The route of the No 201 bus begins in the regenerated wonderland of central Manchester, and follows a straight line through the neighbourhoods to its east. The city’s box-fresh skyscrapers and gleaming new hotels quickly recede – and within 10 minutes you arrive in Gorton, at the outer edge of the constituency that, in not much more than three weeks’ time, will see the byelection that could have profound consequences for the future of both the Labour party and British politics.

Gorton is hardly a social desert. Millions of pounds are being spent on a regeneration scheme that – among its other benefits – will bring the area new housing and a revitalised high street. But in the covered market that is about to be upgraded to a “food and drink cluster”, when I ask people questions about the looming vote, I mostly hear expressions of fierce resentment. In that sense, the story of what is about to happen here may crystallise one of this year’s big political themes: a long-festering sense of disconnection and fury reaching a new extreme, thanks to a government that seems strangely powerless to even begin to tackle it.

There are a few mentions of the awful WhatsApp messages that sealed the fate of the former Labour MP Andrew Gwynne, but people talk most animatedly about grimly familiar subjects: grooming gangs, small boats, sky-high private rents and the impossible cost of living. “My mum’s got stage four terminal cancer and she can’t afford to put her heating on,” one woman tells me, with a bracing anger. And every 10 minutes, I hear some or other version of that dependable modern mantra: “I really don’t like Keir Starmer.” Beyond one man’s claim that “he hasn’t done what he said he’d do”, no one can specify exactly why, but that seems to fire people’s loathing all the more: on this........

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