Green deputy leader contests Starmer's old seat in north London

Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the Green Party, has put himself forward to contest the Holborn and St Pancras constituency vacated by Keir Starmer when he stood down as an MP after Labour's election loss. Green Party members have backed Polanski to stand in the London seat.

The Independent quoted a top pollster warning the contest could be "make or break" for Polanski. GB News carried analysis suggesting his chances are mixed. The Daily Express framed the candidacy as a "major blow to Andy Burnham", the new Prime Minister, though the mechanism of that blow is unclear - Burnham leads a Labour government; a Green win in a safe Labour seat would embarrass Labour locally but change nothing at Westminster.

The contest matters as a test of whether the Greens can convert deputy leadership profile into parliamentary seats. Polanski has a national platform; Holborn and St Pancras is urban, younger, and the sort of seat where Green messaging on housing, climate and progressive politics finds an audience. But London constituency elections turn on local organisation and whether voters treat them as referendums on the government or choices about the individual. A Green win would be the party's first London seat and a scalp; a loss confines the Greens to their existing four MPs and raises questions about whether visibility converts.

What to watch: the date, which has not been set. The longer Burnham waits to call it, the more time both Labour and the Greens have to organise - and the more the contest becomes a verdict on the government's opening months.