Another excellent response to the Labour Party's crude gambit. Good to see so many local leaders standing up and calling out the Labour Party for its complicity in genocide. In 2018 and 2022 Labour won EVERY SEAT in Lewisham. In 2026 they lost 39 seats to the Greens and lost control of the Council, in part driven by anger over Gaza and Starmer. Does the Labour Party really think this is going to play well in a borough that's just sent a firm message to Labour? Burnham will burn through huge political capital with the left that is given his party another hearing if he goes through with this... but be pilloried in the press if he stops. Another stupid, crude tangle created by the muscle memory of the Labour Together project.

Compare this forceful, repetitive (and disingenuously hostile) questioning to the utterly disgraceful soft-soap interview Robinson did with Morgan McSweeney - who had basically catalysed the collapse of Starmer by using his power to help make Peter Mandelson ambassador. Recall that in that interview, Robinson neglected to ask McSweeney anything about how he broken electoral law for two years, his knowledge of the APCO smearing scandal, or his scandalous dark arts campaigns to make Starmer leader. He didn't even question McSweeney properly about McSweeney saying he wasn't factional! It was genuinely pathetic, cloying stuff, a total dereliction of duty by the BBC. But be left wing? Question Zionism? Whoo boy. Then Robinson is a prosecutor trying to close a case - pushing and interrupting because he doesn't want to give space for an answer, giving no sense he wants to actually learn what Polanski thinks, or let the listener find out either. I wonder why? Maybe it's because ordinary listeners might not be so shocked by the Green Party saying a state committing genocide is underpinned by a racist ideology; they might think that it's entirely reasonable, if Polanski is given the space to explain, how there is a nugget of truth in the idea that Zionism-as-practiced is racism. Polanski did very well staying calm in the face of such bad-faith interviewing, not least because he likely didn't have a wink of sleep after the Holborn count. Shameful stuff, yet again, from Robinson.

I'm sure everyone is just dying for another hot-take on Holborn & St Pancras, right? My sense is that both Greens and Labour will be disappointed by the result. Labour held, but outside of that it was a bad result for them. I don't think Burnham looks at this result and thinks next year is time for a General Election. The Labour Party ran the biggest ground campaign I've ever seen in this constituency. Endless MP visits, councillors, vast door-knocking, presence near polling stations, massive social media spending, big money donations (it will be extremely revealing when the full accounting is done). The whole national Labour machine was put in motion, and whatever you might think of the politics of that machine, it is big, efficient and effective. At the same time, they benefited from incumbency bias and a lack of serious media scrutiny of their candidate. Burnham held back on announcing policies that would likely have done lots of damage here like new oil & gas drilling, keeping majority of immigration/asylum reforms etc, and had a huge platform at Labour Conference to set the political agenda right at the beginning of the by-election campaign. And yet the result is that they couldn't turn out 1/3 of their 2024 voters. They lost 3.7% of the vote share on their already low 2024 vote. Their aggregate vote is only 25% of the vote they got in 2017, and 25% less in percentage terms. Their majority (12.4%) is the lowest majority they've ever gotten in this constituency (the next was 13.9% in 2005 when the constituency punished Blair for Iraq). There is an undeniable downward trend in Labour support in their aggregate vote, percentage votes and the size of their majority. 2015 29,062 (52.9% of total votes cast/31% maj) 2017 41,343 (70% of total votes cast/51.7% maj) 2019 36,641 (64.5% of total votes cast/48.9% maj) 2024 18,884 (48.9% of total votes cast/30% maj) 2026 12,292 (45.2% of total votes cast/12.4% maj) If there is a Burnham bounce, the net effect has been to slightly temper a long-term and dramatic fall in Labour support; there is no aggregate or percentage increase in a London seat that has been about as safe as it gets for Labour for 20 years. Strikingly, every Party besides for the Greens had their percentage share of the vote reduced on the 2024 vote (Tories -0.1%, Labour -3.7%, Reform -0.2%, Lib Dems -2.4%); the Greens were the only party to increase their average vote share against 2024 (of course Restore/WP didn't run then). The Green share was also higher, in vote share terms, than the combined progressive vote in 2024 (Feinstein/Greens in 2024 was 29.3%, Greens in 2026 was 32.8%). The upshot is that it is very likely that this seat remains competitive in 2028/2029 - and extremely vulnerable if there is any dip or waning of the Burnham bounce. But the Greens might be disappointed too. If they had turned out the combined total Feinstein & Green vote in 2024 (11,342), they would have gotten within 1000 votes of Labour. LIke Labour, they also also failed to turn out their core vote in aggregate terms (although slightly increase it in percentage terms). Labour's vote was soft and declining. This was a seat the could possibly have been taken by the Greens with a campaign that energised its base, turned out proven progressive voters and convinced non-voters from 2024 that this was an election of consequence. The Green team clearly worked their socks off, and their was huge volunteer support. They faced obstacles and a hostile media that Labour didn't. But that's always been the case, and will always be the case if they push a populist left politics. Yet there are plainly lessons to be learnt here...

The most grudging, non-committal Free Palestine ever... and then no engagement on genocide. I've yet to find Sagal Abdi-Wali actually criticising Israel. The most is an acknowledgment of human suffering... as if 70k deaths through high-tech slaughter is a flood or earthquake.

This is extraordinary. Sagal Abid-Wali has more robustly condemned the Green Party "Zionism is racism" motion than the genocide in Gaza. Sagal Abdi-Wali did not say anything to denounce or condemn Israel's genocide in the years before her selection as a candidate. She has repeatedly not answered emails asking for statements she made on Gaza since October 7th 2026. She didn't sign a PSC Candidate Pledge to "uphold the rights of Palestinians." She sat silent as her colleagues rewrote Camden's Constitution to allow the the Mayor to kick people out for holding signs and flags in the public gallery - in response to huge public outcry about Camden's investments in companies like Elbit and Palantir. She didn't even answer emails from the Green Councillor on Camden Council, Lorna Russell, asking her to support motions for divestment from genocide. But a Green Party motion? That gets condemned. Telling.

Congratulations to Sagal Abdi-Wali for winning a hard-fought election; and a huge well done to Zack Polanski for a hard-graft campaign. Obviously lots to digest but I'm so glad to finally be living in a competitive seat that no party can take for granted. There will be lots of spin today and lots of triumphalism, but this is the Labour Party's smallest majority (12.8%) in the history of the constituency (13.9% in 2005 in the teeth of the Iraq War) and second lowest percentage vote share ever (43.% is the lowest, also in 2005). It is also the lowest total votes Labour has ever gotten (12k vs 14k in 2005). That's in the midst of a Burnham bounce, with no small amount of tumult in the Greens. Labour really is on notice. But it's disappointing to see such low turnout. That's two elections in a row where voters have stayed away, which is not a good sign for how locals feel that democracy is representing them.

This profile of Sagal Abdi-Wali in @_TheLondoner is pretty ice cold (also includes a somewhat shy acknowledgment of mine and Jessica Murray's "scathing" reporting in The Tribune). But it seems there are even more questions about Abdi-Wali's background... and another journalist disquieted by her unwillingness to submit to proper scrutiny. Strange to be an MP candidate whose can't and won't answer questions or even let the media tag along with door-knocking. And tonight Richard Osley of the CNJ reports a big campaign bash where local media hasn't been invited

Yesterday, I found out the Labour Party was smearing me to The Times. They insinuated that I was sexist and unfairly ascribing views to Sagal Abdi-Wali, Labour’s candidate for Holborn & St Pancras, because I have published factually accurate, hard-hitting investigations into her political record and associations. This is the second time the Labour Party has smeared me because of my factually accurate reporting exposing and scrutinising Labour Party politicians and officials. It is obvious to me why they’re doing it – because they’re scared that voters in Holborn & St Pancras will find out the truth about Sagal Abdi-Wali and vote accordingly. And they’re right to be scared. There is overwhelming evidence that there are serious questions to be asked about Sagal’s history, her funding, her political record, her political affiliations, her own conduct during this campaign, and her campaign’s repeated attempts to smear both journalists and local Muslim community groups. It seems to me that the only correct response is to set out everything we know about Sagal’s political history and record, which I do in a mega-thread below. The Labour Party would rather you not know this – so please share this widely everywhere you can, and particularly with voters in Holborn & St Pancras. They need to know who they are voting for. One last thing: I have repeatedly put right of replies and questions to Sagal’s campaign. They have never – not once – responded to a right of reply I have sent prior to publication. They have never raised issues with factual accuracy or balance. And this is a pattern – multiple journalists have now raised concerns that Sagal and her campaign have been dodging proper scrutiny. Considering how she has failed to respond to Camden residents experiencing serious housing problems, and those requesting expressions of solidarity with the people of Palestine, that’s perhaps not surprising.

I actually can't believe it. The Labour Party is briefing smears about me, AGAIN, because of my factually accurate, public interest reporting - this time about their candidate in Holborn & St Pancras, Sagal Abdi-Wali. AGAIN, the Labour Party is going after a journalist living in Camden, because I've reported on Camden Council's terrible record on housing and their increasing investments in companies supplying weapons to Israel like Elbit, Lockheed Martin and Palantir. They're pushing a story implying factually accurate, rigorous reporting of Sagal Abdi-Wali is somehow illegitimate or sexist - two days before people cast their votes to choose the new MP for the constituency. I wrote some of those articles with Jessica Murray, who, in addition to being brilliant, just so happens to be a woman! It is risible, pathetic stuff from a Party and campaign that plainly can't answer straight questions about her record; and a Party whose deplorable recent history of embracing Islamophobia and anti-black racism I exposed in considerable detail in The Fraud. What makes it worse is that this is just six months after it was revealed that Labour Together, APCO and the Labour Party were part of scheme that made up the most disgusting defamatory lies about me, my family and colleagues, and which saw me reported to the security services. A despicable report containing these outright lies and fabrications was given to journalists and handled at the very highest levels of the Labour Party. That, too, was in response to my factually accurate, rigorous investigative journalism that exposed the sordid and unlawful origins of Sir Keir Starmer's disgraced leadership and the role of Labour Together. Now it seems the Labour Together project lives on in Sagal's campaign. I am keeping an open mind on Andy Burnham. I told Mark Steele on his wonderful podcast two weeks ago that I would "dedicate my life" to Burnham if he brought in electoral reform. But it seems the Labour Party machinery he has inherited is the same rotten machinery that was captured by Labour Together and gave us Sir Keir Starmer. Yesterday, I started asking Sagal to disclose who else was funding her election campaign, after it was revealed her campaign received £50k from Dale Vince, who funded Labour Together and backs new oil & gas drilling in the North Sea. Sagal has not answered. Today, I'm being smeared for asking straightforward questions about Abdi-Wali and her record - questions she has repeatedly failed to answer, despite multiple right of replies sent to her and her campaign. To me that shows the Labour Party is terrified that voters in Holborn & St Pancras might find out the truth about her record as a councillor and vote accordingly. And that seems like an invitation to publish a mega-thread setting out everything there is to know about Sagal and her record. That'll be dropping tomorrow.

Amazing! Two days left to disclose who is funding your campaign, @Sagal_AW ! We know your campaign got £50k from a man who backs new oil & gas drilling in the North Sea. Who else has donated? Seems like a very basic thing we deserve to know.

Harsher statements about a Green Party motion than a genocide your party won't even acknowledge. Telling.