Talk:2026 Gorton and Denton by-election

It is now being reported that Starmer is blaming his loss on George Galloway's endorsement of the Green Party, and their acceptance of it. This seemed odd to me and I've been looking for sources about this endorsement and can't find any, this article previous stated he had endorsed them, but only citing a 2 hour video on Galloway's own YouTube channel^[1] so I removed it as a primary source, and nothing about the Greens' reported "willingness to welcome Galloway's divisive, sectarian politics". I'm very concerned about the risk of WP:CITOGENESIS, it's possible the Prime Minister is already making statements based on something he read on this Wikipedia article. Would appreciate some vigilance here and also help trying to find reliable sources from before the election. Thanks. Orange sticker (talk) 14:08, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I think this means Galloway's endorsement of the Greens now passes WP:ENDORSE and can be included. Bondegezou (talk) 14:17, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but it feels a bit like re-writing history, if the endorsement was only reported on in reliable sources after polls closed. I think if it gets added it should be made clear it is being reported retrospectively. Orange sticker (talk) 14:42, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to the reports, initially in Politics Home, of Starmer's letter to Labour MPs, in which he attributes the Greens' victory, in large part, to Galloway's endorsement. Galloway's show is not only on YouTube, but also several other social media platforms; he also published a statement on his Facebook page. Like many Wikipedia "rules", it baffles me why, when we can all hear what he said and read what he wrote, this cannot be listed as an endorsement simply because it was not independently repeated elsewhere. The lack of reporting on it may be due to the fact that this explicit and unequivocal endorsement was made late on the eve of the poll. Starmer's reaction, which is also missing from the article, should alone mean that the endorsement is included somewhere. ~2026-13144-75 (talk) 20:10, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I sincerely hope that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is not wasting his time reading Wikipedia articles, let alone treating them as credible sources on which to base his reactions and decisions. ~2026-13144-75 (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

The "seismic... like Orpington" quote from Curtice isn't in the body: is there anything else? And are we going to follow MOS:LEADCITE? The article did at one point. Moscow Mule (talk) 06:37, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Have moved last paragraph to background which appears to be have fixed the problem. Feel free to restore the template if there remains content that's not a summary of the body. CNC (talk) 12:22, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes there's certainly been a ton of extra and unnecessary information added to the lead in recent days. Personally I'm going to wait a few days for the article to be more stable before deleting the extra information in the lede and some of the excessive WP:Quotefarm that has been recently added to the article. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 12:55, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I've found some time, so I've made a bold edits to simplify the lead Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Generally happy with them. My instinct is that the balance and content are now very good, although it feels like too high a proportion is about Andy Burnham, who after all, never was a candidate. DrArsenal (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I deleted part of the content about Gaza in the intro on the grounds it was excessive. Halbared has reverted saying "I disagree it was a primary issue". I'm not arguing about whether it ought to be mentioned in the intro, just about whether the proportion of coverage in the intro is too high, given the wide number of other issues that were campaigned on, and the small proportion of the Green campaign that was actually devoted to Gaza. --DrArsenal (talk) 11:30, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Ta for the ping DrA, I welcome other comments and am happy to go with the consensus. Halbared (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I did trim the sentence (as well as another). The thing about a summary is that it's predominantly meant to be a summary, not a word or word duplication. Ideally it's also based on due weight rather than he said she said style repetition from the candidates themselves (this should mostly remain in the body unless it received substantial coverage). CNC (talk) 12:27, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree the mention of Gaza in the summary is definitely excessive, as with the above post I think the lead has gotten way too long and is including much beyond what it should be doing – summarising the article: Gwynne steps down, Burnham applies unsuccessfully, the Greens win, it's a historical result, and it put pressure on Starmer. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 13:02, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Just noticed this quote:

"This is the first parliamentary by-election in England with neither Labour nor the Conservatives in the top two, excluding the 2024 Rochdale by-election in which Labour withdrew support for their candidate."

In fact, there was another — the 2013 Eastleigh by-election. Anywikiuser (talk) 11:06, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

The claim is clearly incorrect if Lib Dems are excluded, there's also the 2016 Richmond Park by-election, although the independent there in second was essentially a Conservative. We should probably remove this claim from the article. Eastwood Park and strabane (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Er, not to mention all the by-elections that took place before the Labour Party was formed!! But I see someone has sensibly removed that claim. Alarichall (talk) 06:16, 3 March 2026 (UTC)