Jack Rankin

If you spent the last fortnight listening to Reform UK, you could have been forgiven for thinking Makerfield was already in the bag. The win was supposed to be inevitable. One of those places where history had stopped, Labour had collapsed and Nigel Farage’s troops merely had to turn up to collect the keys. Momentum is a wonderful thing while you have it. The difficulty comes when it slows. A movement built on inevitability suddenly has to answer questions about competence, discipline and substance I’d wager Reform’s top brass couldn’t believe their luck when Josh Simons, the Labour Together alumnus, stepped aside to clear the way for Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster.

He’s having a tough time of it at the moment, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrew Gwynne. You see, I went to sixth form in his then patch when I was already an active, and surely irritating, young Conservative. When my more left-wing classmates were doing work experience with him (and I don’t know if Andrew remembers this) he made it clear he’d take me on too, despite my politics. I didn’t take him up on the offer, but I thought it spoke well of the man, and it stuck with me.  That’s why I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he referred to me as ‘the hon. Member for the Institute of Economic Affairs’ in the recent Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee.