Before I left for the Gorton and Denton by-election, a Labour minister delivered the following upbeat message: ‘Everyone thinks Nigel Farage is going to walk it. But I don’t think he will. Manchester is different to the rest of the country. We’ve got a serious organisation up there. It really isn’t a Reform sort of seat.’

Five minutes after arriving, I’m not so sure. Wayne is settling down for the Wolves versus Arsenal game. He wonders out loud how many British players are in the line-up.

‘Bukayo Saka? How can you be British with a name like that,’ he queries.

On paper this constituency, fused together from the city of Manchester and Tameside in the 2023 boundary review, should be a Labour citadel.

The last time the party lost Gorton was 1931.

The people of Denton haven’t voted anything other than Labour since its inception as a distinct seat in 1983.

Nineteen months ago Andrew Gwynne – who stepped down after the emergence in The Mail on Sunday of a series of WhatsApp messages in which he cruelly mocked his constituents – won with more than 50 per cent of the vote.

But that was before Sir Keir Starmer began to deploy his Medusa touch.

Keir Starmer faces his main flanks collapsing simultaneously to Reform and the Greens

This could spell disaster for Labour and the Prime Minister nationally, Dan Hodges writes

It is difficult to think of a worse backdrop to a vital by-election for any governing party: Starmer’s decision to block Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester’s favourite son, from standing in the seat, the Mandelson and Doyle paedophile friendship scandals and another shambolic U-turn over the local election’s postponement.

Andy, a retired oil pipe engineer, is one of Starmer’s former voters whose loyalty is being tested to destruction.

‘I’m basically a gobby socialist.’ he tells me. ‘I’ve always voted Labour. My family always voted Labour. If I voted anything else, my dad would leap out of his grave and give me a clip round the ear.’

But next week? ‘It’s either Labour or Reform.’ Why, I ask. ‘Look, I’ve been all round the world. I’ve seen all sorts of people. I honestly don’t want to intimidate anyone. But it’s gone too far. The rest of Europe is saying “OK, that’s enough immigration now”. And we’re saying to everyone, “Come on in”.’

Gorton and Denton is essentially a picture postcard of British post-industrial decline.

During the day it retains a real and vibrant community spirit. Gorton Market’s Heaven Café is a thriving unofficial meeting hub, where residents gather to swap gossip and bemoan the weather.

But in the evening – when the tanning salons, vape shops and barbers that have replaced the mines and railways and textile mills pull down their shutters – huge swathes of the area turn into a ghost town.

Four miles from the centre of the nation’s third largest city, decay and neglect own the night.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and the party’s candidate in Gorton and Denton, Matt Goodwin

Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer takes a selfie with Zack Polanski and her supporters

Beth, a single mother with three young children, has lived in the area all her life. And next Thursday she will be turning her back on the politicians she believes have turned their backs on her. ‘I won’t be voting,’ she tells me with a shrug. ‘I can’t. I haven’t got a home at the moment. How can you vote if you haven’t got a home?’

As you pass among Gorton’s tight red-brick terraces, a variety of issues are raised. The housing shortage that Beth has fallen victim to. Fly-tipping is also a big local concern.

But if you keep the conversation going long enough, everything eventually returns to the same place. The housing crisis is perceived to be a direct result of the influx of migrants. ‘There’s a hotel down the road packed with them,’ I’m told.

Similarly the fly-tipping. ‘They put a load of bins out the other day, including clothes bins. But the migrants climb in and take the clothes out,’ someone else complains.

After a couple of days in this vital by-election battleground, it quickly becomes clear that if this was solely a white, working-class constituency, Labour –and Keir Starmer’s premiership – would be toast. But the demographics of the seat make it a more complex contest.

Gorton and Denton has a significant Muslim and African population. And for obvious reasons, here Reform’s tough immigration stance finds few takers.

But Labour is also deeply mistrusted. Partly because of a sense Starmer has failed to deliver the change he promised. And also because of his party’s stance on the conflict in Gaza.

With the result that the Greens are capitalising. Walking along the streets just off the main thoroughfare of High Road, you see several posters in the windows backing Zack Polanski’s insurgents.

Similarly, if you pop into any of the local migrant-owned businesses, you find significant Green support. Though not always for reasons directly related to national or international politics. ‘Yeah, lots of people along here are voting Green,’ Zen, a butcher, tells me.

Any particular reason, I ask. He laughs. ‘Well, in the General Election I voted Labour. But the Green canvassers have come into my shop twice now.’

He holds up one of their leaflets. ‘So if they’re helping my business, they get my vote.’

Labour ministers who have been canvassing in the seat tell me they believe their party is behind, but still in with a fighting chance.

And as you travel across the constituency, you see clear evidence of Labour’s formidable Red Manchester Machine.

Pulling off the ring road, you’re met with a giant poster informing you all the polls show ‘only Labour can beat Reform here’.

Several shops in the area carry large banners featuring the party’s candidate, Angeliki Stogia, and her entreaty to vote for ‘unity not division’.

And it’s possible that against the odds – bookies have Labour a distant third behind the Greens and Reform – she could prevail.

Especially if the anti-Labour vote splits evenly between her two main challengers, leaving her free to sneak through the middle.

But even the fragmentation of the Labour vote that might prove Stogia’s salvation locally could also spell disaster for her party and Prime Minister nationally.

There is mounting evidence – from both Gorton and Denton and the opinion polls – that both of Labour’s main flanks are starting to collapse simultaneously.

To the Greens on the Left and to Reform on the Right. And if that happens Starmer is facing a Tory-style wipe-out.

As I drive out of Gorton I spot a piece of graffiti ghosted on to a nearby wall. ‘Good Life’ it says, with a smiley face.

From what I’ve seen and heard over the past couple of days, whoever wins next Thursday will have their work cut out delivering it.