Makerfield By-Election Odds: Reform UK are the Betting Value

We are coming up to a fortnight away from polls opening in the Makerfield by-election and the betting market seems relatively confident that Andy Burnham will win the seat and return to Westminster, potentially with Number 10 very much in his future.

Has the market got it right though or are there still choppy waters ahead for the current Mayor of Greater Manchester? Let’s delve into it with the latest look at the Makerfield by-election odds here on Betfred Insights…

You can bet on and check out the latest Makerfield By-Election Odds over on betfred.com

Having followed politics for a long time, I have always been fascinated by the cult-like following of the extreme left and right. Supporters of the likes of both Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage will allow them an immense amount of leeway along with defending their viewpoints on matters that people may themselves actually disagree with but because their chosen esteemed leader said it, then all is right with the world.

Another aspect of politics that I’ve found bewildering is that the right will attack the left mercilessly but the left themselves will often turn on one another if a candidate has one view that doesn’t sync up with their own point of view. 

This neatly brings me on to my major point of focus in this article, the media coverage of the Makerfield by-election has been mind-blowing. Personally, I tend to read all of the newspapers to get a nice broad range of views and unsurprisingly the likes of the Daily Mail are all guns blazing for Andy Burnham and lauding Reform UK. You would therefore expect the likes of The Guardian to be the complete opposite, yet if you are following their coverage, they’ll write plenty about how Andy Burnham isn’t perfect, pick at individual policies they don’t think are great and how Reform UK aren’t actually too bad.

The left are happy to eat themselves if given the slightest opportunity but the right don’t embark on such exploits of self-destruction.

At the time of writing, the top story on The Guardian website about the upcoming by-election is entitled, ‘Labour have lost their way’: voters in Makerfield say it’s time for a change. The headline is fairly damning but the article itself doesn’t really portray that, with the reporters speaking to eight people (or at least using eight people in their story) with four backing Labour, two Reform UK and two Restore Britain, with the two right-leaning parties dominating the opening sections of the copy.

If you only listened to the media, you’d firmly believe that Reform UK candidate Robert Kenyon is on course to win the seat, with the only potential stumbling block being Restore Britain and whether they’ll peel off enough votes from Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle to stop them from winning. 

This is despite the candidate admitting that he’s sexist in old social media posts, saying that women can’t drive or give directions. Making crass comments about the TV presenter Carol Vorderman. Not being enthused about female sports presenters on live sports coverage and saying that English women ‘just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s’.

In a normal situation, saying such things would pretty much end a political career but we are in a different era and the norms don’t apply any more. The fact a Reform UK spokesperson said the comments were made before he became a politician, intimating that they don’t matter stuns me but many supporters on the right are fine with it.

This shows the difference between the extremes and the broad centre. If Andy Burnham had made such comments, it’d be all over and his career in politics would be in tatters. Yet someone on the right saying it doesn’t even make a dent in his hardened support.

All this shows why at 2/5, Labour are too short in this by-election. I loved them at the 10/11 mark they opened at and even the 8/11 they were a few days into the campaign. They should still win but this is no fait accompli and the betting value is now very much with Reform UK. Betfred have them at 11/4 and that is a better price than they should be. Labour 8/11 and Reform UK 6/4 seems around right.