© Always Worth Saying 2026, Going Postal
Our Markerfield correspondent has been in touch again, this time regarding the Manchester mayoral election which took place yesterday. However, the count doesn’t take place until today. Based on previous Greater Manchester mayoral elections and how long the verification and count usually take, the result is most likely to be announced during Friday afternoon. Many observers are expecting a result around 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, although recounts or delays could push it later.
Over-excited Puffins will be hoping for a declaration during faggotry Friday! More election faggotry later, but first our correspondent attached a booklet (above) that all households in Greater Manchester have received regarding the election. This addresses the procedure for voting and includes an election leaflet-style page from each of the candidates. The five main parties are represented, LibLabCon and ReformRestore, as is an independent called Marcus Farmer.
Before we go any further, the result is a foregone conclusion. After accurately predicting Andy Burnham’s win in the Makerfield by-election, our local correspondent – an experienced gentleman of the turf – notes the bookmakers offering odds as low as 200/1 on for a victory by Labour’s ‘Bev’ Craig. A foregone conclusion — not least because the voting system was changed at the last minute to introduce a second-choice ‘supplementary vote’. This will allow non-Labour voters to back Labour anyway to keep Reform out.
The supplementary vote system for mayoral elections was abolished by the Conservatives in 2022. Under this system, voters are able to show a first and second choice. If no candidate wins more than 50% of first choice votes, all candidates other than the top two are eliminated, with their votes then reallocated to their second choice. After this, the remaining candidate with the highest overall total of first and second choice votes wins.
In other words, in a multi-party election the polarising effect of a many fronted ‘stop Reform’ campaign, means a disproportionaly large number of non-Reform voters will be reallocated to Labour.
The timeline for this change in electoral law is revealing. On 14 May 2026, sitting Makerfield Labour MP Josh Simons announced he would be standing down from Parliament to allow Andy Burnham to enter the House of Commons via the resulting by-election. The expected victory would result in Burnham having to stand down as Greater Manchester Mayor.
The following week, and until 5th June, under their ‘Hope Not Hate’ brand name, Shabana Mahmood’s Home Office carried out polling in the Greater Manchester mayoral area. This showed Labour on 33.2% and Reform on 30%. In other words, too close to call.
Four days after the Home Office/Hope Not Hate polling concluded, the House of Commons voted to make an alteration to the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026, which introduced the Supplementary Voting system for the Manchester plebesite.
So what do we know about the next mayor, Labour candidate Bev Craig? Born in 1985, the 41-year-old Beverley Anne Craig says she is from “just outside Belfast” or “the edge of north Belfast.” She grew up in a council house and was the first in her family to go to university. Leaving the Belfast area at the first opportunity, she earned a first-class degree in Politics and Modern History from the University of Manchester.
Earlier, Beverley attended the selective grammar school Belfast High School. Despite the name, the school is not actually in Belfast. It moved from Glenravel Street in North Belfast to Jordanstown, County Antrim, in 1963 to gain more space — taking the name with it.
Further enquiries show that Ms Craig is from Greenisland, County Antrim — well outside the Belfast urban area and closer to Carrickfergus. How do we know? Your humble author spent part of his peripatetic childhood near Greenisland, on the Rathcoole estate. That area lies closer to Belfast than Greenisland, yet is described as Newtownabbey rather than Belfast.
Safely across the water, Ms Craig became a perpetual student. After Manchester, it was the University of Warwick’s Warwick Business School for postgraduate studies in local government management. Then back to the University of Manchester for a master’s degree in Political Science, Governance and Public Policy.
There follows a Cook’s tour of charidee, policy and third sector non-jobs which include chair of a creepy International LGBTQ Youth and Student Organisation, being a Unison union officer, a hate crime scrutiny panel member, and a policy and project officer for the national graduate development programme at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.
Beverley has also been an off-campus affairs manager and a public affairs manager. Therefore, a nonentity who’s never had a proper job. In between times she became a Manchester City councillor (in May 2011), rising to becoming council leader in December 2021.
In the declaration of interests that accompanies her council role, we learn that she has a same-sex partner who is a teacher, that she sits on too many local government boards and committees to list, and that her freebies include £315 of Manchester United tickets, £3,800 from Sony Music, and £400 to attend the MOBO Awards (paid for by Manchester City Council).
A long-term Burnham ally, diminutive, boyish Bev wears the same Zelensky-esque t-shirts and dark jackets that attire the new prime minister.
Elsewhere in the election booklet’s small print, ‘assistants’ are now allowed into the polling booth to help someone who describes themselves as disabled to vote. ie Muslim family and ‘guided’ voting can no longer be challenged.
In other words, the Manchester mayoral election is a giant fiddle designed to install a Burnham loyalist fraud into local high office. On the plus side, one suspects the Number 10 North hysteria of last week is little more than Labour Party publicity in advance of the election, and we may cease to be tormented by it after the voting is over.
© Always Worth Saying 2026
