I had so many conversations with people fed up with all the chaos, deceit and U-turns. Politics must respond to this disenchantment
Y
ou can feel Labour’s electoral coalition fraying in the cold, rain-soaked streets of south-east Manchester. With nine days to go now until the historic byelection in Gorton and Denton, one thing unites these otherwise diverse communities: a visceral contempt for the prime minister.
Mention Keir Starmer’s name and people laugh: not with affection but disbelief, as though it’s faintly absurd to treat him as a serious topic of conversation. “He just doesn’t stick to his word,” says a middle-aged woman walking her dog, stressing that her real feelings would be impolite to print.
And it is hard to argue with her, not least as Starmer’s government reels again after yet another head-spinning, chaotic U-turn – this time forced upon him by Nigel Farage and Reform. A plan to delay local elections abandoned in humiliating fashion, not because the PM realised it was the wrong thing to do, but because Farage raised a legal challenge and Starmer knew he would lose it.
