The Gorton and Denton by-election, to be held on Thursday, 26 February, was triggered by the resignation of Labour MP Andrew Gwynne who stepped down for health reasons aggravated by the fallout from messages contained in a controversial WhatsApp group.
The subtext being an attempt to get Labour leadership hopeful and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham back into Westminster to challenge struggling Prime Minister Keir Starmer. However, with Burnham blocked by Labour’s National Executive Committee, what of his replacement, Angeliki Stogia and the other candidates?
In all, eleven are standing, representing parties including the Communist League, Rejoin EU and the Monster Raving Loonies. Only three need to be taken seriously: those chosen by Reform UK, the Greens and Labour.
At the 2024 general election, Labour received 50% of the vote, followed by Reform UK on 14%, the Greens on 13%, George Galloway’s Workers Party of Great Britain, 10%, the Conservatives, 8%, and the Liberal Democrats, 4%. As Labour’s popularity sinks, and slides some more, to where will their voters turn, and what of the candidates they may vote for? Read on.
We shall assume the Lib Dems will not campaign in order not to split the anti-Farage vote. Galloway has already announced, regarding splitting the Muslim block vote, that the WPGB will not contest the seat. Muslim Vote are recommending the Greens, with that party’s original candidate short list consisting of Hannah Spencer and Fesl Reza-Khan.
Therefore, the serious by-election candidates are:
Hannah Spencer (Greens)
In much the same way that Keir Starmer’s father was a toolmaker, Hannah Spencer is a plumber, but not of the thick, tattooed, arm-round-the-bend-of-a-blocked-toilet type. A resident of posh Hale, she is married to an AstraZeneca executive.
The Hale ward, which she represents as a Trafford councillor, is part of Greater Manchester but within the traditional boundaries of the county of Cheshire. Interestingly, at the general election in 2024, Ms Spencer preferred to contest Cheshire’s Warrington North rather than a Manchester seat. Finishing fifth, she lost her deposit with a humiliating 4.7% of the vote.
Councillor Hannah Spencer,
Trafford.gov.uk – Licence CC BY-SA 2.0
As for her claims to be a plumber, Hannah is featured on the Aria Home website. Aria being a Swedish company specialising in useless and expensive air pumps forced upon us by the net zero scam. From their Trafford Park hub, Aria have ‘a local team of experts across the North West on hand to help answer all your heat pump questions, and guide you all the way from home energy assessment to installation’.
However, it is a small team, and they cover all of the area from the Scottish border to Wolverhampton. A review site contains only four contributions; all give five stars. The two written by suspicious and wordy foreigners read like copied-and-pasted sales pitches.
Amongst Aria Home’s pen pictures of design engineers, clean energy experts and planners, Hannah is captioned as ‘a clean energy technician’. Which begs the question: does the 34-year-old hold a genuine commitment to the environment, or is she a glorified sales rep flogging air pumps while being out of her political depth after being endorsed by a (decisive?) Islamic sectarian block vote.
Likewise, convoluted interests emerge with the Labour candidate.
Angeliki Stogia (Labour)
Born in Atra in Greece, Angeliki Stogia came to Britain in 1995 to study European Studies and Language at Manchester Metropolitan University, then an MLitt in Applied European Studies at the University of Aberdeen. According to herself: ‘The degree examined the pillars and policy-making systems of the EU, the nature of key policies and contemporary issues of European integration, the divergent policy and decision-making processes and economic aspects of integration.’ Oh.
She then took a Postgraduate Certificate in The Management of Public Service Partnerships at Sheffield Hallam. Again, according to herself: ‘The course built my skills and understanding of strategy development, effective governance, operational planning, project management, contract management, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, and working in partnerships.’ Of course.
Councillor Angeliki Stogia,
Manchester City Council – Licence CC BY-SA 3.0
Eventually, the world of work beckoned the 47-year-old, with her taking a position as a European Officer with North West Network. Although the gobbledygook on her LinkedIn account is thick even by the standards of public sector lifers, it would appear she was engauged in claiming European Union funding for politicians’ pet projects over here.
In 2012 she become a Labour councillor for Whalley Range and moved to engineering outfit Arup. Again, the gobbledygook is almost impenetrable, but I would say she is on the PR side while her employers burn taxpayers’ money on the likes of the Trans-Pennine rail upgrade.
The Temp sumarises thus: ‘In addition to her political roles, Stogia works in the built environment and infrastructure sector. She is an associate at Arup, where she leads stakeholder engagement and communications across major projects in the UK in energy, transport and city planning.’
Bizarrely, in an early by-election communication, Angeliki claims: ‘I’m not a career politician. I am here to spread a message of hope and opportunity.’ That non-career political role has included being appointed an Executive Member on Manchester City Council for Environment, Planning and Transport in 2017.
Four years later, that dovetailed into a position at Arup which the neutral observer must suspect as a conflict of interest. As with Hannah and the heat pumps, one suspects an ulterior motive, with Stogia hoping (Mandelson-style) to be a Westminster PR lobbyist for Arup rather than a representative MP.
Despite being committed to working-class Gorton and Denton, at the 2024 general election Angeliki stood for Chester South and Eddisbury, where she received 16,848 votes. In the incestuous way all revolves around a London media/political bubble, she finished second to Conservative Aphra Brandreth. Not her real name, Aphra Kendal Alice Stroud kept her maiden name on the ballot, as she is the daughter of London telly celebrity Giles Brandreth, a former Conservative Chester MP himself.
Matthew Goodwin (Reform UK)
At first glance perhaps not the best of candidates for Reform UK, St Albans-born academic and London telly presenter Matthew Goodwin is a political scientist known for his research into the extreme, far, ultra-hard right.
Dr Matthew Goodwin,
Chatham House – Licence CC BY-SA 2.0
A graduate of Politics and Contemporary History from the University of Salford, alongside an MA in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario, he also holds a PhD from the University of Bath.
After completing his education, the 43-year-old continued in, erm, education, holding positions at the University of Nottingham and the University of Kent, and as a senior visiting fellow at the policy institute Chatham House. Besides being writer-in-chief of his own weblog, the 44-year-old is also a presenter on GB News.
As well as the University of Salford, other attempts at appearing Northern include his grandfather working in a Manchester steel factory, his grandmother being employed at the University of Salford, and his mother (an NHS trust human resources wallah) going to college there.
As ever, the dullard of the family stands for Parliament. His father is Neil Goodwin CBE, an NHS high panjandrum. After being chief executive of various London hospitals, he became chair of Onward Homes and the CEO of a strategic health authority. Besides having an MBA from London Business School and holding a PhD, he also has an MA in photography from Falmouth University, and spends his time these days as a social documentary photographer.
So much for the candidates (and thier relatives), what of the constituency? Find out next time!
To be continued…
© Always Worth Saying 2026
