Gorton & Denton by-election thread

[fromorbit]

This dramatic byelection to be held on Thursday 26 February 2026 is looking likely to have a confrontation over sex and gender with the Conservative's just announced candidate Charlotte Cadden being a trustee for Sex Matters. Another factor is with a large Muslim population in the area the group Muslim Vote has endorsed the Green candidate despite one of their aims to be remove teaching about LGBT issues from schools when religious parents object. Obviously in conflict with Green policy.

Candidates

• Angeliki Stogia will be the Labour candidate in this year's election. Ms Stogia moved to the UK from Greece in the 1990s and has served as a councillor in Whalley Range since 2004.
• Reform UK have selected GB News presenter Matt Goodwin as their candidate. He studied at the University of Salford and went on to have a career as a commentator and academic.
• The Liberal Democrats have selected local campaigner Jackie Pearcey as their candidate. She lives in the constituency and previously won 2,600 votes at the 2017 elections.
• The Green Party have put forward Hannah Spencer to stand for them at the by-election. She is a plumber by trade she is from Bolton and has lived in Greater Manchester all her life, and is based in Hale where she is a councilor. She doesn't believe biology is important in deciding gender.
• The Conservative Party have chosen former detective chief inspector Charlotte Cadden as their candidate. She served for 30 years in GMP and London's Met.
• The Re-join EU Party have announced that Joseph O'Meachair will be their candidate. He is a member of the party's executive committee and lives in the North West.

Sebastian Moore (Social Democratic Party)
The Social Democratic Party announced on Friday 30 January that the current SDP North West Chair Sebastian Moore will be running as their candidate in the by-election.

Nicholas Brendan Buckley Advance UK

He is a British charity worker and political figure who previously represented Reform UK.

Dan Clarke is the Libertarian Party candidate

Sir Oink A-Lot
Sir Oink A-Lot is The Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate

https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/parl.gorton-and-denton.by.2026-02-26/gorton-and-denton/

The just announced Conservative candidate has serious form:
Former detective chief inspector Charlotte Cadden is a lesbian served for 30 years as a Police Officer, both for Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police - Charlotte is a trustee of the charity Sex Matters, a member of the LGB Alliance Business Forum. She coordinates the Women’s Rights Network in Greater Manchester, In 2023, she set up the national Police SEEN.

Galloway's Worker's Party have now decided not to stand. They may have attracted a bunch of Muslim votes which will now go elsewhere.

Any hustings are going to be rather interesting.

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2024166650262544698/

Thats the clip

No, she really did try to blame Goodwin, or at least people like Goodwin, for an Islamist fanatic blowing up little girls at a concert. Because "divisiveness".

She was very visibly shaking when she said it. Possibly she was scared to name the actual cause.

Thank you for the article, but I would advise taking a moment to step back, breathe, and consider what might be happening here.

The Times long ago ceased to be the bastion of journalism. It is wholly owned by a subsidiary of News Corp, the centre-right corporation that grew out of the Murdoch empire; itself an organisation which has repeatedly and consistently used its media to attack individuals, groups, and popular movements who do not adhere to their own very restrictive ideology.
I can lay out the toxic, destructive behaviour of this corporation - and the Murdoch empire - at length, but it's a matter of public record if you'd like to check these things for yourself and I don't want to derail this or any other thread.

That the establishment, and elites who bankroll them, fear any popular movements that don't align with their rhetoric is obvious, but the salient point here is that we should all be very careful to stop and consider the motives behind articles masquerading as independent journalism. That is especially true when those articles play to the very same deeply ingrained prejudices they have been stoking in the population for decades.

Does not recognise that description of her expression either tbf. Yes they were her words. But why should anyone use the word Islamist inparticular? Islamic was used previously and Muslim describes someone who follows Islam - we aren't obliged to take on Reforms verbal quirks? So one could say Islamic terrorism?
Both women candidates were more than able to describe the impact of these attacks. Much more eloquently than Matt Goodwin. This is a very obnoxious article.

'I would advise taking a moment to step back, breathe, and consider what might be happening here.'

'Calm down, dear'

She could have said terrorism.

Nitter for comments

nitter.net/GoodwinMJ/status/2024166650262544698

Well, she didnt say Muslim either, did she? She blamed Matt Goodwin.

Lord knows Goodwin has said plenty of controversial things, but it's a real stretch to say that Goodwin's shock jock performances on GB News are somehow an animating force behind Islamist terror attacks.

I actually think Hannah is one of those lefties who got everything they wanted, and discovered that our society is not one of shiny happy people holding hands, but stuff like unprecedentedly high levels of immigration do have overheads in terms of social cohesion. And sometimes people from minority groups do commit crimes. And they can't cope with that, so the narrative is that everything would be fine if it wasn't for these bad people who come to Manchester spreading division for the purposes of financial gain.

https://nitter.net/williamnhutton/status/2027501583626383524#m

Amid all the admiration and decrying of the achievements of Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer, it’s worth noting how little they talk about the environment, climate change, net Zero - especially after a winter of endless rain. Eco-populism without the eco.

We should get all our news and views from the Grauniad. Amirite?

You'd expose yourself as even more of a fool if you did.

Anyone who thinks the Times is some kind of fire breathing right wing outlet has obviously never read the Times. And possibly thinks Rory Stewart is a right winger.

C'mon then, rapier wit, where should we go to get our news? Which organs meet your approval?

I'm pretty sure Janice Turner is a long time Labour supporter, and if it matters, Rupert Murdoch is an open borders fanatic who's long supported mass amnesty of illegal immigrants in the US, which is one of the reasons he really hates Trump.

It's true that Rupert's open borders line is not one you'll often see on Fox News or in the Sun, but that's because those outlets have to compromise with the views of their audiences. This may be a difficult concept for British lefties who believe that the UK electorate would be very very left wing if it weren't for the evil Murdoch hypnotising the working class with bingo and tits.

Patronising much? This board is full of intelligent, professional, highly-educated women (and some men) who are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about what they read. We don't need Mummy telling what we should be making of it.

Bingo and tit hypnosis? Is this another Polanski reference?

Not deliberately, but there must be an alternate timeline where Zack gets hired at the Sun, maybe as a replacement for the dearly missed Mystic Meg.

Polanski might have made a good daytime TV host had things panned out.

I think he would make a great Dr Who.

But everybody knows it was terrorism. They don't need to be informed of that.

This is a man who had the highest profile of all the candidates and used it to tell women how to have babies, ending up in high court the day before the poll because of how he involved an elderly woman in his publicity.
His campaign manager was suspended during the campaign, for anti semetism,
He couldn't have cocked up any other things in the time available. He's in no position to cast aspertions.

He could even have used daytime TV as a springboard into politics. Jeremy Kyle is MCing Reform rallies. Hugo Rifkind and his chums on Times Radio like to laugh at the daytime TV style of Reform events, which just shows that they never watch daytime TV and have no idea that PMQs is roundly beaten in the ratings every week by Bargain Hunt.

It was a political debate, he wasn't asking because he didn't know.

Sadly, his screen career seemed to peak with 'The Gallon Challenge'.

(Trailer contains people vomiting milk.)

m.imdb.com/title/tt1656787/

Swerve, deflect, whataboutery.

Ok then he has an agenda and she's not obliged to dance to his tune?
The discussion of the bombing from both Labour and Green was respectful and measured as you'd expect.
It was Goodwin who raised it as you state, with a hidden agenda, trying to trip up people and basically get reacts.