 While across much of England, Labour suffered massive losses. The party tightened its grip in Greater Manchester. The Labour Mayor at the metro area, Andy Burnham, increased his already massive majority from 63 to 67 per cent of first preference votes. And we can have a look at the results now. So Burnham there on 67.3 per cent, that's up 3.9 on the previous election. And the Conservatives who were the closest competition score less than 20 per cent. You're also seeing not a green surge like you are elsewhere in the country, especially in London. The greens are up too, but still only on 4.4 per cent. So complete hegemony for Labour and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester. Let's take a look at part of his acceptance speech. My main thanks though go to the wonderful, wonderful people of Greater Manchester. I value every single vote you have given me. I know that people who normally support other parties have voted for me. I will always remember that and respect it. I will continue to be a voice for all people and all communities. I will continue to adopt a place first, not party first approach. Where the government gets it right and treats us fairly, I will work with them, but where they don't, I will challenge them for you as forcefully as I can. Greater Manchester expects nothing less. This vote sends a clear message to all Westminster parties. People are buying in to English devolution. They are telling you to deliver more of it, not less. That's pretty feisty speech there from Andy Burnham. In stark contrast, I think from anything we've heard from Keir Starmer over the previous days, really speaking out in quite strong terms against elements of Westminster politics, strongly in favour of devolution. Obviously, the bigger picture than what you said in the speech is how Andy Burnham has behaved over his previous term, but especially over the previous 12 months. He's been very willing to stand up and face down Boris Johnson on questions of fairness during the pandemic. That's not just saying, I have values. It's actually embodying them, living them out. I said that was in contrast to Keir Starmer and combative towards Boris Johnson. Burnham was also pretty explicit actually in critiquing Starmer's Labour Party, or the Labour Party based in London. He said it was London centric when speaking to the BBC. Parties lost an emotional connection with people, and that's strongest in the areas that were previously most loyal to us. And there's no point in glossing it. That is the facts of the matter. And it has deep roots. It's happened not just under recent leaders. It goes back to the early 2000s. This has been something that's happening since then. And they have to make some pretty fundamental changes to try and win it back. And one of the ways back is more English devolution, build from the bottom up, connect with people in a different way. And I'm getting a bit fed up of saying this to them, but they really do now need to listen and make real changes and end the London centric Labour Party that I have been in all my life. That was quite a strong challenge there from Andy Burnham. He also didn't rule out a leadership challenge. He said he's not looking at it in the short term, in the longer term. He would be potentially interested in becoming Labour leader in the distant future if the National Labour Party or the UK-wide Labour Party asked him for his help. Yeah, that was super interesting. I thought firstly, he's totally right about English devolution. He's totally right. But that's got nothing. You said values. It's not about values. I think people just want political power closer to them. I don't think that's a value thing. I think in that kind of transcendent values, it's the quintessence of democratic politics. Unless you think that there's absolutely no democratic tradition on the centre right, which I think is clearly stupid. Unless you think anything beyond left-wing politics is fascism, I think that's kind of errant. I mean, something like Paul Mason would say, it's now about values, and it's now about progressive versus regressive people. And what's happening with Stammer is because he's not chosen to be with the most progressive people. It's all about values. And actually, Andy Burnham is saying, no, it's about political control being as close and as accountable to people as possible. And my three priorities, what are they? They're not values. They're very material. Jobs, housing, public transport. And that's precisely the kind of lucid, material offer that we're not getting from Keir Starmer's labour. So, yes, it's kind of about values. You want to call it that. But I think there's a bit more substantial going on in terms of the context of English devolution. We're not just going to look at Andy Burnham in Great Manchester because there were, I mean, a number of examples of labour doing very well. And a number of examples of the labour candidates who've done very well speaking out against the current direction of the Labour Party. So first in Preston, where we spoke a lot about the Preston model, community wealth building, labour retained all of their seats. And in Salford, Paul Dennett, who's the city mayor, a self-avowed socialist, won in the first round with 59%, which was up from 49% in 2016. So a very, very successful result there. Dennett released a statement after that victory was announced and it contained, I mean, a very explicit swipe at Keir Starmer. Let's take a look at what he said. So Dennett says, red wall voters have not moved away from the Labour Party. The Labour Party has moved away from them. I ask Keir and our leaders to look not only to Salford, but to Greater Manchester under the leadership of Andy Burnham, where our losses have been more limited, and also to examples from progressive councils across the country, where our fortunes have not been so bad, to Mark Drakeford's successes in the Welsh Sennif, to Matt Brown's continued successes in Preston. There is a path Labour can take which unites our traditional voters with young and new voters. It is a path which isn't ashamed of our party's radical roots, which taps into our history and tradition, which puts forward a progressive and dynamic vision for a new and inclusive economy in the future. It's a path which is socialist in its core. The centre ground no longer exists as it once did. The public now expect us to pick a side and articulate a bold, ambitious and progressive vision for the future, which tackles poverty inequality whilst placing the needs of working people and families at its core. I mean, the socialist campaign group have been fairly disappointing. I think we can sort of say in the first year of Keir Starmer's leadership, do you think in potentially the northwest of England, we're seeing a bit of a power base which can more effectively challenge Keir Starmer than has been done in Westminster so far? I think it's exactly what we're seeing. You look at Salford, you look at Manchester Metro Mayor, you look at Preston, and there's clearly something there. There's a concrete substantial policy offer that is in no way attached to... Andy Burnham is attacking London-centric politics. To be clear, he's not attacking people in London. You have huge child poverty in Newham and so forth. He's talking about this obsessive political merry-go-round we see between the media, between consultants, elected officials in Westminster, SW1 cliques. Obviously, the northwest is very far away from that. Who was the Labour politician? The MP at Westminster, who was most closely aligned with that, but also geographically most proximate to that, it was, of course, Rebecca Lombele who ran for the Labour leadership in 2020. I think that's right. I think we're going to see a disparate centre of power now away from Keir Starmer. By the way, Wigan Council is another one. I'm not familiar with how they kept all their seats. They've done very well Wigan Council. It has to be said, local elections are often very different reasons why people are being elected or re-elected to the national picture. Clearly, people are doing good locally-based activism in these places. Let's see, Keir Starmer might fall out with Lisa Nandi next. You do have these places very far away from London, which have a heritage, a socialist heritage, in which you're doing quite well. You've just lost in Hartlepool. It's probably not smart to suddenly break visibly with those parts of the party which are doing particularly well, which actually, when it comes to a cultural set of values and story, are far better aligned with the voters you've just lost than you yourself. If Starmer wants to go to war with this kind of Lancashire socialism, good luck to him because he's going to lose and only accelerate his demise even more rapidly. But you're right. I think you compare what they're doing now to the socialist campaign group, it's like chocolate cheese.