With all major parties’ candidates announced, the February 26 by-election for the parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton is beginning to really get underway. But it’s not like it hasn’t already has its fair share of drama and politics.
The former MP for the area, Andrew Gwynne, a Labour MP until he was suspended, had been in embroiled in scandal surrounding a WhatsApp group chat for Manchester Labour politicians, in which he sent messages containing various bigotries. Citing ill-health, he was appointed by the Chancellor to the Crown Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead, an office of profit under the crown, thereby becoming ineligible to serve as an MP and disqualified from the House of Commons, members being unable to resign without such wonderful nonsense.
Immediate speculation followed as to the identity of the Labour candidate. Speculation summed up by two questions: does Andy Burnham want to run? Will the Labour National Executive Committee let him?
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has been under pressure from allies to the left of Starmer and from his ambition to challenge the prime minister. Unsuccessful twice before in the Labour leadership race, now is surely the best chance he’ll have. He could revitalise the party at a time when it finds itself in distinct trouble, and course-correct towards the soft-left. Better than remaining on the sidelines undermining the government. No matter the optics of such infighting after the five Tory prime ministers in as many years. Of course, there is one small issue. Though formerly Health Secretary under Brown, he is no longer an MP. What better chance then than this, a Manchester by-election in what would be a Labour safe seat, if he ran. He is the Labour politician with the highest approval rating after all (though this is in significant part because he is not well known outside of Manchester, as popular as he is locally). So Burnham announced his intention to run for selection.
The NEC was having none of it. In an 8-1 vote, Burnham was blocked from pursuing the candidacy, Lucy Powell, the Labour Deputy Leader the only dissenting vote. Being that the majority of the NEC is allied to Starmer, including presumably, Starmer himself, this was widely reported in terms of the embattled and nervous leader ‘blocking’ the potential challenger. Really, the Labour Party has clear existing rules that prevent mayors and police and crime commissioners from running in by-elections, so it would be unusual for the Labour governing body to allow an incumbent mayor to contest a by-election and find themselves obligated to resign from the mayoralty. Indeed, such is the current political climate that some Labour MPs expressed worry towards a potential mayoral by-election and the cost it would incur before the difficult local elections in May. A win for Reform would be as damaging for Labour as it would be stunning and unlikely for the challengers, Labour having held at least two thirds of Greater Manchester seats for the last thirty years and having won the mayoralty in 2024 with 63% of the vote. Naturally, the Labour party expressed confidence that it would not be at risk, but wanted to avoid any chances.
Disappointed by the decision, Burnham complained, rightfully, that he had found out of the decision from the media, rather than the NEC itself, though the NEC claim they tried unsuccessfully to contact Burnham before the news broke. Burnham will still campaign in Gorton and Denton, as 'team player' he claims to be would. (Should team players have to tell you they are team players?) Starmer has not committed to going, but his presence there could be toxic, and might decide that excusing himself from the campaign on prime-ministerial business proves to be the best strategy he can come up with.
Of course, the whole fiasco was avoidable. And lends legitimacy to Reform’s ridiculous dual claim that ‘all politicians are the same except us’. Of late, all Reform politicians appear to fall into one or more of just three groups: ex-Tories, like Nigel Farage and the two new big names: twice fired former home secretary Suella Braverman, a first generation immigrant and former officer of state who thinks multiculturalism ‘has failed’, and salty failed Tory leadership candidate and political chameleon Robert Jenrick, who used to be pro-remain One Nation conservative, but sensed which way the wind was blowing; multimillionaires who oh so definitely represent the working man, like Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, and Zia Yusuf; and GB ‘news’ presenters like Farage, David Bull, and Matt Goodwin, the Reform candidate for this open seat. Goodwin is a former Professor in politics at the University of Kent, and author of several books on British right-wing politics, though his most recent work on ‘wokeness’ and free speech at universities was described by Andrew Anthony in the Guardian as lacking nuance and ‘hysterical’ in tone.
While Farage has since admitted he would have expected Reform to struggle against Burnham, Reform stands a much more real chance of overturning the 13413-vote majority that a split opposition vote delivered Gwynne in 2024. This time, the Reform opposition have their own split to worry about.
Though polling is in its very early stages, the emerging media narrative is that of a three-horse race between Labour, Reform, and the Green Party. Of course, Polanski, the Green Party leader is critical of the suggestion his party will split the left-wing vote, suggesting that Labour is not a ‘left-wing’ party. But he knows the message he needs to send and so both Labour and Green party campaigns have commenced with the clear messaging: we are the only party who can bear Reform here. Labour will be keen to avoid a repeat of the Caerphilly by-election, where tactical voting saw Plaid Cymru take the seat, Labour’s vote share dropping to just 11%, but will continue to find solace in the three years wait until the next election. Who knows what they could do in that time! Do they? Whatever they do, if they want to return to parliament with a win, they will need to make further change to their strategy. Clear and obvious wins are hard to come by, but when they do, they have to make the most of them. They have to get the message out. Four weeks feels like hardly enough time for that. Only time will tell how they fair this time.

2024 election results: Labour: 50.8%; Reform: 14.1%; Green: 13.2%; Workers Party: 10.3%; Conservative: 7.9%; Lib Dems: 3.8%.

Post-Script: This post turned out far more one-sided in its criticism of Burnham than I had initially intended. While I think there is much wrong with how he has gone about things, his leadership ambitions are not themselves wrong, and Labour does appear to be in desperate need of change. Starmer and his government are unpopular and Labour would be decimated if an election were held today. There are simply better ways than a leadership challenge by which Burnham could improve Labour prospects, perhaps joining parliament at the earliest opportunity following the end of his mayoral term next year, and committing to dropping the leadership ambitions for some period of time in exchange for a ministerial position (to which he would bring ample experience and his popular image) and some leftward motion on the part of the government. Alas, maybe in an ideal world.

(A content warning for non-graphic but specific descriptions of violence in both parts.)

Despite a year of ridiculous months for US politics in 2025, January 2026 has completely broken the ridiculous awful politics scales. They will need to be recalibrated.
I think it is fair to say the month got started as it meant to go on, with the attack on Venezuela. In the early hours of the morning of the 3rd, the US commenced strikes on the coastal capital Caracas and successfully abducted the illegitimate president and dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. In a rare moment of competence on the part of the administration (although perhaps that gives them too much credit for the work of the military), no US serviceman died, and the attack was a great success in Trump’s eyes. Of course, the murder of at least 50 members of the Venezuelan and Cuban military and two civilians got hardly a mention in the US news-cycle and could have been avoided. The Venezuelan government may be authoritarian and undemocratic, but Trump has no real desire to change that. After all, it’s not like the US had democracy on its mind when it invaded Nicaragua (1912), helped overthrew the government in Mexico (1913), first occupied Haiti (1915), instigated a coup in Iran (1953), supported one in Guatemala (1954), tried to remove the government in Cuba with a series of terrorist attacks (1961), supported a coup in Brazil (1964), in Bolivia, (1971), or in Chile (1973), invaded Grenada (1983), or trained and armed the Islamists who would overthrew the democratic government in Afghanistan (1993).
So, what does Trump want? Oil. And unfortunately, for the moment, the gambit is not blowing up in the face of the US president. Having managed to get the acting-until-she-forgets-about-the-‘acting’-part president, Delcy Rodriguez, on side, tensions aren’t nearly as elevated as they could be. Indeed, perhaps this is due to the disinterest in any actual regime change. Any such change would have to see her and several other major players’ removal from governmental and military positions. Besides, while it would make Trump look strong, regime change is not a vote-winner in America (though that’s not to say invading countries for oil has a pretty good track record either), and he cares awfully about his approval, which remains in shaky territory.
Notably, Trump has made no attempt to install Maria Corina Machado, the exiled leader of the Venezuelan opposition, or her proxy, Edmundo Gonzalez, who is believed to have thrashed Maduro at the most recent election, despite her best efforts. Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, thoroughly debased it by presenting it to Trump in an embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt to curry favour. Members of the Trump cabinet may be big fans of right-wing Latin American administrations, particularly Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba, which he despises, but Trump cares little about what goes on outside his bank account. And who knows how much he can embezzle from the cost-inefficient low quality Venezuelan oil that’s definitely worth spending many millions or billions of dollars to build the infrastructure required to extract.
Just four days later, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Renee Good, a 37-year-old writer and US citizen was shot three times, once in the head, and murdered by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, deployed to Minneapolis by Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the orders of Trump. The geographically astute may notice Minneapolis is over 1000 miles from the US-Mexican border. The administration hasn’t suddenly launched a campaign against undocumented immigration from Canada, so what are ICE doing there?
Terrorising and intimidating. Set arbitrary quotas for arrests, and deployed to Democratic and diverse cities when Trump gets bored, ICE has resorted (or better, has taken to, because they do not seem to be unhappy about it) arresting asylum seekers and other undocumented immigrants following the appropriate legal procedures, documented immigrants, visa holders, and in some cases, US citizens. A week ago, ICE arrested and detained Liam Ramos, a 5-year-old boy, separating him from his father, who they have also arrested, flying both out of state to Texas, where they remain. Their release has been ordered in an utterly scathing opinion by district judge Fred Biery, worth a read.
After Good’s murder, the administration quickly launched an insane campaign of lies, repeatedly describing Good as a ‘domestic terrorist’ (not that this term has any legal meaning in the US), who posed an imminent threat to Jonathan Ross, who (as many videos showed) stepped in front of Good’s car, shot her, stepped out the way, and shot her twice more. The first shot is not defensible as Ross placed himself in that position, but even if it was, the second and third were completely indefensible. Only one of these second two shots is believed to have been fatal. ICE agents on the scene refused to let a doctor passerby administer medical help and left Good’s wife and dog in the car, which crashed following Good’s death, for several minutes.
The FBI promptly involved itself in the investigation (as is its right) and promptly obstructed all investigation by local police (which is clearly not its right). They should consider that there is plenty of publicised video evidence and no statute of limitations for murder in Minnesota. Despite Vance’s comments to the contrary, federal agents do not have ‘absolute immunity’ or anything near, and an uncompromised FBI is likely to vigorously pursue such a case as this.
News of crimes continued into the next week, as leaks suggested a military plane designed to look like a civilian plane was used to summarily execute alleged drug dealers/fishermen in the Caribbean. But what with all the domestic news, this largely flew under the radar. In a pathetic move, the US congress has suspended a quarter of defence secretary Hegseth’s travel funds, until he provides a video of a separate war crime committed in the Caribbean under his command.
It was also around this time that Trump began to amp up his threats towards the Iranian regime. By the 8th of January, anti-government protests in Iran had become nationwide, protestors numbering in the millions. Significant inflation, government corruption, water management crises, censorship, and the perceived prioritisation of Hamas and Hezbollah over the Iranian people all helped to galvanise such large protests against the ruthless totalitarian authority, even in the face of an almost complete internet blackout. The regime claims 3000 were killed in the ensuing brutal crackdown, but genuine estimates put the number closer to 30000, many massacred at the protests themselves, others executed after the fact, included the hospitalised survivors, in their hospital beds.
But I say again, does Trump really care? Indeed, at times since, he seems to have forgotten this as a reason for military force, instead citing Iran’s nuclear programme. Having deployed a naval strike force to the region, Trump, through strength, is looking for a deal, and a win, and has indicated a willingness to negotiate this last week, with talks to be scheduled.

Then came the World Economic Forum. Held between the 19th and 23rd January in Davos, Switzerland. Of course, it wasn’t just the economy on the agenda. No. Greenland-fever was in full swing, amid Trump’s indignant desire to acquire the island, and his refusal to rule out using military force. As the Arctic sea ice recedes, the Arctic becomes more navigable, and trade routes open. Indeed, China would very much like to half their shipping times from Shanghai to Northern Europe, avoiding the Suez Canal. And so, control of Greenland is likely to become increasingly important as global warming ravages the north. It’s a good job the US has an existing treaty with Denmark allowing for extensive military operations and bases on the island, permitting new bases as and when NATO (read: the US) deems them necessary.
But Trump wants the island for himself. Territorial expansion would certainly stroke Trump’s ego, and that’s as good a reason as any when it comes to the felon. A letter to Store, the Norwegian president, states in no uncertain terms that the Nobel Prize Committee’s failure to award Trump the peace prize means he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of Peace,…, but can now think about what is good and proper for the [USA].” Was really thinking purely of peace before? And does he mean to say he hasn’t been acting in the US’s best interest? Does he think the Norwegian government has control over the awarding of the Nobel Prizes? Greenland has plenty of oil, natural gas, and rare minerals. Must just be a coincidence.
After threatening 25% tariffs on European countries who opposed the US acquisition, and seeing the stock markets drop as a result, Trump met with Mark Rutte, the NATO chief-of-staff-and-sucking-up-to-Trump, and outlined a deal. The contents of this deal? Who knows, really? Trump got to come away with some platitudes about commitment to European negotiation on this mission and declare a win for his gullible base, while Denmark got him to take military force of the table. If only someone could speak some truth to the man: the US might have an enormous and highly skilled military, but they are not equipped or trained for arctic combat. The US military tends to be best prepared for combat in the context of their most recent conflict, but it’s not easy to put to good use desert camouflage on icesheets. Denmark could not repel a US invasion for too long, but an otherwise united NATO could put up a very good fight. Finland alone has a million reserves, trained for the very arctic environments it shares with Greenland. Whether Danish allies would fight the US is a whole nother matter, of course.
While Trump spent most of his speech rambling about Greenland, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney put him to shame, with a stunningly honest speech on the post-war order. The main takeaway: the post-war order is gone. The (Western) international order established in the wake of the second world war were rules for weaker nations, enforced by the threat of sanction or violence from stronger nations. Such an order, to be orderly, relied on the pretence that stronger nations obeyed it. Well, such a pretence is clearly no more. Bleak. But Carney is making the most of a weak hand left to him by the previous Liberal government under Trudeau, and is excelling, his economic prowess helping the former governor of the banks of England and Canada come into his own as head of government. He has an approval rating +23 compared to opposition leader Poilievre’s -6.
Back to the US, with yet more awful news. Amidst widespread protest against the occupation of ICE and their murder of Good, the consequent, oft-violent crackdown by ICE acting as crowd control, and the leaked DHS memo to ICE, purporting to allow the use of an administrative warrant (as opposed to a judicial warrant, signed by a judge) to invade a home and arrest targets in clear breach of the fourth amendment, another execution in Minneapolis. This time of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and US citizen, who was beaten by a group of ICE agents after intervening to protect a woman they had pushed to the ground, and shot many times, despite being subdued, almost prone, and disarmed (for he was carrying a gun, which he did not make any attempt to draw). Immediately, the administration found itself spewing hateful lies again. A domestic terrorist intent on massacring law enforcement, said Greg Bovino, ICE’s former nazi-cosplaying ‘Commander-at-Large’, a made-up title he has since been relieved of. Noem shared the sentiment. And so did Trump. But once again, the incident was filmed, many times, from many angles, and they could hardly be clearer that once again, the victim posed no threat. Trump even went to so far as to say he didn’t like that Pretti had a gun, a comment echoed by FBI director Kash Patel, and Noem. While the MAGA base have no real ideology and will happily consume whatever view that their dear leader feeds them, the NRA and other generally pro-Trump gun lobbies were very unhappy at this notion. What a strange situation we find ourselves in, where the Democratic Party seems to have both the first and second amendments!
Another six people have died in dealings with ICE this month according to the Guardian, where you can read more about them, but the lack of video evidence of their deaths, the lack of engagement on their deaths by the Trump administration and the clear and varied evidence of the two murders above, as well as, unfortunately, Good and Pretti’s by-birth US citizenship status and their race (both are white), means the others have received far less coverage.
And Democrats are actually doing something about it. Shocker! Galvanised by the outpouring of Democratic support for the victims and the strong urgent desire from the base to see change enacted, Democrats in the senate refused to vote for the six-bill bundle passed by the house to fund the government. While both lower and upper chambers are Republican-controlled, only specific bills can avoid the filibuster in the US senate, all others, of which this was one, needing 60 votes, that is, seven from Democrats. Without the funding bill the US government shut down on Saturday, and this was the significant leverage the Republicans had. But they quickly gave it up, because rather than holding the line, they passed two separate packages. The bill that funds DHS and therefore ICE was restricted to only funding for the next two weeks, while the remaining five bills were passed separately to fund the rest of the government for a year in a 71-29 vote, with reasonable bipartisan support. Of course, the house has to accept this new arrangement and doesn’t convene till Monday. Refusing to vote on or for the five-bill package would prolong the shutdown into the week, significantly amplifying its effects, but Mike Johnson could do so if Trump changes his mind on the deal. Indeed, it doesn’t seem to be a good deal for Republicans. Without the threat of an expansive shutdown, the Democratic base as inflamed as it is, Democrats might be willing to hold out for extensive ICE reform. After all, many would see a lack of funding for ICE as a very good thing. We’ll see what Monday holds.
Voters might be doing something about it too. On the 31st, Taylor Rehmet, a union leader and Democrat, thrashed locally prominent Republican Leigh Wambsganss in the 9th Texas Senate district. A district Trump won by 17 points in 2024, lost by 14 points to a Democrat, with a tenth of the spend on his campaign. Special elections are wonky and turnout was at just over a third of the turnout that would be expected in November, but it should have many Republicans worried, nonetheless. The gerrymander passed by the Republican legislature to net five more seats in the house of representative would backfire with this sort of swing. More secure Republican seats to win in a normal year could turn into more competitive seats to lose if a blue tide comes in.
Bam! Three million more Epstein files.
What?!

The Dutch parliamentary election? I thought that happened three months ago? I’m not only writing it now just because this is the first post in eight months. No, on Tuesday, the first, second and fifth largest parliamentary groups (as they currently stand) agreed on the major points of a coalition deal, and look set to form a minority government. Even after three months, a majority government evaded the Dutch lower chamber, the differences between the furthest apart factions in the only feasible majority coalition too great to reconcile.
To recap, the snap 2025 Dutch general election was held on the 29th of October after the coalition Schoof cabinet collapsed. The 2023 elections saw the first victory for Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), who consequently went into coalition with the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and New Social Contract (NSC), and the right-wing agrarian populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). But Wilders’ extreme Islamophobia was too much for the coalition partners and they refused his bid to lead the coalition as prime minister, instead appointing the far more experience Labour-turned-independent former minister Dick Schoof. Last May, Wilders, whose party was down 14 percentage points from a peak of 33% in the polling, gave his coalition partners an ultimatum: among other things, deny asylum to all future asylum seekers and deport all Syrians on temporary visas, or the PVV will leave the coalition. And so they did.
Then, in October, the PVV failed to realise their lead in the polls and came in a marginal second place to the centrist Democrats 66. Under the Dutch electoral system, the entire country is one 150-member constituency, elected by semi-open list proportional representation without an electoral threshold. This means that voters may vote either generally for a party or preferentially, for an individual member of a party. (This generates an enormous ballot paper – in 2025 it listed 27 parties and 1116 candidates.) Then the total votes for parties and their members are counted and the seats are distributed fairly between them, with candidates with more preferential votes getting the first seats allocated to their party. It takes only around 70000 votes (or 0.67%) per seat.
In such a system, tactical considerations are very small and so, without an extraordinarily successful campaign from any party, and due to the surge in support for two previously small centre parties (D66 and CDA), the vote was so fractured that no combination of three parties won enough seats to form a government. Before the election, the VVD ruled out a coalition with the unreliable PVV, effectively blocking any chance Wilders had at a return to majority government, instead aligning itself more closely with the Netherlands’ centre-right parties.
In the end (after some days of nail-biting vote counting to separate the top two), the D66 and the PVV won 26 seats, the VVD came in third with 22, the centre-left GreenLeft-Labour alliance (GL/PvdA) won 20, and the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) won 18. The far-right JA21 and the neo-fascist Party for Democracy (PvD) won nine and seven seats respectively, while another eight parties won 22 seats between them. The BBB lost three seats of their existing seven, while the NSC lost all twenty they had previously held, from which they may well never recover.
So, just over three months later, a government. With major disagreements resolved, D66, the VVD, and CDA are set to form a minority government, ten seats short of the 76-seat absolute majority. The quest for a majority ‘grand’ coalition including GL/PvdA and JA21 failed, but both could provide confidence and supply. The BBB, 50Plus, the SGP, and the CU, with twelve seats between them, have also expressed support. Whoever it is, the Netherlands looks all set to get their youngest ever and first openly gay prime minister, in 38-year-old D66 leader Rob Jetten, who will resign his recently won seat in the House in order to be sworn in as ‘minister-president’ by the King of the Netherlands. His coalition document’s title explains exactly what he and his party want to do: Aan de slag, that is, Get Started.
But didn’t I said the coalition partners were the first, second, and fifth largest parties? Yes! It gets worse for the PVV. Down to fourth place in the polls, the PVV fractured, with seven representatives departing to form their own group, citing the PVV’s unwillingness to participate constructively in parliament, its narrow focus on immigration, and its undemocratic party structure consisting of one official member – Wilders himself. Perhaps even this Markuszower group will provide confidence and supply. That would spite their former party leader.

Election results: D66: 16.9%, 26 seats (+17); PVV: 16.7%, 26 seats (-11); VVD: 14.2% 22 seats (-2); GL/PvdA: 12.8%, 20 seats (-5); CDA: 8.5%, 18 seats (+13); JA21: 5.95%, 9 seats (+8); PvD: 4.54%, 7 seats (+4); BBB: 2.65%, 4 seats (-3); Denk: 2.37%, 3 seats (-); SGP: 2.25%, 3 seats (-): PvdD: 2.08%, 3 seats (-); CU: 1.90%, 3 seats (-); SP: 1.89%, 3 seats (-2); 50Plust: 1.43%, 2 seats (+2); Volt: 1.10%, 1 seat (+1); NSC: 0.37%, 0 seats (-20); Others: 1.04%, 0 seats (-).