Labour made mistakes in its Caerphilly byelection defeat. It may be about to repeat them in Gorton and Denton | Will Hayward

2026-02-06 - 08:15

In Wales, Plaid Cymru sailed through as the anti-Reform party, at Labour’s expense. Unless lessons are learned, the Greens could do the same In three weeks, the people of Gorton and Denton will head to the polls for their byelection. And the rest of the UK will be watching. The attention given to this vote will be huge. The main talking points are the verdict it gives on Keir Starmer’s premiership, the decision to stop Andy Burnham standing, Reform UK potentially taking the seat and the Greens being the current favourites. It is both an important election in its own right, and a microcosm of the biggest political questions facing the country. Given the state of flux that politics seems to be in, you might think it would be hard to predict what is going to happen. Luckily, there is a very good indicator of what we can expect: at the end of October, there was a byelection in the Welsh parliament seat of Caerphilly – the similarities between that vote and Gorton and Denton are stark. Continue reading...