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.

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.

Upping my podcast game, an update

I said I wanted to 'up my podcast game' a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, on that theme two recordings I did this month have landed today, rather proving the point that the production, marketing, social and framing of podcasts generally has been through quite the evolution.

First up, two of my hiking friends Mitch and Richard asked me to carry on a conversation that probably started at Kinder Downfall earlier in the year, just as we came out of lockdown one. They have an amazing podcast series about the world of work and it was so good to speak with them.  

Then the Higher Education policy platform and news hub WonkHE invited me on to the WonkHE Show pick through the week's news. Hope you enjoy it.

Regeneration Manchester - 30 years of storytelling by Len Grant

Pic from Len Grant!

This bundle of gloriousness arrived yesterday. It's the new book by Manchester photographer and artist Len Grant, designed by a former collaborator of mine, Alan Ward of Axis Design. With those two involved, it was always going to be quality. But there is a richness and a warmth that has exceeded my expectations.

I attended the launch over the summer, virtually of course, and immediately signed up to crowdfund the printing of it, so got an early subscribers copy with my name listed as a subscriber in the back, alongside lots of friends, and Len signed a personal message too.

This work is so important. Manchester's renewal and regeneration is an ever changing story. There will be other books that concentrate on the architecture, heritage and design. There will be others that take a critical view of the politics of it all. In some ways, the recent TV show Manctopia tried to blend the wider context of housing policy into one narrative, especially where it collided with the real lives of displaced and uprooted people. And featured some real idiots.

Len attempts to do something much better. He's telling the visual and emotional story of a changing city with all its complexities, and trying to do so with the people involved at all levels. Nothing is ever as simplistic as the all powerful "they" doing change to the little people. But the other important thing to bear in mind is that this is like a compilation album of Len's work over 30 years. He has the full range of stories and images representing a changing city to present, but he's also a big part of the story himself.

Len's work has featured in such a huge range of books and exhibitions (and, ahem, magazines) that he's already made his impression on how the cities of Manchester and Salford feel about their new spaces and buildings. I've enjoyed reading and absorbing this remarkable book today, I can heartily recommend it as a perfect present for anyone with an interest in the city, in photography, or just in the stories of how lives and places change.

Published by University of Manchester Press, the book is available here.

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.

University open days - a non-helicopter Dad's take

Lancaster University ducks

So, I’m on another round of University open days at the moment. In so many ways it’s a fascinating sociological experiment; overhearing the snippets of chats between parents, while their self-conscious and slightly embarrassed offspring are weighing up the merits of the ‘student experience’ through a wholly different lens.

I can’t claim it’s an advantage, but I suppose I know what to expect given I’ve volunteered at an undergraduate open day at work, so I’ve seen it all fall into place from different perspectives. Although my job isn’t normally what you’d describe as ‘student facing’ the experiences were particularly helpful. It reminded you of the purpose of the organisation: to educate young people and give them an experience that raised their ambition. That starts with how they are treated at every stage of the way.

My colleagues in student recruitment at Manchester Met are pretty damn good at what they do. I see up close the hard work they put in to the small details that contribute to the open days being successful. Clearly, in such a competitive marketplace for students, these days have all uniformly shown the universities off in the very best light. You see it in the armies of staff volunteers, student helpers, the guest lecturers, advisers, senior leaders from the institutions, and it starts at the train station.

I always tried to speak to the students directly, rather than just to the parents, even if they were doing a lot of the talking. I figured it’s important to engage them in brief conversations, even in that fleeting moment, about what they wanted and what they thought of the experience. They’re on a journey towards independence  away from the influences of home, the presence of the parents is supportive, yet the dynamic has the potential to be fraught with tension and awkwardness. The only exception I made to my golden rule of ‘students first’ was when I was confronted by a musical hero, with his daughter. After a brief chat about a forthcoming festival, he gave me a look that very visibly reminded me why he was there.

As a large family, we’ve also got two other ‘advantages’. One is we’ve done it before; though I went to loads of open days with Joe, he ended up picking the one that he went to on his own and of his own volition, which rather proves the previous point. We also have the contrast between the parental experience of one of our sons passing into the care of the British Army. They presented a very realistic though very reassuring picture of military life, and the flow of information on his progress has been rather more thorough than any university would provide.

In this phase of visits we’ve also been looking at the University I went to 30 odd years ago, the University of Manchester (or down the road, as we call it) and the one a couple of miles from where I grew up, Lancaster University.

That has managed to lay a few traps for me. I think I avoided being the Dad who pointed out loudly where my old department and hall of residence was, or told slightly painful anecdotes about what he got up to ‘back in the day’. Though I did say ‘wow’ a couple of times at Lancaster because the campus I used to visit from time to time is so much better nowadays. And the ducks are still there.

But I did wince when a parent asked a politics lecturer what the ideological leanings of the department were. Came the reply: “Do you mean are we a bunch of demented Marxist revolutionaries? No.”

My son Matt isn’t being drawn on preferences just yet. It’s a complex changing picture, with many moving parts. He’s taking it all in, and I’m trying not to lead the witness.

Abduls - a lament

Intellectual capital with Professor Westwood

When Abduls re-opened in 2017 with comfortable furniture, a sharp new brand and the logo - "same passion, new generation", I could barely contain my glee.

Professor Andy Westwood and I were practically rattling at the door for the grand opening demanding our chicken tikka on a naan with extra chillis and chutney. When we emerged for air, barely four minutes later, we shared our own particularly fond memories from our student days three full decades ago. I think his even involved a date with a woman he was particularly keen on. It was a story with a happy ending - a marriage and two kids. I can't trump that with my recollection of ordering 8 kebabs to take home, with Dave Knights eating the first one at the counter before we transported the others home for the rest.

Last year, when we were entertaining a group of big hitters from King's College London there was only one place we were going to take them. I think we even discussed the title of Dr Jon Davis' new book over an Abduls - in that kind of fiery environment it was always going to be Heroes or Villains, the Blair Government Reconsidered, frankly.

Dr Jon Davis, big hitter from King's

When my pal Jonathan Reynolds MP (pictured, below) comes to this part of town on important parliamentary and party business, the work can be demanding and requiring of refuelling. The solution is often Abduls. It was in this very place that he and Chuka Umunna plotted their futures in politics, I believe.

Transacting important MP business

When our University hired visiting professor Ashwin Kumar, one of the benefits of joining us, I explained, was a Tuesday evening trip to Abduls with Andy Westwood. To discuss political dynamics, obviously.

I can't face the disappointment that the branch at All Saints has closed and has no plans to re-open. It is the cradle of our modern civilisation, the wellspring for co-operation and new ideas.

We are in need of a new location. These are times of genuine crisis.

Be the editors of our own stories - notes for my talk at Alliance MBS today

I started out in journalism as I’ve carried on – unconventional, unorthodox and unprepared. But I was always convinced that what I was doing had a valid purpose.

I was talking to my friend Paul Unger about this the other day; business reporting comes with such a responsibility to the community you are part of. It also gives you such a solid grounding in the basics. Checking, summarising, thinking strategically, listening, understanding and checking again. You have to learn how to cut through the marketing hype of slick PR operations to get the real message. Paul reflected on how Giles Barrie built a powerful brand and platform at Property Week, that in turn spawned a cohort of top drawer media professionals working today. My generation in the media and broadcast press of the 1990s have also gone on to great things too, with the benefit of that firm foundation.

My first editor in the business press was a guy called John McCrone who was pretty tough on me. He had a reputation for having buried a company up to its neck in a computer leasing scandal. He held me to a high standard and marked my work ruthlessly, pushed me to ask the difficult questions and helped me more than I probably ever thanked him for.

You have to develop an empathy for the sector you cover, in turn you risk the inevitable accusation that you have ‘gone native’ and got too close to the people you are supposed to be covering. I’ve definitely done that. But then I just like smart people and can’t help but be impressed by them and their achievements.

In our heyday at Insider and at Television Week in the 1990s we made choices to get closer to our readers by ostracising, humiliating and hounding those who didn’t play by the rules. We were a player in that world, especially when we had a role in building up chancers and crooks as a result of our own previous naiveté.

I used to do this talk to journalism students at UCLAN about why the business press was a good route to a career. One of the attributes you’d pick up was versatility. Writing for different formats, producing events, analysing new sectors. The way things have shaped up since have multiplied that phenomena. But the one constant is knowing what to say, remain trusted by the people you need to be trusted by, and knowing when to say it.

I think of all of this as I browse through the regional media market now – Paul’s brand Place North West and the media site Prolific North are ambitious deep dives into the vertical sectors; they have events as well as streams of content.  The business news factories keep churning it out; the race to cut and paste. I get all of them daily and sometimes can’t distinguish whether I got a story from one or the other. But no media organisation can afford to ever be behind and irrelevant. As long as the print products can generate an advertising income no owner will cut off a revenue stream and take their chances on a digital market that’s been restructured to suit Google and Facebook.

A lack of relevance, a lack of reach and diminution of quality has created a greater drive towards creating your own content channels. Cut out the middleman. It’s created a situation here where our Met Magazine, produced at Manchester Metropolitan University, to a very high standard, is the method by which we get out key messages for local stakeholders.     

Sure, we do plenty of media work, our press office are great at it. This week we had ITV interviewing Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones on campus, and last year David Beckham came to visit. Our experts, despite what Michael Gove said, are still in demand and trusted. We also actively work with other regional players to make our contribution effective.

When I was asked to do a talk at Alliance MBS today on media and messaging, especially the impact of social media, part of me thought it would be a masterclass. A modern PR toolkit for engagement with press and media, star columnists, and influencers. Such is the level of my cynicism now, it would simply include:

• 1.     Have a great back story – childhood trauma
• 2.     Create a business in the tech sector, no need to be specific
• 3.     Have great offices in the city centre
• 4.     Social media presence – lots of hashtags #entrepreneur
• 5.     Offer to speak at conferences
• 6.     Become a mentor to young people - at a university, or an incubator
• 7.     Enter all the awards
• 8.     Get listed in the Insider 42 Under 42, and the BusinessCloud 35 under 35
• 9.     Speak out about charitable causes – homelessness is favourite at the moment, but it was sick white kids
• 10.  Hang out with Andy Burnham

And that, in many ways, highlights the problem.

Two tweets in the last week also showed to painful effect what is going on under the noses of the media that they are able to react to at best, but have actively encouraged at worst. Rachel Thompson from Manchester Digital admirably called out the companies around the city going into administration then opening up around the corner as if nothing happened, leaving creditors high and dry. The other was a tweet calling out a horrendous experience at an interview. But the explosion of interest in the issue here proved it goes way beyond the odd isolated incident. The media, business clubs, events organisers and social media have all been culpable in creating many of the characters responsible; not least promoting the cult of the individual, especially the alpha male, the all powerful corporate dictator, who has taken all the wrong lessons from Steve Jobs.

It comes back to another painful truth about entry into the media profession, as well as resources. So many new emerging journalists want the glory, the status, the attention. I know this. I enjoyed it all too. They want to be a face, a name. Helen Lewis of the New Statesman was commenting recently that graduates want to be columnists, like Owen Jones or Katie Hopkins, neither of whom I rate, by the way. But to have that right, it isn’t good enough to be a voice, loud, strident, opinionated, you have to be able to do the journalism. I’ve been interviewed by Jones and he was dreadful. He was a good speaker at a left wing rally, but he’s no researcher and certainly no kind of journalist.

The other modern new phenomena that I just don't get are so-called 'influencers'. I sat through a presentation recently on how they came about, who they were and how much money they make. I was staggered. We had a descriptor for them back in the day – the corrupt ones. Paying for a positive review is just bullshit frankly. And if you want to see where it ends up – watch the Fyre documentary on Netflix. A party organised by the worst people in the world for people who actually want to be like them. 

I keep hearing that regional journalism is dead. I tell you this, Jess Middleton-Pugh and Jennifer Williams are two of the best we've ever seen. Jess has built a powerful community around property and place making. Jen covers politics and social affairs for the MEN and is the best political journalist working in Britain today. Some are better known, some have better access. But none are as feared and respected like she is by those she covers.

But they’ve both made a choice – they have the same number of hours in the day as every other journalist, they hold truth to power. And yet, let's not forget, there are so many resources that journalists have available now that weren’t around when I started out.

The internet, for a start. Freedom of Information requests. The justice system can be just as impenetrable, but the Companies House website enables you to rely on more than your gut. Open source journalism and data scraping has been the driver behind Bellingcat; a new model of political gossip has created Guido Fawkes, poisonous as it sometimes is. Locally, a few have tried things, but they’re at the margins.

I’m heartened by the CIJ, the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths in London and by a young journalist called Jem Collins who has created Journo Sources. These tools, this spirit for collaboration makes me a little less worried about the future.

And the other incredible resource is access. Social media has flattened the hierarchies, it has created new ones, granted, but it has made the powerful more visible and more fallible. They can’t hide, they don’t hide. More people have that platform and frankly they are easier to track down and enter into dialogue.

My hunch is that we’ve created a vacuum here. A post-truth fake news cavern that is being filled up with a mixture of ice and shit. One melting, to be forgotten, and the other growing and creating a stink that threatens to choke us all.

That painfully needy streak I’ve always had manifested itself in me being flattered and impressed by attention. But how many of you genuinely have a regular dialogue with a journalist? Good journalists talk to people, they get stuff explained to them, tell their stories, share, explain, effectively get the experts to do a lot of the legwork. Same rules apply now. Don't look to the editor, be the editor, come together, share, support, and source. It’s a community endeavour. If we as a community created these monsters like your dodgy company flippers, like the idiot bullying business owner, then we have it within ourselves to do something about this.

I don’t know what the answers are. I can’t claim to know where this will go. But I can say with some certainty that if we don’t pull our fingers out and think very seriously about what we are doing, then we’ll have no-one left to cry to.

Sir Charles Dunstone at Alliance MBS - why Apple is reaching sunset, ethics and Five Guys

One of Britain's leading entrepreneurs was in town last night. Sir Charles Dunstone captivated an audience of business school students with his well told story of risk taking and innovation. Here are ten things I learnt from Charles' talk.

He's looking very well - I interviewed him at the University of Liverpool in 2012, here, and I have to say he's dropped a lot weight and is looking trim.

He owns Five Guys - I should have known, but possibly forgot, that he owns half of Five Guys in the UK. I love Five Guys. I think the food is a real treat, delicious customised burgers and probably the best fries there are. I don't disagree when Charles described it as an amazing business, even though it's remarkably simple. I was taken with his summary of the business model - it's bright, the music is too loud to be comfortable, they don't sell coffee and they don't have wifi. Basically you eat up and leave. One is opening near work soon, I need to take a lead from Charles and not go there too much.

Six guys - the perfect business has six people in it. For every employee you then add the productivity of the others goes down.

Avoid going public - it shouldn't be an ambition and it caused him great headaches having to deal with the City and the institutional shareholders.

He doesn't like HR - he described it as a poison. All good businesses don't have it he says. His reasoning is that it confuses people at work about who they work for and it confuses managers about their relationship with the people who work for them. "It grows like a tapeworm inside you," he said.

He won't come to your leaving do - he's never been to any leaving do and has never had one for himself. When he's done, he's done, and so should you be.

The most common mistake in business -  you set up, get going, realise you don't know what you're doing, so you hire experts who you assume know what they're doing and they screw your business up. He used an example of that going spectacularly badly at Carphone Warehouse when a group of supermarket buyers came in and started treating Nokia and Vodafone in the way they used to bully strawberry farmers.

Big companies kill innovation - he hated being chair of Dixons Carphone Warehouse when it got so big. 48,000 people is too many people and the edge has gone, he said. People spend so much time working to avoid doing something wrong that they never have the time to do something right. Every successful internet business was a recent start-up. That's where innovation is coming from, nothing new and revolutionary has emerged from a big company.

Apple is heading for the sunset.  - I asked him what insights he had of Apple, and whether they were the exception to the rule about big companies losing their agility. He answered by pointing out that they haven't come up with a revolutionary new product since Steve Jobs died. They are squeezing every last drop out of their hardware business. Tim Cook is the Steve Balmer of Apple, a product marketing guy, not an innovator.

Ethics is ever more important in business - he drew a diagram and asked us to imagine a rectangle, inside that is everything that's legal to do in business. Inside that is a circle inside which is everything that is ethical. Between the two are things like drug companies selling opiods. It's legal, but they shouldn't do it. I had the fashion industry in my mind at the time and the environmental damage cheap cotton is having. And how our children's clothing is so cheap because other people's children are making it in Bangladesh, and no-one seems to care. That was the question I didn't ask. 

This was part of the Entrepreneur series produced by the Manchester Enterprise Centre at the University of Manchester and supported by A2E. Vikas Shah was asking the questions and elegantly leading the Q&A. Next event is with Wayne Hemingway on Tuesday the 27th of November at the Alliance Manchester Business School. 

My mates - the 245 crew - #26

Jazz hands outside the Student Union

The weekend just gone has been epic. 30 years after we graduated from the University of Manchester the housemates from 245 Upper Brook Street got together. It took a bit of planning, not least because of the 7 of us who got our degrees in 1988, three live abroad; France, Hong Kong and New York, with one in Hertfordshire, one in London, another in Lancashire, while I'm the only one who's returned to Manchester.

What was so good, so life affirming and so warm about the time we all spent together this weekend was the ease. I felt comfortable, loved and relaxed in the company of guys who've been a part of my life since 1985. We pretty successfully stayed in touch through the 90s - weddings, a funeral, baptisms and a social whirl. The last decade has  - with some more than others - been trickier; we managed to get four of us together for John's 50th and five at Chris's wedding in 2016. But this weekend we hit six, which was good going. 

I just loved the stories, the reflections, not all of it necessarily good stuff. There was also something else. We've all taken different paths, but what's amazing is the similarity on how we've sorted the priorities of life. Our families, loved ones and friends at the centre. I love how everyone does something for other people, volunteering and fundraising for our personal passions. And not sweating over the small stuff.

So, thanks so much for making the effort - Dave Knights, John Dixon, Chris Lodge, Dave Crossen, Mark Sibley and hope we can get you on the next one, Adrian Carr. I love you all. Friends for life.

So, I thought I'd add them all to the my mate series on this blog, where I randomly shuffle my address book and talk about my friends, how we met and what I like about them.

My eldest son Joe and his girlfriend Jess joined us for a brief drink on Saturday. He's a first year studying in this great city, while the son of another mate of ours was with us too. If they can come through their time here with friendships like these then I'll be very proud and very happy for them.

Clubbing, football and mates - two nostalgic memoirs

If you'd asked me 25 years ago what I enjoyed the most about life I'd probably have said clubbing and playing football. Sadly, now I do neither.

Over summer I read James Brown's Above Head Height, a memoir based around his footballing life, mostly playing five-a-side. As he's roughly my age and hung around various overlapping media circles, I'd be amazed that we didn't play with some of the same people at some point in the 1990s. I played for a Sunday team called Shepherds Tuesdays, as well as the Blackburn Rovers London Branch and was a regular in various 5, 8, 9 a-sides all around London. His observations are familiar and amusing, his namedropping impressive. His playing with Woody Harrelson definitely trumps my Neil Arthur from Blancmange.

That all said, I find James a far more interesting character than just as a park footballer. I bought a fanzine off him at Leeds Poly in 1982 (Attack on Bzag) and was inspired to produce my own. I've followed his journalism ever since, NME, Loaded, GQ, Jack and Sabotage Times, which I occasionally write for.
Others have told the story of Loaded magazine and the lad mag culture of the era, and he tip-toes around it. But I think he's found an angle with the football, a social arena that brings disparate men together in regular games of football that outlast marriages. It's full of fond recollections, many stemming from the death of one of his footballing pals, who he realised he knew very little about.

I'd have been quite interested in James Brown taking on a memoir similar to the terrain of Dave Haslam's delightful tome Sonic Youth Slept on my Floor. Dave is someone else I've known about for 30 years through his Djing and his writing, but have actually got to know him more recently. His book takes us from Birmingham, where he was born, to Manchester, where music plays a central role. His stories are reflective, rather than riotous. Melancholic, as opposed to embittered score settling. I like his recollections of his complicated relationships which never sound nasty, but lay out home truths. The fall out with Tony Wilson sounds achingly familiar to anyone who actually worked with him, and it's sad that they never reconciled before Tony died in 2007. There's a lesson there, for sure.

I'm probably dwelling on this kind of retrospective as the old crew are getting back together this weekend. It's more than 30 years since we graduated, 7 of us sharing 245 Upper Brook Street over two years, though one left to tour Europe with Sonic Youth and we took on a squatter. We all have memories of Manchester, though of course I've been drawn back, even showing the daughter of one of our number around our old stomping ground, while my eldest son is also enrolled nearby. Obviously I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone, but I very much doubt we'll be playing five-a-side, or even clubbing for that matter. Afterall, we have our memories for that.

My mate #24 Janine Watson

Janine (in green) at her retirement do last from the UoM Alumni Board

I was honoured to give a citation to my friend Janine Watson last night as she stepped down as chair of the University of Manchester Alumni Board, which I have been on for the last 5 years. So, I thought I'd add it to the "my mate" series on this blog, where I talk about my friends, how we met and what I like about them. What follows is the speech with all the libels taken out.

Janine and I first knew each other in our poacher and gamekeeper roles. She the softly spoken Alastair Campbell of Manchester Town Hall, protecting her estate. Me, the editor, the occasional hunter. I well remember a whispering phone call from Janine to follow up about something that Sir Howard Bernstein wasn’t happy about that had been written in Insider, the magazine I edited. But it was an early glimpse of her quiet steel in how she delivered the words that turned your blood to ice - "Howard isn't happy".  It's also one of the hallmarks of how professional she was that we managed not to fall out and all emerge with dignity intact and relations remained strong. We always stayed good professional friends, especially so when she moved to Stockport Borough Council as assistant chief executive and her advice was always wise, especially when I got involved in the bear pit of local politics.

So I was particularly delighted when Janine asked me to apply to join the board of the University of Manchester Alumni Association, when she was taking over from our mutual friend Andy Spinoza.

In all that time over the last 5 years Janine has been mindful that the scope of the work of the board is to give strategic advice and to provide support and ideas to the Alumni and Development Office, and of course awarding travel bursaries to students. Part of the skill of any board chair is to make the best use of the rest of the board members, something Janine has become particularly skilled at. One day she called me with an invitation to support her on a particularly important piece of work. Given the build up and the hushed way she was briefing me on this special assignment I was practically packing my sunglasses for, the very least, a trip to host the Singapore Alumni reception, maybe even New York. No, it was to join her as part of a task and finish group to scrutinise an important piece of drafting on the new constitution.

But it is also a sure sign that Janine has been a fantastic chair because she also gets stuck in on important work like this herself and makes it a pleasure, as much as a constitutional drafting can be enjoyable.

In fact, there was probably only one job where she has consistently exercised chair’s privilege. Namely, any occasion where the job involved formally thanking and introducing Professor Brian Cox!

All of us do these voluntary roles because we care and we want to make a positive difference. I think we can agree Janine has done that, but more so that she's done it with great warmth and love. Keeping it going over and again is the real skill. But as a board we are more global, more connected, more digital than ever. We are working smarter and have held board meetings in London, to be closer to the wider network, though still not in Singapore! All meetings are now held using video conferencing with useful inputs from around the world, and we are all kept up to date on important events and ways we can support Kate White, Claire Kilner and all in the Alumni and Development offices. Both of us feel deeply that the University of Manchester transformed our lives. To serve on a board together like this and to turn business contacts into firm friends is a mark of how that experience persists to this day.

Ambassador Matthew Barzun reminded me why I love Vital Topics at Alliance MBS

So, you're stuck at Chicago Airport in the snow. You're desperate to get to New York, but all the flights have been cancelled. If your ticket is with a mainstream airline the staff will be firm, polite, courteous and honest. They'll say, there simply aren't any flights, it's a real shame, we're really sorry and as soon as can we'll make it right.

A certain budget airline, on the other hand, has a different approach. Their staff would hold up a bit of paper and say, 'look, they've cancelled all the flights, but we're going to get you home'.

The first airline is Jeb Bush and Hilary Clinton (and arguably the Remain campaign). The second is what Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders (and Vote Leave) have done. Basically, they've placed themselves outside of the problems in front of the electorate, but said they'll sort it.

That was a taste of the colour, verve and wisdom of the US Ambassador Matthew Barzun on Wednesday night at Alliance Manchester Business School. He was everything you'd expect a speaker at a Vital Topics lecture to be - provocative, original and compelling. In fact I can only think of one that has left me disappointed and that was Lord Digby Jones. I like the stridently and brazen intellectual aspiration. I love the unspoken verbal jousting between the guests asking questions (me included). But most all I just love that understanding that there are forces in the world that are seeking to make things better, fairer, flatter and more interesting. It reaffirms the view that progress doesn't aways - rarely ever - comes from government, but from the slightly haphazard way in which business implements good ideas born in universities. Sure you need good governments to convene, direct and bring order, but none of his will stop because we've got a buffoon as Foreign Secretary and there's going to be an even bigger one in the White House.

Barzun drew some great discussion points on networked businesses and hierarchies. Reminding us that the forces at work need not always be the ones of regression.

These are dark times indeed. Sometimes it really does feel as if the lights are going out everywhere, but sometimes you just need reminding that we will overcome. And it feels better that there still are people prepared to take ownership of the challenges. Because eventually the madness will end. Things can be made better and I fondly hope that we'll be hearing more from a laid back and funny business guy who tweeted us back the next day to say how moved he was to be gifted with a vinyl copy of A Certain Ratio live in Groningen, which includes an epic long version of the demanding Winter Hill. Like all good climbs, like even the most difficult journeys, it will be worth it.

Why challenge is so important in everything you do

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of challenge this week. I've had an induction for a new board I'm joining where constructive questioning and challenging of executive directors is not only encouraged but actively expected. This hasn't always been the case in cultures where I've worked before.

In any walk of life, it must be impossible to achieve anything if you have to make all the decisions yourself, but are then surrounded by "yes men" who tell you what you want to hear. New ideas and new thinking on any subject can help to refresh decision making and bring a confidence to any organisation.

Tristram Hunt first floated the idea of "algorithm politics" at the debate I held in September on the new politics. You can watch a video of his speech here.

He continued the theme in a talk at the University of Sheffield last week. "Google’s skill at offering you what it knows you like is now directing you towards what you want to hear, from people like you."

We have algorithms driving Facebook and Twitter that point us towards more and more people we agree with and like. We are herded towards those with whom we agree. This fuels a cycle of validation.

Jeremy Corbyn has created the veneer of being inclusive with his parliamentary party because he has no choice. The talent pool is so shallow on the left he's had to give jobs to poor calibre ranters like Richard Burgon and Diane Abbott, but is still forced to work with whoever will serve. In his own team he is less pluralistic, Seamus Milne is the latest appointee, but others in his ranks like Simon Fletcher and Andrew Fisher are brutal faction fighters who are there to consolidate, validate and enforce. Not to challenge. That's not on the agenda.

Flesh on the bones of history

I started this week as I started last with an evening at the Manchester Literature Festival listening to authors I've heard of, but never read anything by. Admittedly, they are both Labour grandees, but Robert Harris and Melvyn Bragg have both written recent works that attempt to put flesh on the bones of history. Harris by completing his Roman trilogy and Bragg with a novel about the Peasants revolt of 1381.

I haven't truly embraced the spirit of historical fiction (or Game of Thrones, yet) but it strikes me that we apply much of our own interpretations of history through the lens of modern life and morality. Melvyn Bragg was asked how on earth he can construct a character based on how someone will think and feel 750 years ago. But he has, and wasn't this the very basis of our greatest ever historical fiction writer, William Shakespeare?

Chinese state visit 

So Manchester is receiving the Chinese leader today, which I'm genuinely pleased about. But it comes at a time when the strains of globalisation and fetishisation of the Chinese success story are being felt, especially on Teeside. The social costs of a loss of our steel industry and the technical weaknesses to our infrastructure from inferior product are high prices to pay.

It's also important that as we respect the culture and history of our visitors we don't forget our own traditions too. Protest, mutuality, respect and democracy. There will be protests against the human rights record of the Chinese government, rightly, I just hope it can be done with dignity and without spitting and rape threats.

The nuclear question

I genuinely haven't made up my mind about nuclear power. Next week we're hosting a debate as part of the Science Festival  which might help. Tickets have been shifting fairly briskly and we're close to a sell out with just a week to go.

A few years ago, when I was pondering what to do next, I became very excited by the possibilities of curiosity and debate. Bringing people together to explore new ideas and bring original thinkers to a stage to lead a sharing of knowledge and query.

It was on a wet night in August 2011 listening to Tristram Hunt telling a packed audience at the People's History Museum about Peterloo that the idea that is now Discuss started to form. I was also excited by some of the libertarian free thinking displayed by an author called Douglas Carswell, who challenged conventions on politics and community organisation.

I hope we've been true to that mission and I hope we have been able to encourage more critical thinking. Now that is an idea worth fighting for.

What doing Sociology at Manchester REALLY taught me

Vikas Shah, Nancy Rothwell and Andre Geim

One of the reasons we set up Discuss was a frustration with playing it safe. So many events and discussions, even those purporting to be "great debates" tended to lack danger, jeopardy and a firm point of view. A diverse panel of people would gravitate around a mushy consensus. Often best summed up as "I agree with Howard."

We try and find the fault line. We try and root out the outriders, dissenters and free thinkers. It's one of the reasons I wanted Douglas Carswell to join our debate on politics last week, a task to which he really rose to.

Our next Discuss debate will feature Catriona Watson, who is part of a group of Manchester University undergraduates who set about challenging the economics syllabus and teaching methods at the university in response to the financial crash, demanding that they be ‘seriously rethought’. Their challenge is that, despite the Financial Crisis, students are still routinely taught that only one form of economics is ‘scientific’ and ‘correct’. Their aim is to build a national Post-Crash Economics movement, and students at Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Sheffield have started similar societies.

This brings me to the whole challenge of critical thinking and how innovation and invention is encouraged in a spirit of dissent and debate.

I've been involved in two absorbing events this week where this has loomed large.

One of Manchester's orthodoxies is that Graphene Valley will be our saviour. Sir Andre Geim (above), the Nobel Prize winning scientist, scoffed at such talk on Tuesday night in Spinningfields at an event my friend Vikas Shah curated. "There is no aluminium valley, no polymer valley. Silicon Valley is about software, not silicon." He told a story of how on a boat trip watching dolphins he experienced a magical moment. These magnificent creatures seemed to be communicating with the humans on the boat. Then, a little girl piped up "can we eat them?". This is what the rush to define and commercialise Graphene feels like, he said.

I was singled out by Vikas to contribute to a discussion with this Nobel Prize winning scientist and the president of our University, Dame Nancy Rothwell (also above) about what the Manchester method is and what it gave me. There is an absurdity that a 1980's undergraduate sociology experience can exist on the same moral and intellectual plane as what these two are doing, but humbly I offered "a rejection of dogma, a respect for the other point of view and a visceral suspicion of data." That answer, and the slightly better one I could have given, have been on my mind all week.

At a conference I ran on Thursday for eLucid we assembled a sparkling array of companies (Samsung, Bayer, GSK and our NHS) who were generous enough to share ideas on how wastage in how medicine is dispensed can be eradicated. It was a fascinating journey into health innovation. As Rowena Burns said in opening the event, "in Manchester we collaborate as a matter of habit, it is so deeply embedded in how we work." At first I thought this seemed to contradict what we'd spoken about on Tuesday, but it doesn't. It reinforces it. It also backs up my earlier view about resilience, toughness, generosity and a strong sense of mission and purpose. Never playing it safe, but challenging orthodoxies. Elsewhere, I'm researching the challenges of family businesses for a project. How does a professional chief executive running a family owned business make decisions that jar with the wealth preserving instincts of the family office? Is it easier or harder? How do families with different aspirations - preservation or innovation? - require outside help to navigate insurmountable internecine conflicts? I have a hit list of families I want to speak to, but I'm sure there are more - please get in touch if you'd like to suggest anyone who'll be willing to share a view.

As I've been absorbed in these fascinating business issues national Westminster politics seems to be something that goes on somewhere else. These challenges seem entirely unconnected to whatever it is that will be troubling the Labour leader before his big speech. But I find myself seeing the deeper importance of how a large membership of a party connects locally and provides that challenge. I remain convinced that organising, empowering and convening are the key to survival as any kind of meaningful presence in public life. On Monday we selected a candidate to contest one of our target wards in next year's council election who has excited me with a vision to just that and for the first time in months I feel upbeat at the possibilities of what can be achieved. I'm not afraid to say what I think about the disaster of the leadership, but it gives us a chance to reconnect with our purpose.

I also wrote a piece this week for Progress, my neck of the Labour woods, on the plight of the Liberal Democrats. How their resilience at local level could yet be their existential saviour, but how that lack of a clear moral compass will end up hastening their demise, as evidenced here in Stockport. In summary: "Local government reform and budgeting is hard enough in an age of austerity but it is this lack of a political ‘true north’ that has resulted in job cuts, poor service delivery and no coherent vision for Stockport’s ailing town centre or its profound transport needs. It remains the only borough in the Greater Manchester conurbation to border the City of Manchester and yet be unconnected to the successful Metrolink tram network."

Finally, I was reviewing the newspapers on BBC Radio Manchester on Monday morning. The producer was fairly adamant that there could be no discussion of the allegations made about David Cameron on the front page of the Daily Mail by Lord Ashcroft. We skirted around it, I tried not to ham it up. But aside from mentioning that this was a story of vengeance by a man scorned, and taking it with the barrel full of salt required, it all brought to mind the pompous rock ballad of Meatloaf - I would do anything for love, but I won't do THAT. This week, ladies and gentlemen, I think we finally discovered what THAT is.

Why I'm backing Peter Mandelson to be Chancellor

There's another election campaign underway, but it's relatively low key.

The position of Chancellor of the University of Manchester has attracted three strong nominations from poet Lemm Sissay, Sir Mark Elder of the Halle orchestra and Peter Mandelson.

As I sit on the General Assembly and am an Alumni board member I've been involved in several discussions for some time about the role of Chancellor and the process of electing a replacement for the excellent Tom Bloxham.

I have a good grasp of what the University needs.

This is nothing to do with the Labour Party, by the way.

But this is everything to do with where Manchester is going, where the University faces challenges and this is why I'm supporting Peter Mandelson.

I was concerned that some of the names being encouraged to stand were either too frivolous or too academically obscure. Let's be clear, none of the three candidates fit into that bracket. I am really pleased that there is such a strong field.

Manchester is a progressive institution with great ambitions. While the role of Chancellor is ceremonial, it is also ambassadorial and totemic. Anna Ford and Tom Bloxham did an excellent job doing just that. The University now needs to direct every resource at its disposal towards raising Manchester's name internationally and commercially.

That Peter is an international statesman of some standing is without doubt. He was a first rate EU Commissioner, his industrial activism as a Trade Minister saw him at his very best. To attract the attention of someone of such calibre is in itself a great credit to the University of Manchester.

Peter came to talk to a group of us back in March. We asked him the most obvious question of all  - why are you interested in Manchester now? His humility and grace rather impressed us. He told the story of his enthusiasm for what the Greater Manchester city region has achieved and his admiration of what Nancy Rothwell wants to do for the University and to build its links with the modern world.

He was also refreshingly candid and open about this phase of his life and how the university will fit well with his range of engagements.

A powerful ally, a strategic brain and access to an incredible network. What's not to love?

Jeanette Winterson's Foundation Lecture at the University of Manchester: From Gradgrind to Graphene

I am amazed that writer Jeanette Winterson's Foundation Day Lecture at the University of Manchester hasn't been more widely reported. It was a powerful tour of the University's radical progressive traditions - from Gradgrind to Graphene - and at times an angry call to arms to resist austerity and the forces of conservatism.

It was also a eulogy to the intellectual traditions of the city that didn't mention football or any of that music that so many pretended to like in the 90s. Maybe that's why it merited so little coverage.

As soon as there's a link to a transcript, or a more detailed report, I'll add it. In the meantime above is a delightful video which introduced her lecture. Featuring a range of voices from Brian Cox to Michael Wood and Shami Chakrabarti and touches on some of the ideas and ambitions of this fine institution.

It was another reminder of how fortunate I was to have had the opportunity to attend the University in the 1980s when I got a grant to do so. It was a transformative period of my life and it's why I am so proud to give a little back by serving as a member of the Alumni Board and sitting on the General Assembly.