Party now polling 15 points above Greens, who had been ahead of Labour before Keir Starmer resigned as PM
Labour is starting to win back voters on the left who became disillusioned under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the party’s deputy leader has claimed after it saw off Zack Polanski and the Greens to win the Holborn and St Pancras byelection.
Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali took 45% of a relatively low turnout to keep Starmer’s old north London seat for the party, pushing Polanski, who had stood for the party he leads, into second place on 33%.
Everywhere the PM turns, he finds generous adversaries. They have made his early days in No 10 so much easier
I don’t know where Andy Burnham found his magic lamp, but I hope he’s taking good care of it. In the early hours of Friday morning, the genie that’s looked so kindly on him these past few months granted him yet another wish, with a byelection win in Holborn and St Pancras. It was just the latest gift for a prime minister for whom things keep going right – and who is especially blessed in his choice of opponents.
Let’s start with that win in London, where Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali defeated the Green party leader, Zack Polanski. It’s easy to miss how rare such a victory is. As the veteran psephologist Peter Kellner pointed out, this was a win that “defied history”. If the past half-century were any guide, Labour should have lost, thanks to a “truly dreadful record” defending its own seats when in government and facing a byelection challenge from the left or centre-left, the likes of the Greens or the Lib Dems. The average swing against Labour in such contests had been 24%. “On those figures,” wrote Kellner, “Polanski should have won at a canter.” But he lost.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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A byelection win is a fillip for Andy Burnham and shows Zack Polanski must confront the failures damaging his party’s credibility and appeal
By holding Holborn and St Pancras, Andy Burnham’s Labour has shown it can attract liberal and left-leaning voters. The seat has substantial numbers of young adults, students, professionals and Muslims – offering fertile ground for the Greens’ ecopopulism. However, Labour prevailed. Having won leave-voting Makerfield in June, Mr Burnham can now claim an appeal that bridges Labour’s divided electorate. It’s worth noting that turnout in London was low and Labour’s vote share fell 3.7 points. But that compares with an average 19.3-point fall in four byelections under Mr Burnham’s predecessor. The new leader clearly has bought Labour breathing space and checked the Green advance.
The Greens more than tripled their vote share in the constituency to 33%. But they were beaten. Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali took 45% in Sir Keir Starmer’s former seat, leaving Zack Polanski’s ambition of entering parliament unfulfilled. For a party that began the year promising to turn voters’ hunger for change into a serious challenge to Labour, this was a sobering moment. The passing of a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” at its conference probably cost the party support – though the result in central London alone cannot definitively say that. There is a separate question of leadership. Mr Polanski now says he would have voted against the motion. Why, then, did he not make his opposition clear when it mattered last weekend?
Activists in Camden have suggested the Greens’ decision to back the anti-Zionism motion has cost them votes in the byelection.
Councillors for both Labour the Liberal Democrats told the Press Association that voters had informed them they would not be backing the Green party after it passed the motion last weekend calling Zionism racism.
It is clear now we will come a close second in this by-election. Taking the fight to Labour in one of its safest seats shows just how far the Greens have come.
Voters want us to keep Labour’s feet to the fire on affordable housing, public ownership of water and the climate crisis. Greens will be there every single day, holding Labour to account and demanding the change people voted for.
More research into the troubling rise in early onset cancers is needed. But we already know that food is among the culprits
The latest findings about the rise in cancers in people under 50, from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), are extremely concerning. While a cancer diagnosis is bad news at any time, it is a particular blow for those in younger age groups where most people are in good health. Overlapping trends observed in England, the Netherlands and the US include a troubling rise in the incidence of colorectal (or bowel) cancer. Other diseases that have increased in England include uterine and kidney cancers.
These diseases are still rare in young people: 10 times more adults in their 50s, 60s and 70s are diagnosed than those in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Earlier detection is thought to be one factor behind the rise in younger patients. Diagnosing more cancers sooner is an explicit policy goal in England, where late diagnosis and lower uptake of screening are two reasons for mortality rates that are higher than elsewhere in Europe.
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