Thangam Debbonaire and Sarah Pochin turned a live Sky News interview at the Makerfield count into a sharp exchange over violence against women and girls. The clash came as the result of the by-election in Makerfield was being announced in the early hours.
Andy Burnham won the by-election and later shook hands with Reform opponent Robert Kenyon after the result was declared. That backdrop gave the interview its edge: the count was still live, the result was fresh, and Debbonaire was speaking as the row broke out on air.
Debbonaire, a Labour peer, used the interview to challenge Pochin over a video about domestic abuse during the World Cup. She told her, “You are not standing up for women,” before pressing her to explain what the footage was meant to show.
Pochin accused Debbonaire of misinterpreting the video, and the disagreement quickly widened. Debbonaire asked whether Pochin was saying “the only danger to women is people who come from other countries,” shifting the exchange from one clip to a broader argument about who women are at risk from and who gets heard in public debate.
Debbonaire then pushed the point harder, saying Pochin kept cutting in and smiling while they were talking about violence against women and girls. She added that she had 26 years of experience in that field, a detail that underlined why she treated the exchange as more than a passing political spat.
She went further still, saying, “Oh, I see and raise you six years, Sarah. There are women being raped by white men and you don’t want to talk about that….” The moment turned the interview from a dispute over a campaign video into a direct clash over how violence against women is described, and by whom.
What remains unresolved is the video itself: how it framed domestic abuse during the World Cup, and why Pochin believed Debbonaire had it wrong. For now, the sharper fact is that a live count in Wigan produced a confrontation that put Debbonaire’s long record on violence against women and girls at the center of the story.
