Reform once looked like red-hot favourites to win the Gorton and Denton by-election, but a string of errors – beginning with the selection of divisive Matt Goodwin as the candidate – make a victory seem increasingly unlikely.
Nigel Farage’s party is facing a police investigation after sending out what appeared to be handwritten letters from a “concerned neighbour” that failed to state they had been written and distributed by Reform itself. The story was broken by the excellent local newsletter The Manchester Mill.
In the letter – which is printed in obviously faux-handwritten text – “concerned neighbour” Patricia Clegg describes herself as 74 years old, now retired, who once “worked hard” and “paid [her] taxes”. She used to be a Labour voter and now she’s voting Reform, she writes, urging her ‘neighbours’ to do the same. Every letter is addressed, both on the envelope and at the head of the letter, to the residents of the property, by name, suggesting whoever sent them has access to the electoral register.
“I previously voted Labour because Keir Starmer told us things would change for the better,” ‘Clegg’ writes. “The truth is that Britain no longer feels like the country I grew up in. Simple things like doctor’s appointments or the buses don’t work. The system feels broken, and no-one in charge seems able to fix it.”
Each letter from Patricia comes with a code above the recipient’s name and address – a bizarre move from a pensioner. They also come in envelopes printed by Hardings Print Solutions Limited, a commercial printer in West London.
The Manchester Mill did find a Patricia Clegg on Facebook: 74, as the letter claims, and a Reform voter judging by her comments (though there was no indication that she previously supported Labour), and with family in Tameside. The site contacted her but she has yet to respond.
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Meanwhile, Reform are not alone: the Greens have come under fire for not once but twice using the image and misrepresenting the words of a prominent Manchester academic on their leaflets to indicate they had his support.
Last week Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester and author of The British General Election of 2024, complained to the Greens after he was pictured on a leaflet in the constituency and quoted as saying “The route to victory for the Greens looks more straightforward” and “A Green victory over Reform, with Labour third, is perhaps the most dangerous result of all for the current [Labour] leadership”.
“I was not consulted on being quoted on your leaflets and I have not endorsed your campaign (or any campaign in this seat),” he wrote to the party and candidate Hannah Spencer in a Bluesky message. “I think this note, like the bar chart next to it, is misleading and out of context.” The bar chart showed Labour polling a terrible and mathematically nonsensical -27%.
On Monday, however, a second leaflet appeared – and there was Professor Ford’s face again!
“I have today been informed that, despite personal assurances to the contrary, the Green party have once again used my image and misrepresented my words on a second leaflet circulated in Gorton and Denton ahead of the by-election,” he fumed. “I have now lodged an official complaint with the returning officer.”
Not Zack Polanki’s sainted Greens, of all people!
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