Keir Starmer’s about to lose his biggest battle yet – it’s sunk to new depths | Politics | News

Is there anything as unpleasant in politics than a parliamentary by-election? The stakes are always high, or at least that’s what the candidates believe, and the mudslinging starts early. But the Gorton and Denton by-election, touted as a make or break moment for the Prime Minister, seems to have sunk to entirely new depths of gutter-dwelling meanness.

Before it even began, this contest had Labour grandees at each other’s throats, chattering about the ruinously expensive cost to be incurred should Keir’s leadership rival Andy Burnham manage to his current major job and become the candidate. Thus, the election started with the pall of negative campaigning over it, before Macunions even knew what names would be on the ballot paper.

Now, I am not so naive as to assume that elections are all rosy – one only has to turn on the television on any given day to see MPs fighting each other like rats in a sack. But this one seems to have rapidly descended to new depths of backbiting, compared to others of their kind. So we are left to ask, have political campaigns just got nastier?

None of three main contenders in this contest can consider their hands entirely clean. At his opening speech to announce his anointment as Nigel Farage‘s chosen, Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was quick to lampoon the Green Party’s candidate as a danger, painting them as a boogieman to be feared and ridiculed in equal measure.

Before Mr Goodwin had even made his way to his car, Labour had published an advertisement online which appeared to show him having a go at the city he was hoping to represent. It soon emerged that the video was a selectively edited clip of him lampooning the Conservative Party Conference – a no doubt joyous affair – that had recently been held in the city.

What followed was a near daily briefing war, as political operators worked behind the scenes to dig up some good old-fashioned filth on their rivals. To be fair to the candidates themselves, they probably had no idea what the party spin doctors were up to.

Soon, we learned that Green Party canvassers had been ejected from an assisted living facility, that their boss supposedly wanted to shoot everyone up with heroin – although he insists his drugs policy is about saving lives – and that their candidate had the gall to go on holiday.

Then came accusations that Reform was making local woman terrified to leave their homes, and that Labour in turn had supposedly been « covering » for the sexual assault of children. It may all sound shocking, but this is some of the propaganda that the people of Gorton and Denton have been subjected to.

We have probably all said things we regret when under intense stress, but is there really any need for such tactics?

Ensure our latest politics headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings.

I am not sure it benefits voters to know what car your rival candidate drives – nor do I think it matters what other academics thought of Mr Goodwin’s papers ten years ago (although I wonder why they only decided to share their heartfelt convictions now).

I have worked in by-elections – on the other side of the fence. Yes, I once did a bit of campaigning myself, working for one of the parties (not Labour). We informed the media that Labour candidates did not live in the seats they contested, and once produced evidence that one of them was ‘putting on’ an accent. But we never did anything like this.

Elections are tense – they always have been. And for the teams working them, the stakes can feel far higher than they truly are. Pressure from campaign offices in London is often immense, as staff are made to feel that every action they take could be the make or break of a campaign. But such politics often forces candidates to engage in mean-spirited campaigning, and that can be to the detriment of the people they hope to serve.

So call me old fashioned – but perhaps the next by-election will focus a little more on local issues, and a little less on what the candidates had for breakfast, wrote on twitter ten years ago, or where they went on holiday in the noughties.