Can Burnham bail out humbled Starmer in by-election? Labour talks up Gorton hopes as Manchester mayor options on marketing campaign leaflets and ‘sends handwritten letters to voters’

On Feb 12, 2026

Published: 10:50, 11 February 2026 | Updated: 12:13, 11 February 2026

Labour figures are talking up their chances in the crucial Gorton and Denton by-election – and seem to be pinning their hopes on the popularity of Andy Burnham.

The parliamentary contest, on 26 February, will be a huge test for Sir Keir Starmer in his continuing battle to remain as Prime Minister.

It has been speculated that a humiliating Labour loss in the seat, which they won with a 13,000-vote majority at the general election, will trigger a fresh bid to oust Sir Keir.

The PM this week faced a call to resign from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar as his Government reels from the Peter Mandelson scandal.

But Sir Keir was granted a stay of execution when senior ministers failed to follow Mr Sarwar over the top and publicly pledged their support to the PM.

The Gorton and Denton by-election was triggered by former Labour minister Andrew Gwynne quitting the House of Commons on medical grounds.

Mr Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor who is seen as potential successor to Sir Keir, wanted to be Labour’s by-election candidate but was blocked by the PM’s allies.

Yet Mr Burnham’s local popularity in Gorton and Denton appears to be key to Labour’s chances of holding on to the seat, with PoliticsHome reporting he – unlike the PM – features prominently on the party’s campaign literature.

Labour figures are talking up their chances in the crucial Gorton and Denton by-election – and seem to be pinning their hopes on the popularity of Andy Burnham

The parliamentary contest, on 26 February, will be a huge test for Sir Keir Starmer in his continuing battle to remain as Prime Minister

The website also revealed how, when canvassers come across a local resident who is a fan of Mr Burnham fan, they can tick a box to indicate that the party should send a letter from the Greater Manchester mayor to that constituent.

Greens’ by-election contender hit out at ‘money laundering’ takeaways on local high street and said she was ‘glad’ to move away

The Green Party candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election once claimed she was ‘glad’ to have moved out of the area, it has been revealed.

Hannah Spencer, a plumber, posted on Mumsnet in 2021 that she was ‘so glad I moved’ from Levenshulme – one of the main towns in the Greater Manchester constituency.

In the post, she complained the area had been ‘hugely blighted by a mile long row of (supposedly) money laundering takeaways which mean independent businesses can’t get a look in’.

‘It has been ‘up and coming’ for at least five years but barely anything has changed. In fact a lot of the good stuff has sadly actually gone,’ she added.

‘It is centred around one of the busiest roads in Manchester which makes walking around not great. I thought I would regret leaving it but I’m so glad I moved, you can get so much more for your money elsewhere.’

Ms Spencer said she had ‘bought and sold’ in Levenshulme but does not live there anymore in the discussion about local property prices.

A Green Party spokesman told the Telegraph: ‘Hannah makes clear in this post her affection for the area and its community, but expresses disappointment that there are too many chain takeaways, which crowds out independent businesses.

‘Hannah would like to thank her opponents for pointing this out, and will use her position as the local MP to campaign every day to get more investment into the community to make it an even better place.’

A Reform UK spokesman said: ‘Hannah is quite clearly a hypocritical socialist. Not only did she move out of the area as she expanded her property portfolio, but she then talked down the very place she is trying to represent.

‘She’s not fit to be Gorton and Denton’s MP.’

One Labour MP talked up Labour’s chances of winning the by-election, despite the challenge of the Greens and Reform UK in the Greater Manchester seat.

They said: ‘Our vote in the Muslim community is holding up really well.

‘The by-election is anything but written off, and some of it will depend on getting out the vote – where one would assume Labour has an edge.’

The MP added that ‘nobody talked about the selection’ row that saw Mr Burnham rejected as Labour’s candidate, but ‘people did praise Burnham’.

Despite having a route back to Westminster blocked by Sir Keir’s allies, Mr Burnham this week declared his support for Sir keir.

The Greater Manchester mayor, long seen as a potential leadership rival to the PM, also called for ‘stability’ in the Labour Party as he spoke at a think-tank event in central London on Tuesday.

Asked at the Resolution Foundation event on working-age families whether the Sir Keir has his full support, Mr Burnham said: ‘Yes, he has my support.

‘The Government has my support and they had my support when I put myself forward for the by-election.’

He said he spoke to the PM about the Labour Party needing a ‘strong sense of a stronger team again’.

He was asked at the event whether he thought it was wrong for Mr Sarwar to call for Sir Keir to resign, and whether he could rule himself out of any future leadership challenge.

He said: ‘What I am calling for very clearly today is for the unity to create the stability, to give the Government the platform, to focus on all of the things that I’m talking about today.

‘I think we’ve got to get away from the kind of sense that everything is a challenge.

‘I put myself forward but I was saying to, I spoke to the PM, spoke to the Government, we need to get that strong sense of a stronger team again than there has been in recent times and that, I think, is what needs to come from this.’

He added: ‘We need to sort of dial down all of this constant briefing.

‘It’s seemingly a bit endless some of the anonymous briefings going around. I think we just need to focus on what’s in front of us.

‘There’s a by-election in front of us, I’ve been playing my role in that by-election… that’s the issue in politics right in front of us – the politics of collectivism versus the politics of division

‘My view is you’ve got to focus on stopping that now…. and everything else is noise in the background.’