Westminster to the bar of a former Labour club in Wigan.In London, even as Keir Starmer insists he will fight to stay in No 10, the walls seem to be crumbling around him, especially with Thursday’s resignation of the defence secretary, John Healey.Two hundred miles north, most mornings outside Stubshaw Cross community centre there is a queue snaking round the building as 20 MPs patiently wait to clock in to do their hours on the doorstep for Andy Burnham in Makerfield.It is a seat that once looked so impossible to win that some of Burnham’s closest friends advised him to turn…
Published: June 11, 2026 5:32 pm
Source: The Guardian — Read original