It’s safe to say, the next few months in British politics are likely to be incredibly eventful.
At the moment, all eyes are on Makerfield as Labour and Reform go head-to-head in the north-west constituency.
Of course, the major subplot to this by-election is whether Andy Burnham will win the seat for Labour and secure a return to parliament.
This would almost certainly see him then challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.
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It was, after all, the Labour chaos following the May elections that kicked off this chain reaction. As dozens of Labour MPs called on Starmer to resign or set out a timetable for a handing over of power, the starting gun on a leadership contest was effectively fired when Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary.
Shortly afterwards, Josh Simons announced he was stepping down as Makerfield MP with the specific intention of Burnham then being able to stand in the Greater Manchester seat and ultimately throw his hat into the ring of a leadership contest.
And in the background throughout all this are other potential contenders such as Angela Rayner.
Whilst the polls would have you believe Starmer is the most unpopular PM in modern British history and that Burnham is almost a shoo-in to replace him, we decided to carry out some of our own rudimentary polling to find out what the TLE audience thinks.
In a post on Facebook, we asked followers to react accordingly based on who they would like to see as prime minister by the end of 2026: a ‘like’ react for Starmer, a ‘heart’ react for Burnham, a ‘wow’ react for Rayner, a ‘haha’ react for Streeting and an ‘angry’ react for none of the above.
And, after a week, the results are not even close.
After almost 18,000 reactions, it was Sir Keir who romped home with 11.8k ‘votes’ at the time of writing.
In a very distant second was 3.3k ‘angry’ emoticons – so none of the options given, which may very be down to non-Labour supporters having their say.
After Starmer, the next most popular Labour figure was Burnham, with 2.2k ‘heart’ reacts.
He was followed by Rayner (320) and Streeting in last (82).
So there you have it, the TLE audience have spoken, and provided Starmer with what are almost certainly the most positive polling results he has had since becoming PM.