News Summary

• Labour's Andy Burnham is standing in the Makerfield by-election on 18 June.
• If elected, he would seek to enter any Labour leadership contest.
• Burnham must defeat his main rival, local plumber Robert Kenyon.
• Kenyon is standing for Reform UK, an insurgent party that is also aiming to win power in Westminster.
• But in the dozens of conversations I had with voters, residents, business owners and political campaigners in Makerfield, the mood was more nuanced than the rhetoric suggests.
• In some ways, the constituency is divided between the better-off neighbourhoods of Ashton, Orrell, and Winstanley in the west, and the more deprived areas of Platt Bridge, Abram and Hindley.
• In these latter areas, perceptions of "broken Britain" are easier to find.