London
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The special election in northern England was supposed to be neck-and-neck-and-neck: a three-way scrap between the governing Labour Party, fighting to keep control of a seat in its historic heartland, and two outsiders – the hard-right populist Reform UK party, and the new-look progressive Green Party.
In the end, it wasn’t even close.
Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and member of the local council, won the seat in Gorton and Denton, near the English city of Manchester, with 14,890 votes, more than 40% of the total votes cast. Reform UK, which has led in most national polls for more than a year, came second with 10,578 votes, while Labour trailed in third,…