I'm Ed Vasey and we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day from what

Burnhamism really means to whether Britain is doing its mortgage is wrong and should a wedding

invitation automatically come with a plus one with me in studio, we have the Times property editor Carol Lewis.

Welcome to the show, Carol.

Hello, Ed.

And you've brought your plus one.

It's the Times' former diary editor, Patrick Kid.

Welcome to the show, Patrick.

Is that the best you could get home?

I'm honoured to be here. Honourge is your plus one, Patrick. Is that the best you could get? I'm honoured to be here. Honoured as your plus one.

Patrick, you love the sun.

The minute the sun comes up, there's nothing you like better than going out and basking in the hot weather.

No, I hate it. Just over a week ago, Friday a a week ago i was playing cricket back at my old

school it was 10 degrees cable knit jumpers and it was glorious gray overcast threatening to rain

that's my sort of summer it's ridiculous sort of where this is this is mediterranean uh carroll fun in the

sun i love it yeah absolutely i've opted to work today in an air-conditioned office. I went to the cinema yesterday. Was that cool? 11 o'clock in the morning. And everyone said, you're mad. And I thought, why? I'm going to be sitting in an air-conditioned cinema. I was literally the only person there. but I'm going to sit, because I don't like, I mean, I like the sun, but this kind of heat, I don't want to go. I'm watching my son make his cricket debut this afternoon, and I'm just hoping there's going to be a bar if you get balls at under nine matches and a tree with lots of shade. Excellent. Well, let's get back to politics and real life. Let's start with the Make-Afield

by-election. We've had the first by-election poll which shows the two parties. Guess what I mean

by that? I mean, of course, Labour and Reform are running neck and neck. It's from

Servation. Andy Burnham has a narrow lead, but it's 43 against 40 for Reform UK. I mean, Patrick, this is not a surprise. It's, it, we kind of knew, it's quite, it's interesting to think about it because we knew it was going to be a two horse race, Labour versus reform. But it does also weirdly shape the national conversation because the Tories don't get a look in and other parties don't really get a look in.

Well, the other parties may have a say, of course, depending how many votes they peel away from Burnham and to reform.

The majority for Labour was just over 5,000 at the general election.

So this actually is a really interesting one for Burnham to want to fight because it is going to be, always was going to be under heavy challenge. Reform might win it if it wasn't for someone with name recognition like him. And so if he wins it, he proves that he can keep them at bay. If he loses, that's the end of his political career, and he'll carry on being mayor of Greater Manchester. And so what we need to see is what the smaller parties that include the Tories in this case do, because Rupert Lowe's Restore Party are polling at about 7%.

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