0:00
Welcome back to Patrick Christie's Tonight Late Edition
0:03
A special show this evening. We will get to your front pages in a bit, but they are not as good as this
0:07
because you're seeing live footage there from the Count at the Goulton and Denton by-election in Manchester
0:14
The votes have started coming through and it's one of the most hotly contested by-elections
0:18
that I can remember in recent history. It's also been one of the most toxic, it must be said
0:22
But here to get us the latest when it comes to the actual polling and the detail on this is Martin Baxter
0:27
the founder and CEO of Electoral Calculus. We've called in the big guns for tonight
0:33
Thank you very much for joining us. Tell us whatever you want
0:37
What's going on in the polls? Good evening, Patrick. Well, Gorton and Denton is a very interesting
0:41
and slightly unusual seat up in Manchester there. So it is... Let's start with the big picture
0:47
Yeah. It is, on our numbers, the 38th safest Labour seat in the whole country
0:53
Wow. Labour won over 400 seats in 2024. This was the 38th safest seat by majority
1:01
And it's looking like that is under threat. And Labour may well lose that seat tonight
1:05
We'll have to see. So that's one big change. The other big change, and maybe we should have a minute of silence for this
1:13
for the death of the old model of British politics. Because for over the last 150 years the dominant parties in this country have been Labour the Conservatives and the Liberal Party And it looking like tonight those parties combined will get less than 50 of the vote
1:31
Yes. So that the new insurgent parties of reform on the right and the Greens on the left
1:36
will probably get more than 50% of the vote in Gorton and Denton tonight
1:40
We'll have to wait and see. But this is a big sea change in British politics
1:45
And what is the latest, what's the expected result? I mean, we're slightly monitoring the betting odds
1:51
I appreciate you don't stoop to that level. Oh, absolutely. Oh, you do
1:56
Yes. You monitor the betting odds? It's worth looking at, yeah. I just got them up on the screen
2:00
Go on, then. So the Greens are still the favourites with more than 50% chance
2:06
Reform in second and Labour on third. I'm looking at Betfair Exchange here
2:10
Lovely, right. But that's not all we look at. So there's another couple of things we can look at
2:15
Westminster Votie Intention, which the Electoral Calculus website looks at, it has reform ahead
2:20
But equally, Westminster Votie Intention is not a good guide to by-elections
2:24
By-elections are a slightly unusual beast. Strange things can happen. There's a lot of dynamics at play
2:30
that you wouldn't normally get in a general election. So that's not necessarily the way to bet
2:36
The other thing, of course, that has happened is various other pollsters have done constituency polls
2:41
of Gorton and Denton. And that at the moment I think there three polls I saw if you take the average of those because I always believe in taking an average of the polls shows very much a close three race
2:54
So the big three parties, i.e. Labour reform and the Greens, all on about 25% to 30%. Wow
3:03
So at the moment, I'd say, honestly, nobody knows. You pay your money and you take your choice at the moment. Yeah
3:11
Anything could happen. But in terms of the dynamics, the centre-right vote in the seat
3:17
is probably smaller than the centre-left vote. Yes. So the Greens and Labour together will have more votes than reform
3:24
But the key question is how that's distributed. If the Labour vote collapses
3:29
and many Labour voters' supporters go green, then the Greens will win
3:34
What's the kind of geography of this seat in terms of where the votes for the right are expected to come from
3:39
where from the left, all of that stuff? Well, Catherine's talking... Catherine Frost was talking a little bit about that earlier
3:46
It is very much a seat of two halves. It's called Gorton and Denton, and the two halves, Gorton and Denton, are very different
3:52
Gorton's on the west is actually inside Manchester City boundaries. Denton on the east is in Tameside district
4:01
It's outside. They are... Although the seat as a whole is, you know
4:06
it a nice bit of countryside but it not a particularly well area It is traditional sort of labour working class you know people that are not born with the silver spoons in their mouths
4:19
The west side, the Gorton side, is more ethnically diverse. There's many people there who weren't born in the UK
4:31
In fact, let me look up a number. That's interesting. So not actually of foreign heritage
4:37
people who actually weren't born in the UK. So, just to set the scene, the national average for people born overseas is 16%, 1.6%
4:45
In the Gorton side of the seat, that's 38%, so twice the national average
4:49
Wow. In the Denton side, it's 6%, less than half the national average
4:53
Right. So the Gorton side also is, it's the bit of the seat with a high Muslim population
5:01
it's 41% Muslim. Right. They go with a national average of 6%, and the Denton side is 2% Muslim
5:08
Wow. So those are the two halves. And, say, going ten years ago, back at the EU referendum
5:17
Gorton voted solidly to remain and Denton voted to leave. Oh. So it's that sort of division between the two halves
5:25
What a fascinating seat, this is. So reform will be aiming to win votes in Denton
5:31
and the Greens and Labour will be looking for votes in Gorton
