Polling stations open tomorrow in Gorton and Denton. On paper, it's a safe Labour seat. The kind of constituency where you could pin a red rosette on a traffic cone and it'd win.

Not this time.

Keir Starmer is so worried he arranged a secret meeting with Andy Burnham in the mayor's Manchester office this week. No advisers present. No photos taken. Just two men and, according to Labour sources, some "comfy chairs."

The relationship between Starmer and Burnham has been toxic for months. When the Gorton vacancy appeared, Starmer's team tried to parachute in their own candidate. Burnham's allies saw it as a direct challenge to his northern powerbase. They weren't wrong.

According to The I, Burnham turned down Starmer's offer of a safe parliamentary seat in 2027. He's not interested in being handed something. He wants to take it.

The soft left faction around Burnham is already targeting NEC elections this summer. If Labour loses Gorton — or even scrapes through with a collapsed majority — the knives will be out before the ballot boxes are packed away.

Reform are running hard. The Greens think they can pull an upset. And Labour's ground game, once the envy of British politics, looks threadbare.

Starmer's problem isn't just one by-election. It's that nobody believes in him anymore. Not his MPs. Not his mayors. And increasingly, not his voters.

Tomorrow we'll find out just how bad it is.