The Green Party candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election has rejected her Reform rival’s invitation for a head-to-head debate.

While both parties have described the crunch contest to win another seat in parliament as a case of “Green vs Reform”, Hannah Spencer hit back at Matt Goodwin by pointing out they had already debated in two public forums.

Meanwhile, Labour insisted the Reform move demonstrated they were picking up more support in the traditionally red seat that expected.

It comes as the contest in the Greater Manchester, expected to be a three-horse race between the Greens, Labour and Reform, heats up.

In a post on X, Goodwin wrote: “I am hereby challenging the Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer to a one-on-one debate about the future of Gorton & Denton.”

In his attached letter to Spencer, the GB News preseneter said previous platforms had only offered one-minute answers to multiple candidates, meaning there was “limited room for a serious discussion”.

“As you have said yourself, this by-election is now a two-horse race between Reform and the Green Party,” he said, claiming there had been plenty of “misinformation” about the run-up to polling day.

He offered for it to be hosted by a Green-friendly platform with a moderator of their choosing, with his “only condition” being that it is recorded and published in full afterwards.

But, in a message to HuffPost UK, Spencer hit back: “Hi Matt, we literally just debated in the BBC studio and last week at the Manchester Evening News hustings.

“It’s not a game of the best of three. It sounds like you’re concerned you didn’t come across very well and want another go.

“I’m not sure anyone wants any more of your hot air and I’m focusing my time now on knocking on doors to talk about what really matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour told HuffPost UK this race was “Labour versus Reform” last week.

Following on from Goodwin’s offer, a Labour spokesperson said: “This is a cynical move from a campaign that knows its struggling, and that the Labour vote is holding.

“While Matthew and Hannah play student politics, Labour’s Angeliki Stogia is busy, out on the doors, listening to what matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell also responded to Goodwin’s letter, saying: “Funny. Matt knows what we know – he’s not doing as well as he’d hoped so is trying to big up the Greens (again) as his only route to victory is to split and suppress the Labour vote (which he knows is holding).

“That, or he’s frit after Angeliki slayed him at the hustings.”

An almighty row broke out at the Manchester Evening News’ debate last week when Stogia told Goodwin that “women are scared to leave the house” due to the rise in far-right rhetoric.

He replied: “I’m not going to be lectured to by a Labour politician from a party that consistently failed to investigate the mass rape and sexual abuse of working-class kids in this country for 30 years.

“And the reason I have security is because I have very real threats to my life in an area where people assure me everything is fine, and clearly in some parts of this country integration is not working as it should be.”

These spats come after Labour have mocked the Greens for misspelling “Gorton” on some campaign posters, while Rayner previously joked Reform could not find the constituency “on a map”.

There are 11 candidates standing in the by-election in total, including Charlotte Anne Cadden for the Conservatives and Jackie Pearcey for the Liberal Democrats.

The Green Party has slammed Reform UK for letting the “cat out of the bag” after Zia Yusuf suggested poverty rates in Britain are misleading.

Reform’s head of policy got into a spat with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday over his party’s plans to keep the two-child benefit cap while cutting business rates for pubs.

“Reform’s policy is to let children go hungry so their parents can get in an extra round?” Phillips asked.

Yusuf replied: “Nigel’s position always has been and still is that he would lift the two-child benefit cap only for British families who are in work.”

He then added: “When the term poverty is used, primarily by left-wing politicians, it’s a relative term which means you could literally – this is a mathematical fact – increase everyone’s incomes tenfold and the statistics would stay the same.”

Phillips asked if Yusuf was trying to say poverty levels are an “illusion”.

The Reform politician replied: “No, it’s worse than that because real poverty does exist in this country, Trevor.

“Absolute poverty does exist in small pockets, if you want to do the right thing in this country, you need to create social mobility.

“There will always be a percentage of the public who are ‘in poverty’, and what that does nothing for is to help the middle classes or indeed the people who live in absolute poverty.”

Yusuf then claimed there are “very, very small pockets” of poverty in Wales.

He said: “The measure of poverty which has been used for years in this country is an unhelpful thing because it is relative to the mean and the median, it means you are always going to have a percentage of people who are there and that is not in the interest of people who need it.”

More than 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022 including a million children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

A Green Party spokesperson tore into Yusuf’s comments, telling HuffPost UK: “Reform have totally let the cat out of the bag this morning about what they really stand for.

“Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire, lecturing that poverty and people’s everyday struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated, shows what frauds Reform are.

“They are just another party of the failed status quo, funded by and representing big corporate interests.

“The Gorton and Denton by election is between the Greens and Reform.

“We are campaigning for lower bills and protecting public services by taxing millionaires and billionaires. Reform stand for the wealthy few.”

Reform, the Greens and Labour are all battling it out to win the crunch contest in Greater Manchester later this month, in the hope of securing another MP in the Commons.

Labour has been criticised by the Green Party for using an opinion poll dismissed as “bullshit” by Alastair Campbell in a by-election advert.

The party posted the results of the Find Out Now survey of just 51 people in Gorton and Denton.

Voters in the constituency will go to the polls on February 26 in what is a three-way fight between Labour, the Greens and Reform.

According to the poll, Reform are on 36%, Labour are on 33% and the Greens are on 21%.

The Labour ad says: “This by-election is a fight between Labour and Reform. The Greens can’t win here.”

In a statement following criticism of the poll, Find Out Now said: “We apologise for any confusion or misinterpretation caused by the way these results were reported, and for any impression that the data was more precise than it could be, given the small sample size.

“Although the poll suggests the race is likely to be close, it should not be analysed beyond that (for example, as indicating that one party is in the lead).”

In response, former Labour spin doctor Campbell said: “Any media who covered this BS (bullshit) pro-Farridge poll should likewise apologise and stop using BS polls as part of their coverage.”

A Green Party source said: “Labour is using a poll in its adverts that even Alastair Campbell says is bullshit.

“All of the available data points strongly to the Greens being the only one’s that can stop Reform, a leaked internal poll from Reform, our own doorstep data and the bookies, are all pointing in one clear direction. Labour’s vote has collapsed.”

A Labour source said: “There’s a clear choice facing voters in Gorton and Denton on Thursday February 26. A choice between the toxic politics of Reform’s Tommy Robinson-backed candidate and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia who will bring our communities together and tackle the cost of living.

“A vote for the Green Party just risks letting Reform in through the back door.”