{"id":792876,"date":"2026-02-27T16:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/792876\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:24:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:24:24","slug":"dan-hodges-everyone-completely-despises-keir-one-minister-told-me-its-true-in-my-30-years-in-politics-ive-never-seen-a-loathing-so-visceral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/792876\/","title":{"rendered":"DAN HODGES: ‘Everyone completely despises Keir,’ one minister told me. It’s true – in my 30 years in politics I’ve never seen a loathing so visceral…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four days ago, Keir Starmer arrived in Gorton and Denton and delivered the following impassioned statement: \u2018I want to bring communities together in unity and hope,’ he proclaimed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, this morning the Prime Minister has his wish. He has indeed brought Britain together. We are a united nation at last.<\/p>\n

Black, white. Rich, poor. Young, old. Man, woman. North, South.<\/p>\n

Everywhere you look, the view<\/a> is the same. People hate \u2013 with a loathing so visceral I have seen nothing like it in my 30-plus years working in and writing about British politics \u2013 Sir Keir. And they want him gone from office.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s by-election result did not simply represent a defeat for\u00a0Labour<\/a>. It was an evisceration. A rending of the bond between the party and people so brutal and uncompromising it defies rational analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This was not simply a safe seat, nor even a fortress. It was Labour\u2019s Fort Knox. The last time the party lost in Gorton was a century ago. Since its inception as a distinct constituency in the early eighties, Denton has only ever returned a Labour MP.<\/p>\n

And now it has been plundered. For weeks, Starmer\u2019s acolytes told us this was, \u2018a two-horse race\u2019, between Labour and Reform. But in a two-horse race the Prime Minister couldn\u2019t even manage to come second. They have collapsed to third, more than a thousand votes behind Reform, and a staggering 5,000 votes behind the Greens.<\/p>\n

This morning, stunned Labour MPs are trying to come to terms with their loss. But the first thing they have to realise is that the seat was not lost, but sacrificed. In a desperate and futile attempt to save Starmer\u2019s own political skin.<\/p>\n

\"Winning <\/p>\n

Winning candidate Hannah Spencer and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia, who came third \u2013 a staggering 5,000 votes behind the Greens<\/p>\n

\"Zack <\/p>\n

Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer celebrate. Yesterday\u2019s vote was not a endorsement of the New Green\u2019s hard-left menu. It was a cry for help from voters, writes Dan Hodges<\/p>\n

Never has a Prime Minister been so personally responsible for placing his own ambition before that of his party and his country. First, there was the decision to block Andy Burnham. We will never know if Manchester\u2019s mayor could have saved this seat. But Keir Starmer<\/a> didn\u2019t even bother to find out. Terrified the self-styled \u2018King of the North\u2019 would march south to steal his crown, he defenestrated him. With the result that if Burnham is the King of the North, then Starmer is now Richard the Third. His blocking of him is the political version of the vanishing of the two princes in the Tower. And like Richard, Starmer will now have to live with his infamy.<\/p>\n

Then there was the strategy Starmer employed to try to retain the seat. Ever since his party conference last year, Sir Keir has been telling his party and the nation at large that he was \u2018the man to stop Reform\u2019. He would, he vowed bombastically, stand tall against their \u2018division\u2019.<\/p>\n

And what did he do over the past month? Spent every waking hour talking Reform \u2013 and its ill-appointed candidate, Matt Goodwin \u2013 up. And claiming \u2013 no, not claiming, but flat-out lying \u2013 that the contest was a straight fight between Labour and Nigel Farage\u2019s insurgents.<\/p>\n

And what did his duplicity gain him? The spectacle of both Reform and the Greens storming past as he was consigned to the humiliation and oblivion of third place.<\/p>\n

But there is a final reason why this defeat rests squarely on Starmer\u2019s puny political shoulders. I spent yesterday standing outside Gorton and Denton\u2019s rainswept polling stations. And I heard the same message again and again.<\/p>\n

\"Starmer <\/p>\n

Starmer spent weeks talking Reform’s candidate Matt Goodwin, pictured arriving at the vote count, up \u2013 and insisting it was a straight fight between Labour and Farage’s party<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Gorton and Denton seat was not lost,\u00a0but sacrificed. In a desperate and futile attempt to save Starmer\u2019s own political skin, writes Dan Hodges<\/p>\n

From Chris the IT man. From Hussan the delivery driver. From Nadine the teacher. \u2018He promised change but he hasn\u2019t delivered it.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing\u2019s different. We were promised things would be different under him.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing changes.\u2019<\/p>\n

I wrote last weekend, following a week in this gritty Northern constituency, that Keir Starmer\u2019s worst nightmare was coming true. Both Labour\u2019s political flanks were collapsing simultaneously \u2013 with disillusioned voters on the Left defecting to the Greens, and disillusioned voters on the Right of the party defecting to Reform.<\/p>\n

In one sense that\u2019s what happened. But it goes much deeper than that. The antipathy towards Keir Starmer transcends the traditional political divide. No-one \u2013 from your woke, effete, bleeding heart metropolitan liberal, through to your testosterone fuelled, white-van driving, small-boat despising Red Wall dweller \u2013 likes, admires, understands, empathises with, supports or embraces the Prime Minister. As one despairing minister said to me yesterday, \u2018I don\u2019t know what it is. And it isn\u2019t really fair, because I personally like him. But everyone completely despises Keir.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the days ahead there will \u2013 rightly \u2013 be a focus on some of the disturbing sub-currents emerging from this election. One will obviously be the stunning breakthrough of the Greens, a party that has seemingly cast aside its fluffy environmentalism in favour of a darker, sharper-edged, political sectarianism.<\/p>\n

But let us be clear. Gorton and Denton is primarily a traditional, blue collar, Northern working class seat. And yesterday\u2019s vote was not a endorsement of the New Green\u2019s hard-left menu of drug liberalisation, trans rights and Islamic fundamentalism. It was a cry for help from voters who believe \u2013 rightly \u2013 Labour has turned its back on them.<\/p>\n

There will also be calls for an investigation into the so-called \u2018family voting\u2019 – where a voter is accompanied by another person into polling booths with the concern that they could be influencing their vote \u2013 which a group of electoral observers claim to have seen in a number of polling stations. And again, it\u2019s important this issue is taken seriously.<\/p>\n

But I can only report what I saw with my own eyes at polling stations across the constituency. I spoke to dozens of Muslim voters. And it was clear to me that they were not defecting from Labour because they were being coerced. They were doing do because they feel betrayed by Keir Starmer. And in that they are far from alone.<\/p>\n

There is a tendency within Westminster to overstate the significance of parliamentary by-elections. But there is no way of overstating the significance of what happened last night.<\/p>\n

The voters of Gorton and Denton did not just make a statement yesterday. Instead, they spoke for a nation. I\u2019ll let Mahmood, a supermarket worker I spoke to, have the last word. \u2018It\u2019s Starmer. He said he\u2019d be different, but he hasn\u2019t been. I\u2019ve always voted Labour. But he has to go now.\u2019<\/p>\n

Britain has spoken. Now the Prime Minister must listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four days ago, Keir Starmer arrived in Gorton and Denton and delivered the following impassioned statement: \u2018I want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[92,6405,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-792876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-debate","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116143526135099614","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}