Lord Ashcroft: The Gorton and Denton focus group -“Labour need to go back to the fundamentals and re-establish what they are about”
Trust is earned, not demanded.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit
Last week I conducted focus groups among former Labour voters in the Gorton & Denton constituency to see what was on their minds as they prepared to vote in the by-election later this month.
There were mixed feelings about the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing as Labour’s candidate. Several said they had wanted him to stay as Mayor: “He’s done a good job, and he’s visible. He’s fought for us;” “I was like, I want him to stay for Greater Manchester. I don’t think his job is done here. It wasn’t about holding him back from Westminster and challenging Keir Starmer, it was more of the local ‘let’s make Manchester great’.”
Even so, they would have wished him well on his return to parliament: “I’d be quite happy for him to move on and share all that good work with the rest of the UK;” “He’s a very savvy operator and he would have taken that into the halls of Westminster. Let’s face it, Gorton and Levenshulme, Tameside, these places, then majority of politicians down in Westminster couldn’t pick them out on a map. He would have given the interests of those people more clout.”
“It’s quite evidently self-preservation… and now we’re going to get a Reform MP”
Some had positively wanted him to have the chance to mount a leadership challenge, without which they saw no chance for Labour at the next election: “I wanted him to get into power because I think Labour are a dead duck at the moment with Starmer. And I thought, maybe he can change things” (though others argued there was no guarantee that this would work: “I don’t think he could turn it around because Labour, the entity of the Labour Party, has lost its way”).
Whatever they thought about the chances of a Labour revival, nobody believed the reasons given for blocking Burnham: “I think they’ve cut their nose off to spite their face there because Starmer has obviously done it for self-preservation;” “He hasn’t got the party’s best interests at heart making a decision like that;” “They talk about money, but the Labour machine can make one phone call and raise the funds for that. It’s quite evidently self-preservation. He’s taken a ‘you problem’ and made it a ‘me problem’, and now we’re going to get a Reform MP.”
“We’re working harder and harder for less and less”
The Mandelson scandal, together with the Labour government’s record since the election, hardly created an ideal backdrop to the by-election. Though some said 18 months was not long, the sense of disappointment was unmistakeable. “When they came in, he was like, ‘we’re going to get rid of the sleaze, we’re going to be down the line’. And we’ve hit this already;” “It’s not so much the …
Trust is earned, not demanded.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit
Last week I conducted focus groups among former Labour voters in the Gorton & Denton constituency to see what was on their minds as they prepared to vote in the by-election later this month.
There were mixed feelings about the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing as Labour’s candidate. Several said they had wanted him to stay as Mayor: “He’s done a good job, and he’s visible. He’s fought for us;” “I was like, I want him to stay for Greater Manchester. I don’t think his job is done here. It wasn’t about holding him back from Westminster and challenging Keir Starmer, it was more of the local ‘let’s make Manchester great’.”
Even so, they would have wished him well on his return to parliament: “I’d be quite happy for him to move on and share all that good work with the rest of the UK;” “He’s a very savvy operator and he would have taken that into the halls of Westminster. Let’s face it, Gorton and Levenshulme, Tameside, these places, then majority of politicians down in Westminster couldn’t pick them out on a map. He would have given the interests of those people more clout.”
“It’s quite evidently self-preservation… and now we’re going to get a Reform MP”
Some had positively wanted him to have the chance to mount a leadership challenge, without which they saw no chance for Labour at the next election: “I wanted him to get into power because I think Labour are a dead duck at the moment with Starmer. And I thought, maybe he can change things” (though others argued there was no guarantee that this would work: “I don’t think he could turn it around because Labour, the entity of the Labour Party, has lost its way”).
Whatever they thought about the chances of a Labour revival, nobody believed the reasons given for blocking Burnham: “I think they’ve cut their nose off to spite their face there because Starmer has obviously done it for self-preservation;” “He hasn’t got the party’s best interests at heart making a decision like that;” “They talk about money, but the Labour machine can make one phone call and raise the funds for that. It’s quite evidently self-preservation. He’s taken a ‘you problem’ and made it a ‘me problem’, and now we’re going to get a Reform MP.”
“We’re working harder and harder for less and less”
The Mandelson scandal, together with the Labour government’s record since the election, hardly created an ideal backdrop to the by-election. Though some said 18 months was not long, the sense of disappointment was unmistakeable. “When they came in, he was like, ‘we’re going to get rid of the sleaze, we’re going to be down the line’. And we’ve hit this already;” “It’s not so much the …
Lord Ashcroft: The Gorton and Denton focus group -“Labour need to go back to the fundamentals and re-establish what they are about”
Trust is earned, not demanded.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit
Last week I conducted focus groups among former Labour voters in the Gorton & Denton constituency to see what was on their minds as they prepared to vote in the by-election later this month.
There were mixed feelings about the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing as Labour’s candidate. Several said they had wanted him to stay as Mayor: “He’s done a good job, and he’s visible. He’s fought for us;” “I was like, I want him to stay for Greater Manchester. I don’t think his job is done here. It wasn’t about holding him back from Westminster and challenging Keir Starmer, it was more of the local ‘let’s make Manchester great’.”
Even so, they would have wished him well on his return to parliament: “I’d be quite happy for him to move on and share all that good work with the rest of the UK;” “He’s a very savvy operator and he would have taken that into the halls of Westminster. Let’s face it, Gorton and Levenshulme, Tameside, these places, then majority of politicians down in Westminster couldn’t pick them out on a map. He would have given the interests of those people more clout.”
“It’s quite evidently self-preservation… and now we’re going to get a Reform MP”
Some had positively wanted him to have the chance to mount a leadership challenge, without which they saw no chance for Labour at the next election: “I wanted him to get into power because I think Labour are a dead duck at the moment with Starmer. And I thought, maybe he can change things” (though others argued there was no guarantee that this would work: “I don’t think he could turn it around because Labour, the entity of the Labour Party, has lost its way”).
Whatever they thought about the chances of a Labour revival, nobody believed the reasons given for blocking Burnham: “I think they’ve cut their nose off to spite their face there because Starmer has obviously done it for self-preservation;” “He hasn’t got the party’s best interests at heart making a decision like that;” “They talk about money, but the Labour machine can make one phone call and raise the funds for that. It’s quite evidently self-preservation. He’s taken a ‘you problem’ and made it a ‘me problem’, and now we’re going to get a Reform MP.”
“We’re working harder and harder for less and less”
The Mandelson scandal, together with the Labour government’s record since the election, hardly created an ideal backdrop to the by-election. Though some said 18 months was not long, the sense of disappointment was unmistakeable. “When they came in, he was like, ‘we’re going to get rid of the sleaze, we’re going to be down the line’. And we’ve hit this already;” “It’s not so much the …
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