‘Labour had their chance – they flopped.’ Two days in Makerfield show me the scale of Burnham’s task | John Harris

Touring this bitterly divided constituency, what strikes you most is people want something better. But what exactly?

K eir Starmer teeters. The defence secretary exits, and thereby seems to confirm the prime minister’s demise. Andy Burnham scents a final, belated breakthrough, while most of the national talk is of violence, a country in crisis and malaise. And in Platt Bridge, a neighbourhood at the heart of the constituency where the fates of the Labour party, the current government and the country are all about to be decided, life still seems to be locked into an endlessly familiar pattern.

Amid all the redbrick terrace houses, too many shops are shuttered and empty. The latest casualty was a proudly independent baker who had traded for 40 years, apparently to be replaced by another tanning lounge. The main roads are clogged with traffic, while other streets tend to be eerily quiet. People speak of closed-down pubs, impossible private rents, and that ubiquitous British complaint: “There’s nothing for the kids to do.”

There is community spirit aplenty here, and optimism about a £20m “ pride in place ” grant recently confirmed by the government. But amid chatter about who people might vote for in this week’s Makerfield byelection, what you feel most strongly is something that seems to run through this corner of Greater Manchester: the sense of somewhere stoically waiting for something better.

Outside the local bike repair business – whose owner, Paul Bullen , says he makes almost no money, and sees what he does as a community service – I meet Billy, a twentysomething on his way to work as a “mechanical and assembly operative” at a local engineering firm. He says he has never voted before, but is determined to this time. “Come on, Reform,” he says, and then pauses. “I don’t think they’ll be able to fix everything, but they’re a step in the right direction. Definitely.”

“He’s done good. I’ll give him that,” he says. “He has done good. But I think Labour’s had their chance. They had 14 years to come up with a plan, and they’ve just … flopped .”

“A free country. Without two-tier policing. Where the British people are put first. Working-class people, who keep the country running.”

Do the Britons he means include people who are not white? An inevitable tension suddenly intrudes; he steps slightly to one side. “It’s not to do with what colour your skin is,” he says. “Absolutely nothing to do with that. But I stand with Farage: like, if you’re here illegally, you should be deported.”