I am a child of the North West

I am a child of the North West.

I was born in Lancaster, my Dad was from the bit of North Wales that Granada News always included as local news and my mum is from Penrith.

Both my Grandfathers were from the Wirral and all bar one of my kids were born in the North West too.

I only ever wanted to move to a big city when I was a teenager. The choices were Liverpool and Manchester. I have degrees from the two great universities of Manchester, in addition to an honorary award from the University of Central Lancashire.

Along with the late great Tony Wilson I was in favour of devolution for the region twenty years ago, a campaign for which his mate Peter Savile created a North West flag.

I love being the North West editor of TheBusinessDesk.com, as I’m sure you can deduce from everything I say and do.

So I was suitably appalled when I heard that the Liberal Democrat candidate in the Stockport constituency where I live made a lazy casual slur about people from Liverpool.

We’ve all been through too much together to let this sort of thing be passed off as banter or, as her leader Ed Davey described it, “a very bad joke”.

Conduct in public life is important. This election gives us the opportunity to turn the page on to a new era of government and service.

Let it be a time of seriousness, not the triviality of bad jokes and cunning stunts.

One where long term thinking to solve societal and economic problems is valued more than slogans and easy answers.

Northern Powerhouse, Brexit, and Levelling Up have failed the North West. They were slogans without strategy.

The incredible Sir Howard Bernstein, who we mourn this week, showed us the value of thinking in decades. The power of ambition, and hope, of working together, and of focus.

In that spirit, please vote for change next Thursday.

Northern Spin Extra - Special Guest, Economist Nicola Headlam

What’s Boris Johnson really like?

Nicola Headlam should know because she was one of the most senior civil servants at the Northern Powerhouse and she’s lifted the lid on him and other senior politicians.

Now the chief economist at Red Flag Alert she’s the latest guest on Northern Spin Extra and didn’t hold back on her views on Northern Powerhouse Rail.

When we launched the podcast it was to get insight from people like Nicola and she didn’t disappoint.

Give it a watch (above).

#northernpowerhouse

Northern Spin podcast goes to Blackpool, and the Phoenix

"Really good episode" says former civil servant David Higham, a man who knows his history and appreciates insight.

This week we talk about Blackpool's regeneration efforts over the years, Andy Burnham's appointment of Kate Green as his Deputy Mayor and the disgrace of Boris Johnson's honours list.

And why, despite everything, I still love Phoenix Nights.

We're on Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

https://lnkd.in/eQYwV-cJ

Apple - https://lnkd.in/eX8eiNhT 

Alan Cavill, Andy Morrell, Nicola Headlam, The Manchester Metropolitan University, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, The Labour Party, Blackpool Council, The Centre for Social Justice.

A brush with Marple wisdom

I did a talk to the Marple and District Probus Club last week.

Formed in 1972, they offer a chance for retired people to meet socially, converse, listen to talks and go on trips to places of interest.

My dear friend Peter Mount is involved and has brought all of his experience and energy to the club. They were short of a speaker for this week's meeting at the Senior Citizens Hall in Marple, and he asked me on Sunday if I would be willing to turn something around in a couple of days. For Peter I always find it hard to say no.

My talk was called My Life in 17 bylines - journalism and politics. The talk went down OK, I think. I spoke for longer than I anticipated, but then my experience is that the conversational interactions pad things out a lot. The best bit however was the question and answer discussion afterwards. Because I touched on my political experiences I came in for a bit of push back and scrutiny. It reminded me a little of being an election candidate on the campaign trail, not least for the fact that we used to have Labour Party events in the same room. 

That said, there were also questions related to journalism - on truth, due impartiality, the dreadful corrosive effect of the Daily Mail on our society and a question about a recent story in the Stockport Express which I have some knowledge of. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I found the people there to be sharp, wise, curious and deeply committed active citzens. 

Meeting Gary Neville for the Big Issue in the North

I met up with Gary Neville a couple of weeks ago. Everything we talked about is pretty much covered in the cover story profile I wrote for this week's Big Issue in the North. We talked about so many of my favourite subjects; football, politics, business, education, and personal motivation. But he didn't hold back on the anger and moral disgust he feels for this government. Reading it back, and listening to the recording is quite powerful and raw at times.

One of the things he said was that if you call out this government for what they are, eventually you will be proved right. 

Some comments work in the moment. Some stand the test of time, even in a fast moving news agenda.

He's such a fascinating character who has already lived an extraordinary life. But I was particularly struck by his humility, how he learns lessons from mistakes and setbacks. It may seem an odd thing to pick up on given his many achievements, but that quest for perpetual forward motion and the desire to do the right thing is quite special in the present climate.

He also told me: “You know, I am an entrepreneurial business person who's earned a lot of money. But I believe you can still act with compassion and empathy and be decent, but the people in charge of our government at this moment in time aren’t doing that."

Once again, I'd urge you to go out and buy it, support your vendors, and support quality print media.

Or if you can't get out to a Co-op store, or a vendor, and if you don't live in the North, then you can buy a digital copy online.

More Mayors are coming, but what works and why?

More Mayors are coming. In an interview with the Financial Times (£) yesterday, housing and local government secretary Robert Jenrick put the possibilities of city deals and devolution agreements back on the table. 

I think we were a bit blindsided by Boris Johnson's levelling up speech in July. His delivery was unconvincing (well, it was a shambles, actually). Buried in it however was a commitment to extend devolution, something he hasn't mentioned for a long time, and was kicked firmly into the long grass by Theresa May.

Here's what Johnson said:

"As I say, we will not be proceeding with a one size fits all template. One possibility is a directly elected mayor for individual counties but there are other possibilities. We could devolve power for a specific local purpose like a county or city coming together to improve local services like buses. So my offer to you – and I am talking to all those who see a role for yourselves in this local leadership- come to us, come to Neil O Brien or to me with your vision for how you will level up, back business, attract more good jobs and improve your local services."

As I've watched the government's front bench team lurch from one shambles to another I've constantly questioned whether there are actual grown-ups somewhere in the room. People who make decisions based on reason and good policy, rather than just winging it and bumbling from one day to the next. A couple of years ago I went to a few fringe meetings at Tory conference in Manchester and - OK, I may be clutching at straws here - Neil O'Brien MP came across as one of those decent, thoughtful, practical,  One Nation Tories that saw the merits of the extension of devolution. His current berth in the government is vague, he was a forceful counter to anti-lockdown lunatics on the Tory benches over the last year and now he's been asked to drive ideas for levelling up. He's either being set up for a fall, or his intellectual talents are being put to use to get stuff done. This, from Politico, is very good.

Whispers I heard from Whitehall were that the standoff with Andy Burnham last year spooked the government. He didn't get what he wanted, but Burnham achieved a status (King of the North) that gave him a moral authority few other leaders have achieved. To create more Kings and Queens in the regions is a gamble that they have other people to play off against one another is the cynical view. The other agenda, highlighted by Michael Heseltine last week, is systemic reform of local government, removing two-tier authorities forever. 

Each region, each city, comes at it from their own historical and relational place. Greater Manchester kept many of the logical loose ties that survived the abolition of the County Council in 1986. A narrative persisted of a city-region that could absorb towns and districts and make them better. Though it sometimes fractures, there is a broad consent of the 10 that they are stronger together.

In the course of researching my thesis on Devolution and Democracy, I spoke to lots of people in other cities about their relationship with a Mayor. There was a reason Andy Burnham spent so much time doing media appearances and glad-handing around Greater Manchester during his first term. It's not just because he's a presentable and polished performer in his comfort zone, but without civic and external buy-in the convening power of a uniquely networked role as Mayor can't work. Delivery is never just about the legislated structures, but the ability to make change outside as a convenor of people and groups. Dan Jarvis can't yet click his fingers and pull together a coalition of willing businesses to tackle a compelling local challenge in South Yorkshire, more so for Tracy Brabin who has only just been elected in West Yorkshire. It's not just about building a case for holding up the begging bowl, but understanding where internal alliances within devolved city regions can come together to create improved outcomes and a shared strategy people believe in.

Politics is always a delicate balancing act, especially when dealing with a government as focused on self-preservation as this one. The next phase of Mayors will not be a rerun of the first act, but it has the potential to reshape decision making in this country for good.

Sir Richard Leese, a real one-off

Sir Richard Leese announcing that he's stepping down as leader of Manchester City Council is a genuinely seismic, historic and crucial moment. I doubt we will see his like again.

I've written something for Place North West, but this is a slightly more political take.

As I wrote in my Masters thesis, the road to directly elected Mayors as a new form of devolved government in this country owes a great deal to how Leese and Howard Bernstein settled on Greater Manchester's particular Mayoral model, through negotiating and deal doing, but how none of that would have been possible but for a consistent Manchester narrative, rooted in capacity building and competent statecraft, built up over 30 or more years. 

The right calls. Throughout his twenty-five years as leader, Leese has clearly got more right than he's got wrong. The Commonweath Games of 2002, city-centre living, the tram network. He's consistently put Manchester's agenda way ahead of Labour issues, which in a way has insulated the party in the city from the catastrophe it has endured nationally. In the nineties, he continued - and accelerated - a policy of critical engagement with Conservative governments in order to extract good outcomes. He scoffed at the idea of a directly elected Manchester City Council Mayor, the equivalent of which Liverpool foolishly went for, and I was very pleased to support opposition to that at the time.  I said in the Place piece today that he was uncompromising, which he was, especially in pursuit of Manchester's ambitions. But politics is also all about trade-offs and deals and he was a highly intelligent leader who was able to make more right ones than wrong ones. However...

Some wrong calls. Congestion charging referendum, going balls out on HS2, Piccadilly Gardens, traffic in the city centre, local service delivery, housing shortages. But also optics. Quick anecdote, I worked on a potential new branding for Manchester's innovation district, the area along Oxford Road. It has been saddled with a clunky term 'the Corridor' which a decent amount of research amongst stakeholders there - the universities, the hospital, developers, businesses - was that it was time for it to go. Richard Leese just dismissed any change out of hand and everyone else fell in behind him. It wasn't a hill anyone was prepared to die on, it's just a name, but it is a particularly crap one.

A new world. Honestly, I think the election of Andy Burnham, a charismatic retail politician, to the role of Mayor wasn't the outcome or the system Leese wanted. He'd have preferred someone like the late Lord Peter Smith or Tony Lloyd doing the red carpet stuff while he operated alongside doing the hard work. His amusing takes on the Metro Mayor job before Burnham transformed it, was that it was a bauble, a PR man's job, which is why he wasn't interested.

A hard-working political legacy. If the Labour Party wants to know how to win again, there are probably more lessons to be learned organisationally from Manchester Labour than just a shrug about demographics. As red walls collapse everywhere, they don't in Manchester. Councillor contracts for the Labour group in Manchester require a high contact rate. I saw Councillors in Stockport laugh dismissively at the thought of trying to impose that kind of discipline over here, which is why this is a minority administration and Manchester is dominated by Labour.  There are plenty of areas of Manchester that share the same characteristics as places that have gone UKIP, Brexit and Tory, like Stoke, but sheer political will and work keeps them Labour; Manchester Labour. There's a lesson there.

Brutal. I've seen him in full flow in debates and he absolutely spares no quarter. At times he could be egregiously combative. There's nothing polite, forgiving or tolerant about how he engages with people he doesn't agree with when he sees the stakes as high, though sometimes his blood just gets up. Examples: HS2, congestion charging, left wing virtue signalling. I saw him describe calls for a directly elected Mayor for Yorkshire as 'ridiculous' scoffing that Mayoral Combined Authorities only work for functional economic geographies, and you can't build one around "a brand of tea". 

National Labour issues. Even before I rejoined the Labour Party in 2014 and knew him in my capacity as a journalist I was always interested in his takes on national issues and leaders. He was quite candid with me that he was no fan of Tony Blair even at the height of New Labour, but was quite close to Neil Kinnock. He led a highly personal campaign firmly against the decision of Transport Secretary Alastair Darling to cut funding for Metrolink expansion. He told me he voted for Andy Burnham in the 2010 leadership election, he spoke at the rally I chaired for Caroline Flint's deputy leadership campaign in 2015, and shared my view that she should have stood for leader. He was no fan of Corbyn's mob, but I was a bit taken aback when he warmly introduced John McDonnell as the 'future Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next Labour government' at a Remain event in 2016.

A successor. My hunch is the next leader of the City Council will be one of the 50 or so women councillors that Richard has supported and encouraged to step up in the male and pale world of local politics. I can't claim to know a great deal about the personal loyalties across the group - and that's who elects their leader - but I personally really rate Bev Craig (statutory deputy) and know people are urging her to step forward. Failing that, Luthfur Rahman, the current deputy leader, will fancy himself as a strong candidate too. 

Well done Dawn Butler says Centrist Dad

Even as a fully formed Centrist Dad, I can applaud wholeheartedly what Dawn Butler did in parliament this week. I've seen commentators and others having a dig. The more I think about it, the more I approve.

She called Boris Johnson a habitual liar, and he is. 

She did it at the end of a session in parliament and was booted out for a day. Big deal. 

It's been a crap week for the wretched Tory government. Cummings, the ping chaos, the ill-judged attack on Marcus Rashford, a terribly delivered speech by Johnson on levelling up, and the drip drip of buffoonery and lies from Johnson just keeps coming. 

All that Dawn Butler did was channel the content of a widely circulated video by Peter Stefanovic which details all the times Johnson lies. He does it without thinking, it's always about the moment, how to wriggle out of a corner until the next embarrassing encounter.

I know this is going to sound monstrously patronising, but what she did is the best of the left of the Labour Party. They are protestors, they are populists who play to the gallery, they are unsubtle. Good. Use that energy. I don't think she should be anywhere the leadership of a serious political movement, but for this disheartened and fed up Centrist Dad it was so good to see.

Passed Masters

So I passed my MSc!

If you want to view it, it's here.

I'm genuinely really pleased with the end result, and honestly think it has something different to say. As I outlined here, much current political science doesn't get what's truly different about Mayoral Combined Authorities, nor do political commentators understand Andy Burnham.

It wasn’t a smooth ride, it got sent back by the examiners last year for being “descriptive” and “journalistic” amongst other critiques. I was defeated initially but on a stern climb up Skiddaw the advice of good friends was that the only person to blame, and who could do anything to make it better, was me.

The "journalistic" barb hurt the most of all, because that's literally my identity. I felt a snobbery from academia towards people who are good storytellers, but it also woke me up a bit and sharpened the writing. I didn't compromise on what I hope was clear writing, but I did show a little more respect to the political scientists who I sought to walk alongside. 

Another difference between journalism and academic research is the requirement to anonymise interview sources, which also means I can't thank them by name. However, I can say that Andy Burnham’s model of running the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is something unique and worthy of further study (and compared to Whitehall and Holyrood is remarkably accessible).

So I must thank Dr Rory Shand and Dr David Beel for supervising me and helping me to weave a golden thread throughout, Professor Jean-Noël Ezingeard for encouraging me to do it in the first place, and Michael Stephenson for supporting me to finish it with a flourish.

I was originally inspired to do this by Dr Jon Davis, Dr Michelle Clement and Dr Jack Brown and their dynamic approach to ultra-contemporary political history at The Strand Group at King's College London. They have a brilliant network throughout Whitehall that is led by their taught course on the workings of government. I'm slightly disappointed I'm not around to build something around our devolved politics, but I'm sure others will pursue that path, maybe my good friend and mentor Professor Andy Westwood at the University of Manchester.

If anything, the whole exercise proved to be a very useful exercise in better understanding communications and brand strategy. And journalism.

* I enquired as to whether I could get a distinction, a merit, or a star. But you can't, you just pass, or you don't.

The Burnham Effect

There was much that was wholly correct in last week’s excellent special edition of the New Statesman on the crisis of the left. 

Everyone from Tony Blair to Lola Seaton (and the editor Jason Cowley) understandably focused on the myriad of things that Labour has got wrong, badly wrong. Ed Miliband started the trend of embarrassment about what Labour achieved in power from 1997 to 2010, but the current leadership seems similarly blind to the remarkable stories of where Labour in power is inspiring, unifying, and electorally successful. Labour won well in Wales, but also in Greater Manchester. Andy Burnham didn’t just increase his share of the vote to 67.3%, but the overall turnout; and if you were counting, won a majority of votes in every single council ward, all 10 city or borough councils, and all 27 parliamentary seats, even the nine currently held by Conservatives following the collapse of the Red Wall.

An advantage for incumbent Mayors played out well, as it did for Ben Houchen in Tees Valley and Andy Street in the West Midlands, but something is working for a devolved Labour Party rooted in its place and backed up with an imaginative, well-branded, and inclusive campaign. 

Much existing national political commentary, like academic literature, has struggled to interpret the nuances of such agile and networked figures as Mayors in UK politics who have made distinctive choices on both priorities and tone. As I said in my blog for UPEN, the Metro Mayors seem to work in practice, but not in theory. 

As it's my magazine of choice, I fondly hope the New Statesman will look to cast its critical eye on the cities and regions (and Wales) in a vital examination of the direction for the left.

A new King or Queen of the North – Mayors and their networks

On the eve of the Local and Combined Authority Mayoral elections in the UK, I wrote a blog for the Universities Policy Engagement Network looking at the role Metro Mayors play and how universities can engage with them.

As we approach a new set of elections this May it’s worth looking at the impact on policy of the Metro Mayors.

Through this pandemic and lockdown, UPEN members rightly have focused on the changing Westminster drama that has provided an opportunity for the whole machinery of Whitehall to absorb new thinking to address a unique and (hopefully) once in a generation challenge. UPEN also has a subcommittee looking at opportunities to impact policy at a local level, but the very patchwork of powers is itself a conceptual challenge for us to frame a consistent strategy across Higher Education.

It took the spectacle of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham standing on the steps of Manchester’s Central Library in a North Face jacket to highlight the role played by Metro Mayors. At issue was the financial support to regions in various stages of lockdown. What Burnham drew attention to wasn’t just the inequity of the support offered but the very manner in which he was able to wield power. He may have the power to fire the chief constable of the police (which he has done), the combined authority of ten local councils also has control over health and social care budgets, but most of all he can set a strategic course and provide leadership.

It’s a reminder of the limits of Mayors, but also of their promise. Nowhere in the list of direct powers devolved to this layer of governance is there a requirement to address street homelessness, or to create a voluntary scheme for good employment. There are opportunities to fundraise by co-operating strategically with government. Yet Burnham has defined his first term by those very issues, and sought to increase the powers of his office. None of this would be possible without the widespread support of business leaders, networks of third sector organisations and, occasionally, local celebrities.

Much existing political science and urban studies literature has struggled to interpret the nuances of such an agile and networked figure in UK politics. Inspirational and populist leaders are nothing new, but the Mayors are one of those new structures that seem to work in practice, but not in theory.

Hopefully further research will be equal to that challenge.

It’s provided an opportunity for colleagues across disciplines at Manchester Metropolitan University to provide intellectual ballast to a number of policy initiatives started by the Mayor. Foremost of these has been the evaluation by the Decent Work Centre of the Good Employment Charter. It’s a piece of work that is ongoing, but places the University’s academics right alongside the processes of policy development and builds relationships between the wider bodies. More directly, the city region’s low carbon energy strategy has been directly informed by the work of the University’s Fuel Cell Innovation Centre, a well-recognised beacon of expertise in developing a future hydrogen economy. The director of the Centre has presented at the Mayor’s Green Summit, but more significantly has brokered a partnership deal between the University, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), Trafford Council, Carlton Power, Cadent Gas and Electricity North West to join forces to set up a hydrogen production hub at the Trafford Low Carbon Energy Park – a green energy storage facility, which already consists of a number of Net Zero industrial projects in support of UK Government objectives.

It’s fair to say that other city regions are someway behind Greater Manchester on the development of a policy making culture around its Mayoral Combined Authority. West Midlands and the Liverpool City Region have fewer powers vested in them, West Yorkshire is only now on the brink of electing its first Metro Mayor, and none of them have a figure as recognisable as Burnham on the ballot. What they all will have however is a hunger for ideas and initiatives that can propel them into the kind of position where they get talked about as ‘king of the North’. For the moment though, that’s a title Burnham has a firm grip on.

Labour pains

I've realised I've just come through a period of reading and study of politics that has been to the exclusion of so much else that I enjoy. Now that I've submitted my thesis on devolution, I think I may be immersing myself in new concerns. So consider this a bit of a last hurrah on politics for a while.

As I write the news is consumed by the harsh spotlight being shone on the shoddy actions of the government. A couple of weeks ago Keir Starmer was being written off as a loser for not running the government closer in the polls. I'm less interested in these kinds of Westminster village issues, more in the big picture, societal changes that have been the driving force behind politics, but also behind consumer and social behaviours.

In Despised, why the Modern Left Hates the Working Class, Paul Embery rages with anger at the disassociation of Labour from the traditional working class, he deliberately doesn’t say white, but that's what he means. He then aggressively prosecutes the culture war, pushing back on so-called irrelevant niche issues - immigration, gay rights and feminism - all such efforts collapse when the agenda is dominated by Windrush, It’s A Sin and the murder of Sarah Everard. What was that you were saying, Paul? OK, as you were. It's a shame because there is a need to examine party allegiance even if it seems the forces are stacked against Labour and progressive parties under the present electoral system.

He also seems to conflate the wooing of the middle classes of middle England under Tony Blair with the desertion of the working class in favour of a new constituency of trendy middle class liberals. That’s not quite what happened. 

A far better explanation of the electoral schism is identified in Rob Ford and Maria Sobolewska's Brexitland, or in an Economist piece on the "Barratt Britain" of towns with new houses where young families aren't interested in the culture war, aren't ravaged by austerity and don't hate the country they live in. Life could be better, but it isn't as utterly miserable for them as the last two Labour leaders said it was. "There is an egalitarianism to Barratt Britain. Accountants, teachers, sales reps, plasterers and driving instructors live on the same street, and the smaller choice of pubs and restaurants means they socialise together, too. As long as mortgages remain affordable and petrol is cheap, it is not a place that worries much about politics."

In The Dignity of Labour Cruddas is better on all of this societal change until he constructs a straw man argument that says there are advocates for a stance that Labour doesn’t need the nativist working class anymore because they’re dying out and a new base is emerging in Remainia. The fact this argument isn’t cited or sourced is evidence it probably doesn’t seriously exist. 

Chris Clarke drafts three world views that often overlap, the dark knight, the puppet master and the golden age. It provides plenty of evidence for the kind of inclusive politics that I have consistently supported, but know is landing very badly, having lost control of the Labour Party and tactically failed to stop the rise of populism from the right. Much as I agree with much of what he argues, and understand that Labour needs to be sensible again, I got the impression that the primary goal of the book seems to be to conclusively settle a twitter dispute with Owen Jones. I gave up on that a long time ago. 

East London MP Jon Cruddas has the potential to be an important thinker and he at least takes seriously the charge that the working class have abandoned Labour. The points about the organisational strength of Labour in Dagenham leaves you wanting more and sounds quite familiar with what has happened in Manchester, where a vibrant ground campaign can at least arrest long term seismic shifts, but can also serve to listen and reflect how people are living their lives.

Labour is more than anything a party in desperate need of a compelling narrative, a strong sense of what they are for. Starting with work, our relationship with our jobs and careers, isn’t a bad start for a party so rooted in the workplace, after all the clue is surely in the name.

I badly overestimated the appetite for a centre-ground alternative to Johnson and Brexit, I genuinely thought educated, non-racist, fair-minded people would reject it. The trouble was they feared Labour's alternative even more. These are all decent contributions - even Paul Embery's has merit - but I'm kind of all Laboured out now.    

The footballification of politics and scandal

Sorry, not sorry

Usually, when an organisation launches an enquiry, it is to have an independent person reach a just and fair conclusion about something that has gone wrong. In a just and fair world, those who are investigated and found to have trangressed, misbehaved and simply made a mistake, are supposed to take responsibility for that. This of course was designed to provide accountability and trigger change in an imperfect world.

Let's just have a think about what's been happening. Well, you all see the news and frankly I haven't the words any more. People seem to disregard these simple and thoughtful attempts to regulate our society as a trigger to double down. 

I haven't read it yet, but I believe the writer and broadcaster James O'Brien is developing this theory in his new book: 

We’re completely immersed in the “footballification” of politics. Actions are judged not by an objective assessment of their content but by the perceived allegiances of protagonists. We tackle it by publicly owning our mistakes, praising opposing ‘teams’ & criticising our own. 

So, call me a dreary centrist if you like, but Priti Patel, Cardinal Vincent Nichols and Jeremy Corbyn need to own their errors, show some contrition, and their supporters need to think of the consequences of on people affected by their failures of leadership, not doubling down. There's something worse about a non-apology apology. "I'm sorry if you were offended by my unintentional bullying of you" or frankly,  "I oppose anti-semitism and all forms of racism", is the left wing version of "don't all lives matter?"

Down with this sort of thing. Careful now.

Stockport should support Greater Manchester's plan for jobs and homes

Unlike most people I follow some of the twists and turns of local politics. The latest row is an attempt by the Liberal Democrats on Stockport Council to take our local area out of something called the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. I wrote on this blog almost two years ago that it could well come a cropper in this very ward, as the Labour group on the council don't have the numbers without Conservative support. So, unless there are assurances on the zoning of house building land in High Lane, then I can't see our local Tory councillor backing it. Similarly, Heald Green don't seem to want any more houses either.

I hear the argument trotted out that it should be brownfield first. That's both a neat way of saying building should be of houses where no-one currently wants to live, and that there is a vast amount of former industrial land that no-one has thought of remediating and developing. It's not true. Brownfield costs a lot to develop, and even if all the sites are built, it only gets us so far. Also, this is a long term plan for a lot of houses over a long period of time, and priority is given to building around infrastructure. The new link road to the airport is hard infrastructure. It is meant to be built around.

A young person I know pointed out to me that those posters in High Lane with the slogan NO TO MASS DEVELOPMENT, and accompanied by a picture of a gas mask, are often at the end of driveways with two or three cars, sometimes 4x4 diesels. It's where irony parks his car. 

When I wrote about this in 2018 the trigger was a planning application in the centre of Marple to develop an old school building. People lost their heads about it, and said it shouldn't be developed because, er, they used to go to school there and it should be a community hub. I have lost count of the number of underused 'community hubs' and cafes in Marple. There was also an assumption it was going to look terrible. I walked past the building site yesterday and saw the apartments and a new Co-op store taking shape and frankly it's a massive improvement aesthetically. In time, it will be somewhere for people to live and add to the community in the centre of Marple, boosting the economy of the neighbourhood. 

It's an emotive issue and one I run the risk of being called out for. I'm involved in a controversial project at work, but I do so with a fervent belief in the need to build more homes. I was once asked HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT? if someone wanted to take land and build houses ON YOUR ROAD. My answer is simple, I did actively oppose Marple College selling land to a supermarket ON MY ROAD, but instead I equally actively supported housing on the site instead. I genuinely don't think my life, or that of my neighbours, has been worse as a result of the new estate being built.

It's easy to always be against stuff, the big challenge, the brave thing, is to say what you are for. Usually I'm for progress. Stockport should support Greater Manchester's plan for jobs and homes.

A new dawn has broken, has it not?

http://www.stanleychow.co.uk/

There's only one thing on all of our minds today. The election of decency back to the office of the President of the USA. Sorry for the headline (not sorry).

We've been glued to CNN all week, a change from our usual global 24 hour news channel of choice, France24. I could listen to John King all day long. 

It's hard to comprehend what an unpleasant and repugnant force Trump has been. The powerful reaction from CNN's Van Jones hit that home. ""Every day you're waking up and you're getting these tweets and you just don't know, and you are going to the store and the people who were once afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier to you." That got me. Trump enabled all of that. In our country, we get a glimpse of it from the likes of Farage, but not from the leader of our country, aside from a few stupid old jokes, not at that scale, and frankly you can barely imagine it. In time we'll look back and be baffled not just at how he was elected but that how normalised his outrageous, ungraceful, rude style of governing became. Pundit Sam Harris described Trump's appeal and strategy as allowing people to feel OK about the worst version of themselves, someone incapable of casting moral judgement on people by default makes them feel fine about being hateful and racist.

I've been in a global echo chamber of like minded happy people today, which has made Twitter fun again (notably, John Niven has been immense). I have made a half hearted attempt to try and think of the opposite point of view. What has Trump done that's been good? Frankly, it's a short list. Taking out the Iranian General, maybe? Standing up to China, possibly? I do hear the cry that he's made a political cause of working people in left behind communities, but he harvested their votes and made them his base without any coherent economic plan, and did so on the premise of trade war with China, almost America's version of our false prospectus of Brexit.

Biden's election is also a headache for the Boris Johnson government, as if they didn't have enough problems. A US trade deal that rides roughshod over the Good Friday agreement won't wash. And if I was an official in the Biden team, the mealy mouthed comments of Dominic Raab, our Foreign Secretary, would push the interests of the UK a little further down the list of priorities. 

At some point quite soon, Biden and Harris will have to make really difficult decisions - the kind of test of character that Presidents have to make. The obvious first one being a proper response that takes COVID-19 seriously.

They'll also be asked to tack left by the Bernie Sanders crowd, and rising stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Congressional Progressive Caucus. The stoked up culture wars will be a further test. I had an immediate taste of it with a tweet about Iraq. But Biden has spent all of his political life negotiating and triangulating, finding a solution, working around the table, not just being righteous. He also has a strong Vice President, possibly the next President, at his side.

Many of us Brits are aware of Biden's shortcomings. Right now I'm very much looking forward to his acceptance speech. I just hope he starts it with - "We're ALRIGHT!" 

credits: illustration by Stanley Chow, punchline by Patrick Maguire.

Warm, welcoming and very, very funny - Matt Forde's Politcally Homeless reviewed

There are some days in your life that stick in your mind for years afterwards.

 

July the 22nd, 2015 is one of them. As was usual back then I hot footed it down to London for an event in Moorgate at the HQ of one of my then clients, but this was different. It wasn't a business do, but a political one, and that was my world that summer. I was pleasantly surprised to be signed into the event by our former babysitter, and good family friend Ciara Hogan, a student at LSE at the time. 

I had a chat to Alison McGovern MP and arranged to meet up, which led to an enduring professional friendship with her husband. I was there with another pal who I'd got closer to over the summer months of the Labour leadership contest and while we were chatting he invited me to his wedding later that year (we're still good mates and he's still married, that's not where this is going). 

The occasion was Tony Blair was speaking. He was trying to get the Labour Party to come to its senses and not elect Jeremy Corbyn. The speech, the interview, the takeaway message was quite brilliant, you might remember it - he said, "if your heart says vote Corbyn, you need a transplant" - but as we all know it was, like most recent political campaigns I've ever been involved in, hopelessly doomed. 

But it was also the first time I saw Matt Forde, who interviewed TB on stage and was everything that day that he's ever been since: warm, welcoming and very, very funny.

I've since seen him do stand up twice live and he just gets better and better, Matt Forde that is, not Tony Blair. You might then have quite rightly guessed that I'm a fan. I've listened to pretty much all of his podcasts and he never ceases to surprise. His interview style is respectful, sharp, but he also invites the subject into a space where they rarely get to go, thus we are treated to rare glimpses of their character and motivations.

Last year, before a gig at The Lowry in Salford, I even managed to interview Matt for a little video I did (and have foolishly deleted) when I was standing in the Euro elections of 2019. I slipped in a podcast joke that he didn't see coming, which was a personal highlight.

He's now got a book out with a title that perfectly sums up my own status, Politically Homeless. 

I devoured it over a weekend, the Saturday of which his team (Nottingham Forest) beat mine (Blackburn Rovers), something to which I was sublimely indifferent to.  

It's more than a memoir, but it tells us a lot about his life. It's not a manifesto for the future, but it's brimming with good ideas. And it's not a handbook for political activists, but the tips are priceless. 

Paul Wright, a lovely bloke who's been selected to contest our local ward for Labour has it on his Christmas list, he told me over Twitter. I'd suggest he read it now. He'll learn not to organise a photocall to clean graffiti off a wall with only Waitrose Evian water to hand; he'll perhaps be comforted that however dysfunctional and fractious Stockport Labour Group is, at least it's not Stoke; and he'll be given a re-affirmation of why Labour activists really, really hate Liberal Democrats (though living round here he knows that already). I'd give Paul my copy but it's signed by Matt and it's going on my political bookshelf next to prized signed tomes by Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Tony Wilson and Andrew Marr. That's how much I liked it.

A few weeks after the Tony Blair event I got to interview someone on that very same stage who had lived an extraordinary life. I remember thinking, how do I get great stories out of a guy who has been played in a Hollywood film by Leonardo di Caprio? I deployed some of Matt's techniques of building a rapport with the audience and realising that sometimes the obvious question everyone is thinking is the best way in.

On top of it all the book is a powerful statement too in favour of the values of the Britain we want to be - warm, welcoming, and funny (have I said that already). So go on, buy it, read it. Whether you're a political anorak like we are, or just want a good laugh, then I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Downtown Den #111 // Michael Taylor in the Downtown Den

I had great pleasure in joining my old friend Frank McKenna in conversation last week. Inevitably, we're having to adapt to all kinds of new event formats during isolation, lockdown and working from home. This was an old fashioned two-way interview, conducted over Zoom.

We covered a lot, spanning the time we've known each other. The state of the regional media, social media, my first novel and the state of fiction, politics, mental health and my job at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Left Out - The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn

There are good friends of mine who can't bear to pick up this excellent book and learn more of the inevitable feuds and mishaps within the inner workings of the Leader of the Opposition's Office (LOTO). It's too raw, said one, who worked in a previous Labour government and would be tipped over the edge. Especially as the consequences of this protracted self-indulgence is a destructive Conservative government. 

Anyone who has followed this blog and my own political commentary will know where I stand on all of this. I never thought Jeremy Corbyn was even a suitable candidate for leader, and evidently, neither did he. I never trusted, or liked, his inner sanctum. Quite why I was right in that sentiment howls out of every interview and source that Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund speak to. And so I look back now and feel there was an inevitability about it all.  

Given we all know how it ends, and that it pretty much confirms every prejudice I had about many of the key people featured in the book, there isn't much that is surprising, but I'll come onto one significant factor shortly.

But though it isn't surprising, it is still shocking. I mean genuinely, gasp inducing, out loud guffawing, jaw dropping, really shocking. There is something on pretty much every page that is worse than anything the writers of the Thick of It could invent. Many other reviewers have picked up on particular standout moments, but mine was the plan to topple Tom Watson just before 2018 conference, a plan that failed because Claudia Webbe was late. Or that Andrew Fisher was upset that Corbyn had a nickname for Seamus Milne, but not him. None of the personalities come out of it particularly well, the accounts of bullying and fawning around the leader are particularly toe curling. 

The whole narrative of the story is built around a number of clumsily enacted catastrophes - internal division, anti-semitism, Labour Live festival, Salisbury, Brexit, parliamentary chicanery and the General Election campaign of 2019. At all points Corbyn's lack of leadership qualities make Labour's dysfunction worse.  All you learn is entirely consistent with the prickly old man we sometimes saw on the news, slamming car doors and demanding of interviewers - "can I finish?"

If behind the scenes at "the Project" resembled a bunch of bickering children, you are left to wonder who the adults were. Diane Abbott seems strangely absent, Len McCluskey lurks around every corner, but one figure emerges as a tragi-hero, John McDonnell. He at least recognises that the left have a moment to make a mark and achieve power, but seems powerless to stop their worst instincts from consuming themselves. I don't actually think there is a great deal between him and his leader on policy issues. It seems amazing to me still that much of the left chose to dig in so damagingly on anti-Semitism. Having put to one side their lifelong opposition to nuclear weapons, Irish republicanism, NATO and nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, it's peculiar that they seemed so militant about this one issue. McDonnell seems to understand the need to triangulate and pick the battles that can be won. It's not "tittle tattle" that caused a serious fracture in the relationships, but a defining characteristic of a politics that wants to stand up for a principle, and one that wants to shape society according to those principles. 

This is a fair, balanced and detailed account that tries to work out what went wrong, from their high watermark of hubris at Glastonbury in 2017 to Keir Starmer thrashing their candidate in the 2020 leadership election. It has a level of introspection that all failed political projects have to subject themselves to, including the one I was briefly involved in that gets a mention, The Independent Group for Change. By overly focusing on the Westminster and LOTO operations and less on the grass roots from where this movement came, it is open to the criticism that it only tells half a story. I don’t think that’s grounds to dismiss this work though, because with leadership comes a deep responsibility to do what you promised. Another history would show how Corbynism inspired hope, then dashed it, across the Labour Party in different local branches and constituency parties, and how that played out on social media. But that would be a different book, albeit one that would still include stories about Claudia Webbe. As John Harris says in his peerless review of this, and another account by someone I don't like, the one group of people that doesn't get a look in, or a hearing, are the voters who were turned off by what was evidently a wholly unappealing rabble.

Postscript: this review by Stephen Bush in the New Statesman is also very good.