by Kevin Meagher
Is Labour going to win on Thursday? I spent a big chunk of Sunday canvassing in the Denton and Gorton by-election. Hand on heart, it feels eminently winnable. Canvassers report the surge for Reform they noticed in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election last year – where Farage’s gang won by just six votes – is absent this time. The talk is of a genuine three-way split, with the Greens also in contention.
But Labour is still in the game. This is the party’s sixth-safest seat, encompassing south Manchester and the westernmost wards of Tameside, bifurcated by the Denton island roundabout on the M60. In appearance, both areas are similar: long roads of red-brick semis, interspersed with new builds. Family homes. Owner occupiers, in the main. Nice cars. Respectable people. Pride in place. Labour’s upper-working-class base.
On the ground, Reform and the Greens are throwing everything at it and no doubt meeting with a fair degree of success, but there is no sense of either pulling miles ahead. Only the main parties have put the years into developing their ground game. In such a short campaign, enthusiasm and money aren’t as important as know-how. Reform and the Greens are newer at it – and it shows.
Yes, there are garden stakes – split fairly evenly between the parties – with Labour just edging it on my count. Window posters too. But Reform’s were simply unfolded election leaflets with a small picture of their candidate, Matt Goodwin, while the Greens posters were generic ‘Vote Green.’ It felt like no-one had enjoyed a head start.
