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Politics….without looking guess the price ?

Gorton and Denton By-Election — 26 February 2026​

Background​

Triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne, who was sitting as an independent after being suspended from Labour in February 2025 following antisemitic comments made in a private WhatsApp group. Gwynne cited significant ill health as his reason for standing down. Wikipedia
Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester mayor, applied to be the Labour candidate but was blocked by the party's National Executive Committee Wikipedia — a significant subplot that has damaged Labour's standing going into the contest.

The Constituency​

It's a Frankenstein's monster seat — demographically split in two. The four Manchester wards (roughly 65% of votes) are on average 42% white and 40% Muslim, with 42% either students or graduates. The three Tameside/Denton wards are 83% white, 86% UK-born, with a high share of working-class occupations. Substack

In short: the Manchester half is fertile Green/left territory; the Denton half is Reform territory.

The Three Main Candidates​


Hannah Spencer — Green Party. A 34-year-old Mancunian plumber and plasterer, and a Trafford councillor. She's been regularly recognised and greeted by locals on the campaign trail. Middle East Eye Workers Party, who aren't standing, have effectively endorsed the Greens, saying "Labour and Reform must lose."

Matt Goodwin — Reform UK. Former GB News presenter and academic, promising he was "not part of the establishment." ITV News Granada Tommy Robinson endorsed him — which Goodwin and Reform rejected. Wikipedia He pulled out of a key local hustings event, which Labour and the Greens used against him.

Angeliki Stogia — Labour. Defending what was a safe seat on paper. Labour has been badly damaged nationally and locally by the Burnham NEC block.

Polling & Prediction Markets​

The first constituency-specific poll (Omnisis) showed Greens on 33%, Reform on 29%, Labour on 26%. Green Party

Electoral Calculus MRP modelling has Reform winning with 32%, Greens second on 23%, Labour third on 22.6% — though MRP polls for individual by-elections carry significant uncertainty. The Conversation

Prediction market Polymarket has the Green Party's Hannah Spencer as strong favourite at 67%, Reform's Matt Goodwin at 20%, and Labour at 14%. Polymarket

Key Factors​

Why Greens could win: The Muslim and student-heavy Manchester wards are exactly where Green support has been surging. With Workers Party not standing and effectively endorsing them, they have a consolidation opportunity on the left. Tactical voting organisations have urged anti-Reform voters to back the Greens. Spencer is a credible, local, working-class candidate — a strong contrast to Goodwin.

Why Reform could win: In Runcorn and Helsby, Reform's vote increased by 20 points from the general election to the by-election. If they repeat that here they win comfortably. The Conversation The Denton wards are classic Reform territory.

Why Labour struggles: Labour is polling below 20% nationally, led by the most unpopular Prime Minister in polling history, and has particularly struggled with the young progressives and Muslim voters who are concentrated in the Manchester wards of this seat. UK in a changing Europe The Burnham blocking debacle will cost them votes.

Verdict​

The most likely winner at this point is Hannah Spencer for the Greens, though it remains genuinely uncertain. The seat's demographics favour the Greens over Reform — far more non-white, Muslim, graduate and student voters than Runcorn — and the consolidation ofleft/progressive tactical votes behind Spencer appears real. Labour look set for a distant third, which would be a significant embarrassment for Keir Starmer in what was a rock-solid Labour heartland just two years ago.
 
The green candidate HANNAH SPENCER keeps trying to think and talk at the same time but failing miserably but the basic approach appears to be vote for me to stop reform.
Sadly we have the situation where the greens are pandering to the muslim vote as do labour but i would much prefer labour to these green crackpots and if the labour vote does collapse then we're one further step down the road to ruin as a country.
Hopefully the ordinary man/women in the street will understand all this and vote for Goodwin but it is looking difficult if the bookies are to be believed and so my best hope is that reform voters put themselves into the "don't know" bracket when asked and their numbers were around 30% on the last poll i saw.
 
hi Hedgehog the governments for the last 30 odd years have been crap that is why i shall be voting Reform now if that's the right choice time will tell i just think that they will have to be really bad to be worst than we have had
 
"the governments for the last 30 odd years have been crap that is why i shall be voting Reform now "

So will I, ALANST ALANST, but I take a more charitable view about previous governments. I think cases can be made that the Blair, Cameron and Johnson governments were largely successful in their own terms.

Blair and "New Labour" presented a new and more popular leftish approach to politics when an older, cruder version as per Michael Foot's had been soundly rejected by the electorate. Those of a generally centre/centre left disposition found a lot to support in the work of the Blair governments.

Cameron revived conservatism and temporarily got a grip on what some see as the most pervasive and ultimately destructive aspect of government since 1945 - spending money on individually defensible programmes without considering their aggregate effect, rising public debt, and its consequences. (He was also responsible for doing something few would have expected from a conservative but many welcomed - facing down pressure from the Church of England, sometimes referred to as the Tory party at prayer.)

Johnson dealt with the mess Mrs May was making of acting on the referendum result.

Plainly, for those not of a leftish disposition, and those who either regarded the development of the common market into the EU as the best thing that could have happened or an abomination, one or more of the three governments were "crap", but in their own terms they achieved what they intended and were, until the specific issues that brought the three PMs down, broadly popular.

Difficult, I think, to argue that Brown, Mrs May or Sunak achieved anything of significance in their shortish periods as PM, and arguably that is why they were short. (Of these, and indeed of any PM in British post-war history, I hold Sunak in most contempt, not for what he did, or didn't do as PM but for for proposing in his 2024 manifesto the re-inroduction of conscription.)

Ms Truss can, as obviously she is by hedgehog hedgehog, be viewed as a failure and being forced to resign so quickly makes it hard to argue against that judgement. I regard her demise as little short of tragic, though, because alone among the prime ministers since Mrs Thatcher, she saw the problem of rising public expenditure and its consequences. Her misjudgement was over pace; to my mind her objective was spot on. I will be voting Reform, in the hope that Farage might prove to be a more patient and thoughtful version of Ms Truss. I have my doubts and suspect he will turn out to be more Trump than Musk, but given the likely field, he is the only possible "winner" from my perspective.
 
Here we go i'm putting it all on the line! Very confident about this one.
Next Labour leader/Prime Minister - Lucy Powell 33/1 freely available.
 
I have a hell of a lot to say on this subject, but I’m showing admirable restraint as I don’t want prison sentence equivalent to a mass rapist for putting my views down on the internet. So instead I will take the full 0.000000000000001 seconds needed to contemplate all the good things our wonderful Government has done for us and give thanks.
 
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JennyK said:
Excellent article on public debt in the US; the same applies to the UK

www.foxnews.com

America has a very expensive promises problem — and the bill is coming due

The uncomfortable truth about America's deficit crisis: even dramatic tax hikes or spending cuts can't fix a $1.78 trillion shortfall through policy alone.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
Click to expand...
It’s a bit unexplainable - I was at a weekend function with som USA manufactures in November and they were all moaning about the damage being done to them by US tariffs
 
eeyore said:
if so wonder if she has same idea Enoch had many many years ago and got crucify for it but he was right
Click to expand...
She’s from Labour, she‘s a lefty loon and won’t know what having an idea is. They just do what blue haired weirdos tell them to do in think tanks and sleep on Palestine duvet sets.
 
Outlander said:
She’s from Labour, she‘s a lefty loon and won’t know what having an idea is. They just do what blue haired weirdos tell them to do in think tanks and sleep on Palestine duvet sets.
Click to expand...
Quotes from Lucy.......
"In Scotland, the indication is that for the Westminster elections at least, Labour voters are satisfied with their government." ~ Lucy Powell

"As the economy faces such difficulties, more tough questions need to be asked about what the Tories would do if elected. Their ideology of free markets and small government needs challenging. That has to be part of our job." ~ Lucy Powell

Quotes from Enoch......
"Lift the curtain and 'the State' reveals itself as a little group of fallible men in Whitehall, making guesses about the future, influenced by political prejudices and partisan prejudices, and working on projections drawn from the past by a staff of economists." ~ Enoch Powell

"I hope those who shouted "Fascist" and "Nazi" are aware that before they were born I was fighting against Fascism and Nazism." ~ Enoch Powell
 
There is no turning back for this country, it’s now just one big mental asylum, Greens available to lay at 9.4 on Betfair for most seats at the next general election. They are running on the Muslim Palestine ticket and there are realistically now enough of these lunatics in the country to make it happen. We are fucking doomed, it’s official , I’m calling it , time of death for the UK 16:13 26/02/2026 . It’s over not enough sane people to stop this now.
 
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