Dear Sir,

Andy Burnham got a total of 24,927 votes in the recent by-election in Makerfield, England.

But it is of interest that he increased Labour's number of votes only by 6,725 votes, when compared with the number of Labour voters who put the previous MP for Makerfield, Josh Simons, into Parliament in 2024.

Simons won that election with 18,202 votes for Labour. Presumably those 18,202 would have voted Labour in this by-election anyway, which means that 6,275 additional voters wanted to particularly endorse Andy Burnham on account of his ambitions. That is only 6,275 out of a total turnout of 40,235. (and a total electorate of 76,641).

This also means that 51,714 voters actively did not vote for him, which is a statistic which might go unnoticed!

DIANA HIGGINBOTHAM

Devonshire