Should Andy Burnham pursue the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall in modern times?

A one-vote win from 29 ballots is as close as a referendum gets, and the topline 52-48 split disguises just how evenly this chamber was torn on devolution. Strip out one age band and the rest of the electorate is essentially deadlocked — 25-34s tied 5-5, 55-64s tied 3-3, gender split near-identical for men and women alike.

The exception is instructive. The 16-24 bracket broke 4-1 for Yes, the single clearest signal in the data, suggesting the youngest voters here are readiest to back radical constitutional rearrangement, even as their elders in the 35-44 bracket leaned the other way (2 yes, 3 no). It is a small sample, but the shape of it — youthful enthusiasm for shaking up the centre, older ambivalence — tracks a familiar generational fault line in British politics on questions of change versus stability.

Beyond that, gender told us almost nothing: men split 9-8, women 5-5, both essentially coin-flips. That the overall result hinges on such thin margins across nearly every cohort makes this less a verdict on Burnham's devolution push than a portrait of a country, or at least this self-selected slice of it, still arguing with itself over how much power Whitehall should give up.

In the end, Yes carried the day, but only just — a result that mirrors the messy, contested politics of devolution itself.