by-election <\/a>will take place on Thursday (26 February). <\/p>\n\n\n\nShe does so while battling a ferocious gale in Levenshulme\u2019s Greenbank Park, which attempts to swirl her blonde hair into the shape of a Walnut Whip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 34-year-old Mancunian isn\u2019t a typical politician. She\u2019s working class, learnt a traditionally male dominated trade and is now working towards qualifying as a plasterer, but Spencer says this real-world experience is perfect preparation for a potential career in the House of Commons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of us do the jobs that keep the country turning and already have skills that are needed in parliament. I know how to work well under pressure, not just on my own but as part of a team,\u201d she told NQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my job, I meet so many people from so many different backgrounds, and I have that skill of resilience and just working hard to get the job done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we need more of in politics, not just people who go swanning down this path into parliament. I want to change that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are so many people like me who are doing jobs like mine who already have the necessary skills to get into politics.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nA dogged campaign: two of Hannah’s four greyhound rescue dogs. Image: Ian Burke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSpencer bemoans the archaic political systems at council level (\u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019re designed to keep us out\u201d) and doesn\u2019t hold back when it comes to batting for one of the Green party\u2019s more controversial policies: the legalisation of all drugs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said: \u201cTo be honest, a few years ago before I was political, I would\u2019ve been quite wary about it. I didn\u2019t really understand, but I understand now how much the drug laws we\u2019ve had for nearly 60 years have been failing our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too easy for anybody at any age, but especially young people, to get hold a Class A substance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe used to talk about being able to get it on a street corner, and you can do that, but actually you can get it in a WhatsApp group without even having to leave the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t know what they\u2019re taking, they don\u2019t know where it\u2019s from, but what I do know is that it\u2019s causing misery in our communities and creating this criminal network of gangs with all this exploitation that goes along with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to regulate it and have an open conversation where it\u2019s not underground. But we can only do that that by acknowledging that what we have now is so broken that we need to be able to look at doing things differently.” <\/p>\n\n\n\nWe’re seeing debts that people have after leaving [University] and to me it\u2019s a scandal, its borderline miss-selling<\/p>Hannah Spencer<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\nCampaign leaflets have been snowing through letterboxes in this eastern portion of Manchester ahead of polling day, with voters heading to the ballot box after the resignation of previous MP, Andrew Gwynne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stood down citing \u2018ill health\u2019, stemming from his sacking as a health minister last January when messages leaked from a WhatsApp group called Trigger Me Timbers. In it, the then-Labour MP said he hoped a 72-year-old woman would \u201ccroak it\u201d before the next election, while other local councillors were found to have made a series of racist, sexist and homophobic comments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It hasn\u2019t gone down at all well in Denton, where Gwynne was brought up and still lives, with polling data showing the electorate turning its back on left-leaning politics altogether. Reform UK have based their campaign there, with its leader Nigel Farage showing up to back his GB News presenter candidate, Matt Goodwin, who has leaned heavily on his family\u2019s Salford roots to lend him an air of creditability with the largely working-class electorate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a dramatic turnaround for an area that hasn\u2019t returned anything other than a Labour MP in almost a century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wheels are spinning elsewhere in the constituency, though, with the Greens having the edge in Gorton, Burnage and Levenshulme. The latter is a place Spencer knows well having lived on Broom Lane before, while a quick tour of the neighbourhood suggests her party is well clear in M19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The occasional red Labour banner peeps from living room windows among a forest of Green, and rather than Reform or Conservative, the only blue signs outside houses belong to estate agent Edward Mellor. If anyone plans to vote for a party on the right around here, they\u2019re keeping quiet about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPlacards ready to be distributed. Image: Ian Burke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBack in Greenbank Park, activists laden with posters, placards and door-knocking plans stride towards their routes, while Hannah\u2019s four rescue greyhounds wait without a whimper for her to finish her media duties. Many of those activists are students and graduates energised by a campaign that prides itself on zigging while the main political parties are zagging. One such topic is student finance, with Spencer saying tuition fees \u2013 set to be \u00a39,790 for the next academic year – are \u201ca huge barrier and always have been\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing debts that people have after leaving and to me it\u2019s a scandal, its borderline miss-selling,\u201d she adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got people leaving education with eye-watering amounts that they\u2019re never going to pay off, and it\u2019s unacceptable to have a price like that attached to education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m so passionate about talking about all routes when you\u2019re at school. I didn\u2019t go to university, but I\u2019ve done apprenticeships and I do a manual job, and that should be treated and seen in the same way as any other route of education. But university should be free, you shouldn\u2019t have to pay to access it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also the issue of unscrupulous private landlords that have been a thorn in the side of students in Fallowfield, Rusholme and Withington for decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019d look at things like rent control,\u201d Spencer says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a student you\u2019re paying eye-watering amounts to live somewhere \u2013 we want lower bills for everybody, but especially for students, who then won’t have to worry about taking on a job or two jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want you to just be able to focus on your studies and to spend money in our economy in our local, vibrant places, instead of paying off a landlord\u2019s buy-to-let mortgage.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hannah Spencer says she wants to smash the idea of what politicians look and sound like, and if the bookies are right, parliament will have a bold new voice by Friday morning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWe would get rid of tuition fees. We don\u2019t think that you should pay to access university.\u201d So says Hannah Spencer, the plumber and Green Party councillor taking a plunger…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2027,"featured_media":23670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4972],"tags":[5939,998,367,5938],"class_list":["post-23669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-denton-and-gorton-byelection","tag-election","tag-green-party","tag-hannah-spencer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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