1. 54.82%

A proportion rather than a raw number, but the percentage of Makerfield voters who went for Andy Burnham was striking.

Before the result, while a Burnham win was expected, many in Labour were anxious that the Greater Manchester mayor should get more votes not just than Reform UK, but than Rupert Lowe’s far-right Restore Britain. As it turned out, he received more than the other 13 candidates combined.

With turnout variable, percentages can be a more useful relative measure than absolute votes, and Burnham’s number was greater than the 45.2% Josh Simons got for Labour in the 2024 general election, or that the party won in 2019.

2. 9,241

However useful a percentage might be, nothing beats a straightforward majority figure in an election – and Burnham’s was healthier than perhaps any of his supporters would have expected.

It was again more than Labour achieved by Simons in 2024 – also seen in advance as another metric of success – or 2019, if dwarfed by some of the majorities won by the party when Makerfield was still a Labour heartland, not least the 26,000-plus trousered by Tony Blair-era minister Ian McCartney in 1997.

3. 2.7 percentage points

To return to proportions again, this was the difference between the 31.8% Reform’s Robert Kenyon took in the 2024 general election and the 34.5% the same candidate got this time.

Yes, this was an improvement. But given that Reform have led for 300-plus national opinion polls, and that Makerfield’s disproportionately older, whiter and less well educated population crosses over heavily with their support base, it was still – as Nigel Farage acknowledged – a disappointment.

Have Reform peaked? Did Kenyon’s record of sexist or otherwise offensive social media posts put off female voters? Or was it just a one-off caused by Burnham’s star power? It’s not yet clear, but Farage’s party will be having an inquest.

4. 6.84%

This was the proportion of votes secured by Restore Britain, which put them in third place, and was hailed by Lowe as an astonishing result for an organisation that only became a party in March and that had zero history in or data for the constituency.

Nonetheless, it was a lower share of the vote than many expected, given Restore’s message about mass deportations mixed with occasional open racism – plus not-rejected support from a few actual neo-Nazis. Their poor showing was made all the more surprising by Restore’s apparent support on social media, something underlined by the backing of Elon Musk, the owner of X, who is a fan of Lowe.

Restore’s return was in fact slightly less than the 7.4% of the vote won by the far right British National party in the 2010 election, possibly indicating a ceiling of local support for such politics.

5. 163

That was the total number of votes won by the Liberal Democrat candidate, Sarah Wakefield, despite her appearance on a BBC One Question Time special – 0.36% of the total and precisely 68 votes above novelty stalwart Count Binface. The Greens got 308 votes; the Conservatives 997.

Yes, none of the parties expected to win, and none were trying especially hard. But the sheer levels of support for three of the supposed major parties meant that even if you combined all their votes, they would have got 3.23%, well below the 5% margin needed to get back your £500 deposit.

This shows just how keen UK voters are becoming on tactical voting as a way to game a first-past-the-post system in an era of multi-party politics. This contest was easy for tactical voters to judge – it was always going to be Labour v Reform – but the keenness of Green and Lib Dem voters, and even some Tories, to do whatever was needed to block Nigel Farage could be a significant factor in the next general election.