Journalists are split, the old joke says, about whether or not North London is the centre of the universe. Half of them think it is, the other half know it is! The Labour party in recent decades has had no doubt at all – four of its last five leaders were proud North Londoners. Whatever their political differences may have been, Tony Blair, Jeremy Corbyn, Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer could agree on one thing – North London was the place to be.

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That tune changed early in the morning of 18 June when the scale of Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election became clear. In what was number six on Reform’s target list, Andy Burnham had doubled the Labour vote in the six weeks since the local elections and had beaten both Reform and their far right rivals Restore combined.

Suddenly, the tectonic plates within the Labour party were moving. A........

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