Andy Burnham fired the starting gun on his campaign to become prime minister as he finally confirmed he will challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership if he wins the Makerfield by-election.
During a BBC Question Time special in the seat, he told the audience the former health secretary Wes Streeting “seems to have launched a leadership contest, so if that is running, I would seek to join it”.
No 10 immediately hit back and said the process for challenging the Labour leader “has not been triggered” and Sir Keir “will not walk away”.
Mr Burnham’s hopes of taking the seat, a prerequisite to becoming PM, were given a boost when only the second poll of the campaign put him on 49 per cent, up six points, ahead of his Reform opponent Robert Kenyon on 39 per cent, down one.
Although popular in the area, which is part of Greater Manchester, where he is currently mayor, he still faces a battle to win the seat.
Makerfield voted for Brexit in 2016 and Reform performed extremely well in the constituency in last month’s local elections.
As he sought to win over undecided voters in the wake of Nigel Farage’s call for “fury” over the death of Henry Nowak, Mr Burnham side-stepped questions over claims of two-tier policing.
He instead pointed to his relationship with the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Stephen Watson, who he said wanted to “make sure the police were seen as neutral, serving all communities, and therefore I backed him”.
He also suggested the law should be reviewed after the teenager was stabbed to death by a man who claimed that, as a Sikh, he was carrying the knife for religious reasons.
Asked if he would support a ban on people carrying knives for religous reasons, Mr Burnham said: “I think there's a case to look at that again.. Although it needs a very careful debate.”
And after the National Police Chiefs’ Council announced it will review guidance which advises police to treat ethnic minorities differently to get them better outcomes, he warned that anti-racism guidance has not “got it right”.
“I think it’s right that the government are reviewing this…, because I don’t think this guidance that was issued related to the police race action plan has got it right,” Mr Burnham said.
Appearing on the same programme, Mr Kenyon said he “won’t accept” being labelled as sexist.
He has faced criticism over past social media comments, including his stance towards Brexit and abortion.
But he faced a difficult time from some members of the audience, including one who told him: "I'd rather have a career politician than a plumber who is a sexist,” a reference to Mr Kenyon’s profession.
Mr Kenyon insisted he would not “accept that label, I mean a lot of the things have been said 15 years ago. I hold my hands up, I’ve made mistakes…
“I was brought up by women. I’ve got nothing but respect for women.”
But he refused, when challenged, to apologise to Carol Vorderman.
In posts made on a now-deleted X account between 2020 and 2022 and shared by campaigners Hope Not Hate, the @robkenyon1 account made offensive comments about women, peddled misinformation about the pandemic and engaged with a Holocaust denier.
In one post, the account shared a sexually explicit post sent to Ms Vorderman on her birthday, in which another user declared he wanted to perform a sexual act on the presenter.
The Reform candidate said that he “never actually said anything to Carol. I commented on a comment” although he added it was a “disgusting comment, that somebody else had written” and that he had made a “crass joke” which was “not something I would say now”.
The Survation poll, which had a sample size of 518, put Rebecca Shepherd of Restore Britain on 8 per cent and Sarah Wakefield of the Green Party on 2 per cent, with the Lib Dems and Conservatives on 1 per cent.
