Hannah Spencer
Oh, nice.
Hello hello,
A couple of weeks ago in the UK, Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer won the Gorton & Denton by-election in Manchester. It was the Green Party’s first ever Westminster by-election win. (The seat had been a Labour stronghold for nearly a century.)
Reform UK had parachuted in book-eating Matt Goodwin1 as their candidate, and declared the by-election ‘a referendum on Keir Starmer’. The good people of Gorton & Denton weren’t having it. They chose Hannah Spencer, a plumber, over millionaire-backed Reform’s divisive rhetoric. (The incumbent Labour party came third.)
Spencer’s win has been called ‘seismic’. Whether it’s really an indication of a wider shift in British politics is far too early say. But there was something about Hannah Spencer’s victory that definitely felt like a shift to me: her victory speech.
It hardly needs saying, but political language over the last decade has mutated into something grotesque. In America, Donald Trump deliberately chews up words until meaning disintegrates into a disorientating slop. In the UK, Nigel Farage has twisted ‘Take Back Control’ plain-speaking into a kind of perpetual rage-baiting. (Keir Starmer chooses his words so scrupulously he never seems to say anything at all.)
Not Hannah Spencer. She said normal things, in simple, modest words. And the effect was electric. Here’s how she started:
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician. I’m a plumber. And two weeks ago, during all this, I also qualified as a plasterer. Because even in chaos, even under pressure, I get things done.
I’m practical. I’m down to earth. I get things done. And I’m qualified. This isn’t just her working class credentials – it’s signalling the theme of the whole speech. All the more powerful for being both symbolic and literally true.
Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays. It got you somewhere. But now? Working hard? What does that get you?
Because talk to anyone here and they will tell you, the people who work hard but can’t put food on the table, can’t get their kids school uniforms, can’t put their heating on, can’t live off the pension they worked hard to save for, can’t even begin to dream about ever having a holiday, ever.
Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires.
And I don’t think it’s extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life. And I don’t think that if you’re not able to work that you should still have a nice life.
I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
This is the heart of her speech. She sets up the question ‘Working hard. What does that get you?’ And instead of launching into her opinions, she appeals to her constituents instead: ‘talk to anyone round here and they will tell you…’
The list of things that working hard no longer gets you is grounded and domestic: food on the table. School uniforms. Putting the heating on. They’re even tonally solid, in comparison to the multi-syllabic smoothness of ‘bil-li-on-aires’.
The detail I love, though, is her repetition of the phrase ‘nice life’. She uses it five times:
‘A house, a nice life, holidays.’
‘Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires.’
‘Working hard should get you a nice life.’
‘If you’re not able to work that you should still have a nice life.’
‘I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life’
‘Nice’ is the bland little word our teachers always told you to replace with something ‘better’, isn’t it2. Here, it’s exactly the right choice. In both meaning and tone, it’s the opposite of extreme. She’s not selling a grand vision of utopia or saying she wants to make anything ‘great again’. Everybody knows what their nice life would feel like. (And I bet nobody’s nice life involves hating on anyone else, either.)
But nice doesn’t mean soft. The speech is also defiant and determined. There’s plenty of talk of ‘hard work’ and ‘fighting for people’. Which all just makes ‘nice’ pop even more. Spencer also paints a positive picture of what ‘nice’ looks like: ‘good schools, a thriving high street, and clean air.’
Finally: hats off for the excellent call-back to the plumbing and plastering reference at the start. She ends by apologising to her customers: ‘I’m sorry, but I might have to cancel the work you booked in, because I’m heading to Parliament’. It’s a great gag – but also, it’s a microcosm of her whole attitude. It’s the considerate thing to do!
The Green Party’s slogan is ‘Let’s make hope normal again’. I’ve always really liked the disarming use of ‘normal’. Hannah Spencer’s ‘nice life’ victory speech expands the Green Party’s voice further. It’s a voice that feels kind. It’s been a very long time since British politics has had much of that.
Cheers, Nick
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I am not a political commentator. I do however notice that the perceptive and thoughtful John Elledge calls Goodwin ‘Britain’s stupidest political scientist’.
I notice that the excellent Broom & Moon made the same point about Spencer’s speech. So it wasn’t just me! (Their whole comparison of Spencer’s speech with Mark Carney’s recent much-praised-yet-knowingly-erudite Davos speech is 🔥)