The New Statesman.

On Thursday, a by-election in a southern Manchester constituency, Gorton and Denton,

is shaping up to be a seismic litmus test for British politics.

After the previous MP, Labour's Andrew Gwynn stepped down in January,

an opening for a new MP has set in motion a battle between

Labour and their insurgent challenges, reform and the Greens. I'm Olly Dougmore and this is

Daily Politics from The New Statesman. I'm joined by our senior data journalist Ben Walker to get into

the detail. Thanks for joining us, Ben. Hello. Thanks for having me. Absolute pleasure.

Let's start with the context, Ben.

What is Gorton and Denton?

It's a new constituency, isn't it?

What are its demographics?

Talk to me about the place.

Yeah.

So I think you introduced it as South Manchester. I think some people in the seat would be insulted at being associated with South Manchester, actually. But Gorton and Denton is the tail of two seats. Gorton itself is,

yeah, you're getting close to Manchester property. It's in Manchester City Council area. It's very

diverse. You've got a hefty number of students. To be honest, as many students as a share of the population as you do nationally, we often think of, you know, more rural seats.

So it's got its fair share of students. That's Gorton. Very diverse as well. A quarter of the seat in total is Pakistani or Bangladeshi, who will figure big time in whether this seat votes a certain way. Denton, meanwhile, it's not

half the seat. It's much less than that, and it does tend to pose lower turnouts in council elections

than Gorton, although that might change with reforms surge. This is very white working class.

This is bread and butter white working class, England in Denton.

You have one train station in Denton compared to however many in Gorton. It is a tale of two different constituencies. And not to beat the drum as the geek that I am, but this is the problem

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