Matthew Goodwin’s by-election diary

Sunday, 1^st February

YEEEEESSSSS! I’ve got the Reform nomination for the Gorton and Denton by-election. Alan Rusbridger, David Aaronovitch, Craig Amos from year nine PE, your boys took one hell of a beating.

Monday, 2^nd February

Set aside the morning to tell all my friends the news but I was done by nine, so rang 5 Live to tell Nicky Campbell instead. He cut me off because “We’re talking about the Africa Cup of Nations final today, Matt.” Sidelining an indigenous Brit to talk about Senegalese and Moroccan men of fighting age? Chilling.

Tuesday, 3^rd February

Had that recurring dream about Katie Hopkins where she does the leg crossing thing, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, but instead of it being a police interview, we’re on the Question Time panel.

Wednesday, 4^th February

Drove “Oop North” and checked into my hotel. Denton is very pleasant. Nothing like I expected. The people are a bit slow though – they couldn’t understand why I was there. Not used to having a celebrity in their midst, I guess.

Thursday, 5^th February

After several abortive attempts to link up with the team, campaign manager Adam Mitula established that I’m in Denstone, Staffordshire, not Denton, Greater Manchester. Arrive in Manchester too late to find a hotel so end up topping and tailing with Adam in his Premier Inn.

Friday, 6^th February

Adam a bit short with me today. I put it down to the gruelling schedule; he put it down to me draining the minibar and leaving my ex-wife a long voicemail at 3am saying “Look at me now, Fiona, look at me now.”

Saturday, 7^th February

For some reason Denton hotels put up “full occupancy” signs as soon as they see me –something to do with asylum seekers I presume, so I’ve agreed to move in with one of our canvassers, Belinda. She’s sixty-two with bleach blonde hair, five cats and a strict Keep Calm and Carry On–motif-on-all-her-furnishings, policy.

Sunday, 8^th February

Spent the day driving around Gorton in an open top bus talking into a PA about how Zack Polanski wants to turn Mancunian children into cross-dressing crack addicts. This is why I got into politics.

Monday, 9^th February

I’m not getting much sleep at Belinda’s either. She runs a successful Boudicca-themed OnlyFans which goes on long into the night. These Reform ground troops aren’t the sort of people I’d voluntarily spend time with, but ultimately, if you want to be taken seriously by an elite you loathe, you’ve got to kiss a few frogs.

Tuesday, 10^th February

On the doorstep, Adam wants me to concentrate more on voters’ grievances and less on my own grievances with the disciplinary processes of St Albans Grammar School in the early 90s.

Suggested Reading

The future of Reform rests on Matt Goodwin’s by-election

Sunder Katwala

Wednesday, 11^th February

An old video I made has resurfaced. It’s about how people without children should pay extra tax. I got into a heated debate with a pensioner about it. In the debrief, Adam identified the moment I performed a citizens’ arrest on her for not yet wearing a poppy as the point things went south.

Thursday, 12^th February

Spent the day swotting for tomorrow’s hustings. My key lines are “For decades, Westminster has taken communities like Gorton and Denton for granted” and “Reform is the only party willing to say what millions are thinking”, but I kept saying “For decades Westminster has said what millions are thinking” and “Reform is the only party willing to take Gorton and Denton for granted.”

Friday 13^th February

I needn’t have worried. It turns out I’m so concerned about the impartiality of the hustings; I’m going to have to pull out.

Saturday, 14th February

Had an emergency Zoom with HQ about how the campaign’s going. Long story short, the artillery has been called. Lee Anderson arrives tomorrow.

Sunday, 15^th February

I really identify with Lee. While our trajectories have been different – he worked down a pit, I was a professor of politics at the University of Kent School of Politics and International Relations – we’re both working-class sons of toil.

Monday, 16^th February

Did a solid eight hours’ door knocking today. It was only after five of them that Adam noticed we were in Angela Rayner’s constituency. In his defence, he was too busy writing posts on social media about “60-70% of transgender” people being paedophiles to notice.

Tuesday, 17^th February

Day off, so rang a few of my old University of Manchester colleagues to see if they fancied a pint. Not one of the thirty-seven people I contacted from the Institute for Political and Economic Governance was free, and that included four receptionists, three cleaners and the man who filled the vending machines.

Wednesday, 18^th February

I’ve been emulating Lee’s canvassing style. Now, if the person answering the door is a northerner, I say something hilarious like “Eh up duck, how about some bread and dripping for us tea?” Mixed results.

Thursday, 19^th February

We ran into Hannah Spencer, the Green candidate, outside Gorton Market. It was like a spaghetti western. She asked if I was going to distance myself from Adam because he uses the N word and says things like “he’d never touch a Jewish woman”. In a masterstroke of rhetorical jiu-jitsu I asked her whether she was prepared to distance herself from the volunteer at Green Campaign HQ who mislabelled the recycling bins.

Friday, 20^thFebruary

Had another dream about Katie Hopkins. She was with Hannah Spencer and it was like the end of Thelma and Louise, but instead of driving a 1966 Ford Thunderbird off a cliff into the Grand Canyon, they drove an electric Nissan Leaf off Mam Tor into a drystone wall.

Saturday, 21^st February

The final weekend of campaigning. All the big guns are here now: Nigel, Richard, Lee, Sarah, Zia, Danny. Jonathan Gullis is here too.