In news that has made our year, Hannah Spencer has been announced as the winner of the Gorton and Denton by-election, beating the Reform candidate to secure a seat as an MP for the Green Party. It feels like a rare piece of good news in what’s been quite a tough few years politically, to say the least.
Between the news of the brutal force used by ICE agents against unarmed civilians across America and the release of the Epstein Files to Reform coming for our Equality Act rights, and the recent far-right protests in Manchester, it sometimes feels like the world’s coming to an end. So, it was a relief to wake up this morning to a timeline cleanse for a change, that Hannah Spencer is now a Green MP. The People’s Princess is passionate about lifting up the working class and crafted a campaign around relatability and championing wealth equality. She also happens to be a plumber.
Dying to know more? Here’s everything you need to know about Hannah Spencer:
Who is Hannah Spencer?
How often does it look like a politician could be your best mate? Not often, I’d say, considering the majority are old, white men. So, what a breath of fresh air it is to see a younger person elected to parliament, and not just that, but a woman.
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Working class roots
The 34-year-old, who hails from Bolton, Manchester, symbolises a new era of politics, one that revolves around hope and not division. She has working-class roots, leaving school at 16 to train to become a plumber before starting her own business, Hannah’s Household Plumbing, in 2015, at the age of only 24. Her plumbing background caused some hilarity on the campaign circuit, with her earning the nickname ‘Hannah the Plumber’.
Despite not coming from a political background, she told The Guardian that she was ‘radicalised’ by the Covid pandemic, Partygate, and the ‘brutal inequalities it exposed’. In 2022, she joined the Green Party, saying it was because she was “so angry at the gap between the super-rich and all the rest of us getting bigger”, and she was then elected as a councillor for Hale ward on Trafford Council in 2023.
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