So where are we going to build all the houses?

Launching the IPPR North report at Manchester Met School of Art

One of the most important debates we've ever had in Greater Manchester is about to get going. Where are we going to build all the new homes the city region needs to grow?

The newspaper coverage of a very thoughtful IPPR North report (of which I chaired the launch today) came down to the one issue guaranteed to get middle England foaming at the mouth - the Green Belt.

The Greater Manchester plan for this is now out for consultation on the ambitious plan to build 225,000 homes in the next 20 years, 20,000 of them in the Borough of Stockport. Only so much of this can be taken up with brownfield sites and creative high density building in district centres and around transport hubs. So this will mean Stockport giving up 10 per cent of its Green Belt to green light schemes in High Lane and Woodford for 4000 and 2400 units around the route of the new Airport relief road.

Already I've had leaflets from local politicians - well, our Conservative MP and his Councillors in Marple, asking us to "protect the Green Belt".  There was comment today from Trafford's leader that this intervention is most unwelcome and clearly disappointing to him. Political pressure on Labour council leaders in Bury and Stockport to resist the Green Belt erosion will also be immense. And so it should be, as it's actually an existential question for where we live.


Taking it to a Greater Manchester level is a decent start. It recognises meaningful economic geographies and appreciates the flows of people to where they work, from where they might want to live. A Greater Manchester planning system can then take into account housebuilding around services and infrastructure and not the lag that responds to these when they reach breaking point and gridlock.

There is a desperate need for new houses to be built in this country. The price of land, the price of housing, is terrifying. There is a market failure that requires state intervention, a boosting of the institutional private rented sector and a role for the imaginative co-operation demonstrated by forward thinking and resourceful leaders in the social housing sector.

The demand for housing - fuelled by the fact we live longer, more people live alone and we absorb more immigrants to this country than we lose expats - has rendered the old planning system not fit for purpose. So many glitches in the system mitigate against a mature and sensible response, one that is long term and actually involves some actual, er, planning.

Links:
The Greater Manchester Spatial Framework consultation
IPPR North report - Closer to Home
Place North West commentary on this
Jonathan Reynolds MP on this
My Policy at Manchester blog from 2015
Marple Neighbourhood Forum launch

Why I didn't join the 1875 protest

It saddened me yesterday that Rovers fans who quietly trooped out of the Riverside stand on 75 minutes were booed and jeered, just as my lad was when he took his seat at 5:48. It saddened me too that whistles were blown from the 18th minute to the 75th when the protesting fans entered the stadium.

The whole thing is a mess.

I packed a lot into the day to get to the match, including taking in the Northumbria University open day in Newcastle, taking three trains, dropping off one son in Marple and picking up another in order to drive the 80 miles round trip to see the Rovers play Wolves. We held our insolent and defiant Barmy Flag up towards the camera gantry before kick off and there were stickers distributed and displayed that summarised how I feel about the owners. But I chose not to join the 18:75 protest, but to support the team in the way I usually do for the full 90 minutes.

It saddens me every day that these owners remain in control of our football club. It cheers me that there are fans who care enough to want to do something about them (I just wish they could spell and use basic grammar). The coverage in the papers, on BBC Radio FiveLive and Sky, who screened the game live, focused on the protest. There can be no doubt now that we have an unhappy fanbase.

But while I won't attack or condemn those who protested in the way they considered best we can't return to this corrosive and divisive situation again.

I genuinely don't believe the protest affected the outcome of the game. So please don't play that card in the cause of attacking the protestors. But the next stance to highlight this just cause has to be targeted towards the ultimate goal - persuading the Rao family that they should enter talks to exit the business. I don't know how we do that, genuinely. But for those who do have an influence on what the next move is, could you please learn whatever lessons you can from last night and pledge to pursue a course of action that doesn't cause such division again.

The team is playing better than in the gutless and clueless performances at the start of the season. Whether there will be three worse teams in the division by the time we visit Brentford on the 7th day of May is debatable. What other clubs around us seem to have is a strategy to get out of this mess, the courage to change manager, the ability to invest in new players. We just have to hope loanees can stay around and that key players don't get injured. And we need all the support we can muster to get behind the team.

Futureproofing the Northern Powerhouse | How businesses can benefit

Manchester Mayoral candidates The Rt. Hon. Andy Burnham MP and Councillor Sean Anstee outlined their ambitions for the Northern Powerhouse at this special Manchester Metropolitan University Business School event I hosted.


I've said before how important it is that as a city region we get this right. Rightly, this was a very business focused discussion. Productivity, new jobs and global competitiveness were all at the top of the agenda. How you get to support this is built upon education, logistics, and a strong base in financial and professional services. We'll return to this again and again, but I'll just leave it here for now.

Bas Salmon, my greatest teacher, may he rest in peace

Brian "Bas" Salmon was the greatest teacher I ever had. Bar none. A remarkable, kind and eccentric history master at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, I will never forget his methods, nor his wisdom. Especially memorable is a delicious Latin phrase he once chalked on the board - Parlum Taurum Excrementum (speak intelligent bullshit) - which isn't even correct, but then that's probably the point.

He was part of a history department at LRGS that could probably match many universities for sheer brain power, depth of knowledge and certainly what we refer to as "teaching excellence".

All three, Jack Lea, Jock Fidler and Bas Salmon as we knew them, also had wide hinterlands beyond school - either in drama, quiz teams and the church, all were High Anglicans.

All three also influenced me very directly in how I live my life. It was sad then to learn today that Flea and Bas have both recently passed away, but they will have been given great send offs filled with love and affection.

Fidler, who survives the other two, I never liked. He seemed a vain and uptight bully who is widely despised by almost everyone I ever meet who was taught by him. Yet there was always a paradox about him, he gave so much to the school and to the Air Force cadets thing he ran - the Fidler Youth, we called it - and whenever I saw him out of school he held the hand of his wife or his daughters, something that showed an otherwise hidden side of a man capable of such warmth and affection. Having shared a version of this short tribute on the Lancaster Past and Present Facebook page I've had a few people give Fids the benefit of the doubt, which is as it should be.

Bas was the first person who suggested I go to university, or rather he just assumed I would be doing, which had a remarkable affect on me at a time when Fidler had made me feel awful, humiliated and useless. I always burned with a desire to go back and show him he was wrong about me, when in retrospect I now simply regret not telling Bas he was right.

The point of the Marple Leaf blog and the future

The tenth anniversary of The Marple Leaf blog rather passed me by. But it does represent a point to reflect on its future.

When I started out in May 2006 it was before Twitter and Facebook. It was when I had a senior job in journalism and it was an outlet to write about stuff I didn't get to tackle through work.

It has at times been deeply personal and confessional, but equally there are also relationships that I don't talk about at all. I've always quite careful to protect the dignity of my children. More recently, some of them have even insisted I never feature them at all. One is alright about it, as long as it's just about going to the football.

By numbers it still suggests it's worth doing.

501,953 visits in total

6867 visits to the most popular post about the death of Gary Speed and hateful football fans

324 posts tagged football

1067 comments (I didn't allow them for 4 years)

1865 posts over the 10 years

23950 views from the largest number of views from a country I've never been to (Russia)

337 is the record for posts in a single year (2007)

687 is the current leader in page views for the month (why Labour should split)

5 of the top ten posts are about Blackburn Rovers

ZERO is the amount of money I've made through Google Adwords simply not working

Due to the powers of Google Analytics I know this stuff, but it doesn't really steer me towards doing anything more than what interests and inspires me. I suspect it hasn't really served as a shop window for my events work.

It's had a makeover since the early days, a new logo and a few tonal changes. My Twitter name was actually taken from the blog - a diary from my adopted home town of Marple. That meant that it tended to be about football, politics and local stuff. It also started as a bit of a pre-Facebook family diary, in fact the early blogs are very much like what my Facebook is now. 

There have always been a number of subjects that have proved popular drivers of comment and social media interest - Blackburn Rovers, Marple and Labour. The issue that pre-occupies me more than anything now is how the modern civic university connects with the wider public. This blog probably isn't the place for that.

I've had a few long running features which I've not updated for a while - the my mate series, where I randomly profile a friend and talk through our personal history. A couple I barely even know any more, one has moved away and one North West power couple are sadly divorced.

I used to do book reviews as if I was describing it in the time it took to rise 8 floors in a lift. 

I enjoy doing telly reviews, but wonder if this is the best outlet.

I wrote a fictional novel, but didn't extract or attempt creative writing on here.

In April 2015 it was all about the election campaign I fought and ever since has become occasionally bitter and angsty about the state of our politics. Locally, there is going to be an enormous debate about where houses are to be built, once again igniting a question about the future of this community.

I'm not certain what the rules are on Search Engine Optimisation by cross-posting content that appears on, say, the Progress website. Personally, I'd like it all to be here, as I control it. Though I do also link to blogs I like and maintain these as best as I can. 

So, the point of this now is I'm interested in your views as to what I should do next, but that ultimately I'm going to carry on, revive a few features, start a few new ones and continue to do what  I've always tried to do, be honest,  be loyal, be kind. 

Why I love Cold Feet

In a year of a significant birthday, of key rites of passage for my children and of various birthdays, weddings and reunions, Cold Feet is back. And on the Prolific North news website today I note with some delight that it's being recommissioned for a follow up.

I so desperately wanted it to work. It's been a little like seeing a group of old friends again, not real ones, but people I like who I haven't seen for ages. In a marginally parallel but believable universe I used to play seven-a-side football at Parr's Wood with Adam and Pete. I have definitely been registered at conferences at the Midland by Jenn and I still laugh at David's attempt to ply me with favours to win Dealmaker of the Year, while as editor of Insider magazine I instead placed his far more interesting wife Karen in the 42 Under 42.

Cold Feet played a role in luring me back to Manchester in 2000. As my life moved on so too had the city of my student days. Spotting locations and continuity gaffs has always been a minor delight. So too have the excellent musical choices.

Yes, it's really funny at times, but as I've said before, drama in the unlikeliest settings has to have grown from a grain of truth. As a piece of television this series has always been at its best when it's been raw. For me the standout storyline and performance has been John Thompson as the depressed Pete Gifford. We keep coming back to this, don't we?

To be honest, I'd prefer it if Labour split - here are my reasons

Walking last weekend I came up with twelve good reasons not just to leave the Labour Party, but to actively wish a split. I'm not leaving, because of the last point, but many good people are. 

1. It makes me sad and angry
If we were starting from scratch, there is no reason on earth right now why I would join Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. I wouldn't look at it and think - that's what I'd like to be part of, that looks exciting. It doesn't, none of it, all of Labour makes me sad and sometimes angry. So this blog is partly me thinking aloud about why I should stay or go, but it's actually not my decision that matters, but whether others lead in that direction. It's something I think about every day, I wish I didn't. I've walked away before, mainly because membership was incompatible with my work. I could take the easy option and say that as I'm now working in a politically sensitive role I ought to step away, but that's not it.

2. This cult of Jeremy makes me feel uneasy

It is sometimes said that Queen Elizabeth and her entourage must think everywhere in Britain smells of paint, such is the care and preparation invested in sprucing each place she visits. This endless leadership campaign must be like that for supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, bouncing from meetings of the like minded, a world of rallies and demonstrations. It is no surprise to discover a recent opinion poll by YouGov where 80% say they have literally no friends who would vote Tory. It's a kind of politics I utterly abhor, dogma, personality cult worship and a tin ear. Worse still, because the policy programme of the Corbyn project is so light on detail, then people tend to project onto him whatever they want him to stand for.

3. Labour has become the nasty party  I know lovely people, who I count as friends, who are firmly on the left of the party. But the promise of a kinder gentler politics was always a hollow one. To witness the Corbyn supporting mob in action on their medium of choice - social media - is a horror show of intolerance, ill tempered hostility and shallow sloganeering. The use of "vermin" is a horrible term of abuse, whether it is used on a t-shirt, or a placard. I'd never use it about anyone. Yet such is the paranoia and delusion involved now that even the authenticity of a notorious picture of an offensive t-shirt has been questioned - because the two young people who discovered it are "RWBV" themselves. As Philip Collins says in the Times, the Labour membership sees itself as morally superior to the nation that rejects it. Whether the targets are one of Britain's most respected businessmen (Richard Branson), best loved writers (JK Rowling) or anyone in the media who subjects the dear leader or his acolytes to the most basic scrutiny, the result is the same. At the Sky debate, one member of the audience spoke up for Corbyn, saying: "I'm just so angry at what the rest of the Labour party are doing to Jeremy Corbyn. I think they're cowards. They're old Blairites. Everybody hates Tony Blair."

4. Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing
I want to watch the news and feel proud of my team. I want to sit down to Question Time and see my side put a good shift in against the Tories and the SNP and whichever media pundit they pick to play to the gallery. I don't though, I get angry and want to switch off. One after another they line up on TV, and in parliament, to be stripped of any pretense at competence, Emily Thornberry, Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and of course Corbyn himself.

5. This is not a social movement
After the General Election last year I went to a meeting of new party members at a club in Manchester. I tried to find out why people had joined a political party, what they wanted to give, what they expected to contribute and what their motives were. I still don't think I'm any the wiser. Is it like a bowls club taking over a golf club and changing the rules and ethos? Partly. But first and foremost, Labour needs to win elections, that's what it exists for. In order to do that Labour can also become effective by building a network of social activists, something I wrote about in my report from 2015 and in this book. Momentum seems to share this ideal, but are going about it in completely the wrong way. What worries me more than anything though is how many of these new party members will survive contact with the enemy, not the "traitorous Blairite scum", but Tory voters who need to be persuaded and inspired, not shouted down. Owen Jones has clocked this too. Already the kind of seats Labour should be holding in Sheffield and Stockton are lost to the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. Only the turmoil in UKIP will spare Labour further losses.

6. The leadership supports an ideology that is wrong about everything
This, from John McDonnell, shows him welcoming the crisis in capitalism. That's the opposite of what I think. Same on Northern Ireland. Same on the Middle East, same on terrorism. And all those positions are driven by an anti-western hatred. That's not me and that's wholly incompatible with social democratic values too.

7. I wouldn't want a leftist programme, even if it was the path to victory

I subscribe firmly to the guiding principle that what matters is what works, in the words of he who is no longer allowed to be named. It is my burden. I believe in evidence, evaluation and unlike Michael Gove I haven't had enough of experts. And the very reason why every opinion poll has Jeremy Corbyn at rock bottom is precisely because the British people can see what Labour members cannot. It is this, Corbyn is a lightweight, a phoney. He advocates little beyond slogans, about peace and being anti-austerity. But his policy papers, his uncosted policies, are unworthy of serious attention. Most are like a half-baked undergraduate essay; poorly evidenced and based on anecdotal personal experience. His promise of scrapping university tuition fees is, to quote our Chancellor this week - "not an honest promise". I dare not imagine the state of the next crowdsourced election manifesto. It's a way of thinking that fails to take into account the seismic changes in society of technology, wealth, power and the future role of the state.

8. I can't be dishonest
Owen Smith's campaign played the "Labour is doomed with Jeremy Corbyn" card. It's undoubtedly true, but it has utterly soured relations in the party beyond repair. The best we can hope for is an amicable divorce. Afterall, think how those words will look on Tory posters, quoted back at every party member and MP in the thick of an election campaign where Labour activists will have to make a case for Corbyn to lead our country. How can every MP who voted for no confidence in him, if they survive a reselection process, campaign for Jeremy Corbyn to be a plausible prime minister? There will be a charm offensive that will tempt some MPs back, some will do their patriotic duty, because they think it's the right thing to do. But if you do, then you all risk treating the electorate like fools and campaigning for something you know is not in the national interest. This doomed coup and leadership election is grounds for divorce, or as Gordon Lynch optimistically calls for here, an amicable one.

9. They've won and it's the end of the world as we know it

At the Greater Manchester Mayoral hustings I got a sense of the problem for our politics. This was the Labour family. Councillors, activists, election agents, those I didn't know I recognised from those cheerful pictures on social media with the caption - "great response on the Labour doorstep in *insert as appropriate*."
There was no heckling, no chanting of their candidates name. These were committed political operatives who have delivered Labour dominance across most parts of Greater Manchester through hard graft, targeting and community work. When Andrew Russell, the chair, asked the question where the candidates stood on the leadership, there was an audible groan around the room.  For many of these people 'Labour family' means just that. It was a reminder that there is something that is going to blow all of this apart, and yet they are the glue that will actually hold it all together until the bitter end. They/we inhabit a world that is ending. They are tribally loyal to Labour, councillors I know well are angry that the leadership election took place, because it distracted from what they want more than anything, party unity. These people are the best of Labour. The heartbeat of local politics, even in the tightest of circumstances it is primarily Labour councils who have brought verve and innovation to progressive political delivery - service design, collaborative working. Labour MPs too deserve far better than the abuse they get as "traitors". How on earth will they put it back together again?

10. You don't have to pick sides 
I get taken to that place where to leave Labour makes you a Tory, where the aggressive "which side are you on?" question is put. Sometimes I find myself having to take sides, but I can't though. It isn't a binary choice. I see the worst of the Tories in the Grammar School debacle, a comfortable reminder of their narrow priorities and the hollow rhetoric of One Nation Conservatism. And for all the tribalism and power of the Labour brand, and the decency of the Labour family, pre-Corbyn, it is now tragically toxic. Millions are turned off the shallow populism that Corbynism offers. I don't subscribe to the doctrine of my party, right or wrong. The easy answers, the shouty style and coarse sloganeering turns me right off. I also don't want to have to answer for mob behaviour the next time protesters spit in the face of "Tory scum". I've always been a free-thinker, a political magpie, essentially a centrist who can see virtue in many political traditions - even the left of politics.

11. Corbyn has to truly own his defeat
One of the key moments of the last year was the Oldham by-election. Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, ran a tight and focused campaign wholly based on Jim McMahon's character, record and strengths. Imagine for a moment if Chris Williamson, the former MP for Derby, had been selected and campaigned on an overtly pro-Corbyn anti-austerity platform, run by Momentum. I think he would have lost as he did in the General Election and where he forever forfeited the right to call himself an MP, except on Twitter.
Even when Labour is smashed in the polls, there will be elements of the party that will blame the Blairites. Maybe therefore this essential truth will never hit home until the idea is firmly rejected by the British people. I want them to justify to the public the existence of the magical money tree that will pay for a universal basic income, free university education, all drug research done by the NHS, a nationalised railway system, unlimited welfare, a national social housing programme, redundancy payments for defence industry workers and a disbanded army.

12. Paul Mason is right
Former journalist Paul Mason has adopted a tone of "bring it on". He sees this as a war and is in no mood for healing. He wants the old party gone and for the deselections to begin. I am absolutely certain that Corbyn and McDonnell think this too. 

13. So here's the only reason I stay...
Of course there's the devilment of supporting those brave enough to stand and fight. Not to let the left have their way. Why should they? There's also an important need to ensure progressive change in society at a local level is victorious, whether that be Andy Burnham being elected as Greater Manchester Mayor, or our local council building on recent success having so narrowly taken control of Stockport Council in May. I was proud that Richard Leese and Joe Anderson are supporting the Northern Powerhouse Partnership started by George Osborne. There has to be scrutiny of policy nationally, if not from the front bench, then from the back. Take the powerful and forensic stance against grammar schools argued by Liz Kendall last week, then there's the amendments on country by country tax reporting tabled by Caroline Flint. These Labour MPs, leaders and councillors represent the best of politics. 

For now, I stay to support them, because I'm paid up for the year. There isn't anywhere else to go. But only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

We might want Venky's out, but how? And what next?

Blackburn Rovers fans have been protesting against their absentee owners for nearly 6 years. What does our experience of decline tell us about the prospects for football’s protesting fans?

We’ve tried chickens on the pitch. We’ve had marches, banners, protests, letters to MPs, questions in parliament and calls to Robbie Savage. I'm rather proud of my effort that doubles up as a tribute to a band close to the hearts of many Rovers fans. But none of it has worked. The debt has piled up as quickly as the club has fallen down the leagues.

The owners box at the front of the Jack Walker Stand lies empty and unused, yet Blackburn Rovers is still a wholly owned subsidiary of a mysterious company called Venky’s London PLC, an offshoot of Venkateshwara Hatcheries of Pune, India.  

But not only have we lost 30 odd league places, we’ve also tumbled in the sympathy stakes with other fans. The highly personalised “Steve Kean Out” focus of the last wave of protests in 2011/2012 enabled the manager to position himself as a hapless victim of mob rule. The anger and the vitriol gave uber-agent Jerome Anderson – who I blame for all of this -  the confidence to stick his brass neck out and appear on Sky Sports News. Sitting with his chums (and clients) he was able to allege that “certain groups” don’t want the Venky’s to own Blackburn “for whatever reason”. It was a disgusting implication that we’re basically a bunch of racists being whipped up by the local branch of the EDL, but he was reinforcing a firmly held view we’d helped create.

I stopped going for a bit, others fell out amongst themselves. Many haven’t returned and whether it was a boycott or just lethargy, a League Cup tie v Crewe saw a crowd of 3,000. Crowds of less than 10,000 for league games won’t be far off as the team struggles to chalk up a first win. Of those that remain, the anger is back.

So what do we do now? Bottom of the league. A crap manager who looks out of his depth and talks a good line in cheery Glaswegian bullshit, a rag bag of a team of loan signings, journeymen and kids. It sounds like 2012 all over again, except we’re bottom of the second division this time.

The truth is, there aren’t any easy answers once you get past the war cry of “We want Venky’s Out”. 

The problem is this is the age of the easy answer. From Jeremy Corbyn to UKIP, from Donald Trump to the Occupy movement, there is always an outlet for protest and forever an enemy to blame. It is also the age of the instant answer. Want to campaign about something? Sign a petition, join a political party, vote in a referendum and make your point. The day of reckoning comes when things don’t change. When poverty isn’t made history, when control isn’t taken back and we find out that actually, Jez just can’t. Then what?

Usually it is time and apathy that kills a campaign. People get fed up turning up when nothing changes. A march, a rally, followed by a rainy day and a splintering of interest. Not least the shrewd ability of the powerful to splinter protests by granting minor concessions and buying that other precious commodity, time. Then there’s the capacity for groups to fall out amongst themselves when they don’t get what they want.

Activism, or its on-line version, clicktivism, has as many challenges as it does limitations. It’s possible to accelerate the early momentum, but equally to exaggerate and simplify the wide range of opinions, views, egos and basic human weaknesses.

Here’s our problem at Blackburn Rovers. Our owners are just like many others in the top two divisions of English football. Overseas foreign tycoons with their trophy asset of an English football club (Chinese investment in foreign football clubs this year stands at $2billion). But our particular curse was this – we got owners who were poorly advised, stubborn and have now effectively disappeared. I’ve picked through their annual accounts and they don’t even refer to the fact they own an English football club, let alone one that’s cost them and their shareholders a ton of money. All reasonable efforts to engage with them, to assist in an orderly exit, have come to nothing.

We can do what Charlton and Blackpool fans did last season – tennis balls, sit down protests and lots of noise – but look where it got them. Same owners, same trajectory.

Saving face is apparently an important part of the Indian character. For the life of me the only way forward I can think of is to politely embarrass them in their own back yard. Keep up the pressure on the board at the home games, in case one of them turns up or has someone pass a message on. Humiliate them, expose them, but give them no space to plead the moral high ground. But to do that we probably have to take the fight to India. We’ll have to orchestrate our own protests in their home city, at the cricket when England play in Pune in January, protest outside their places of business, lobby the Indian stock exchange and make the case for their utter incompetence wherever their reputation can be damaged.

And then what? Who would buy all that debt? Who is the debt to? Who's going to make payroll every month? What would happen to a club in administration? How far would we have to fall before we could begin to build a club worthy of our past? I’ll tell you what, I’m terrified of the future under any scenario, but the present status quo is simply unsustainable.

Any help, any suggestions, gratefully received.

(Originally published in STAND fanzine).

Sir Howard Bernstein - his legacy for Manchester is to push forgreatness

None of us can be surprised at the news this morning that Sir Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester Cty Council, is to retire. But it is still a shock. There was always going to be a post-Howard era. 

Howard has made an incalculable contribution to Manchester over a lifetime of public service. He has constantly driven the city to be more ambitious, to think globally and as a result we have a city that is the envy of others around the world.

He has pioneered a particular way of doing business in Manchester that prides unity and ambition over everything else. His ability to bring together and inspire disparate groups of businesses, politicians and officials to find a common purpose has directly contributed to the culture of success.

But he would never want his own professional legacy to be a festival of black slapping, but to continue pushing the ambitions of the city still further. The constant building work, the improvements to infrastructure like Metrolink remind you that Manchester is a work in progress, and is never finished. In fact, Manchester is finished when people think it's "job done". 

In my time as a journalist, in business and now at Manchester Metropolitan University he has always been incredibly supportive. He has always demonstrated that same encouragement and forceful ambition that informs our strategy to be a great institution in a great city. He makes himself available and works tremendously hard to make the city better. I have so many Howard stories from over the years that remind us all of what a character he is as well as a organisational force of nature. 

Happy Roald Dahl Day - ace creepy titles from Tales of the Unexpected

Community Clothing - Made in Blackburn - quality clobber

I was pretty excited about the Community Clothing launch - all the romance of re-opening a factory, making clothes in Blackburn, Lancashire. I have to say I'm thrilled to bits with the coat and the selvedge denim jeans. Really comfortable, well-made and with excellent detailing that makes both items well worth the wait.

The project hasn't been without its ups and downs. I got in touch to ask about the closure of the Cookson and Clegg factory in the town and the loss of jobs, as reported in the Lancashire Telegraph here.

I was reassured that it's back on track and to learn that Patrick Grant and his team are are still opening a store in Blackburn, and that the garments are still being produced in the Cookson and Clegg factory in Blackburn.

Eloise from Community Clothing told me: "The closing of Cookson and Clegg was a major blow to us both on a financial level and a personal one. Basically, what we have been arguing – that U.K manufacturers are facing foreclosure because they do not have consistent work and rely on a few major clients to survive; ended up occurring in our own factory. We set up Community Clothing to help supplement this issue but it came about two months too late, and when we lost a huge client (without warning) we were forced to immediately close. We repurchased the factory within three days and it is now back up and running! We are now using a collection of different factories to produce our products, but Cookson and Clegg will continue to produce the bulk of our clothing. So, I can assure you that all of our products are and will remain to be made in the UK (and primarily in Blackburn)! We still very much believe in our ethos and can take pride in the fact that the source of our product supply ranges from Blackburn to Rochdale, all the way to Scotland."

The eBay shop is due to open any day and a store is going to pop up in Blackburn. 

Blackburn Rovers are a League One team - accept that and it all makes sense

It all makes sense to me now. Blackburn Rovers are a League One club, or the Third Division if you prefer. League One crowds, third rate manager, a hotch potch of lower league players. 

Brushed aside by almost Premiership quality Norwich, humiliated by the League One champions Wigan and ultimately beaten by Championship strugglers Fulham who had that little bit of quality in the shape of Tom Cairney.

In the cup, they've made heavy work of beating two League Two sides, but that's because the gap in quality wasn't sufficient to justify a weakened side.

Off the pitch our home fans dipped below 10,000 yesterday, carry on like that and it takes us out of the top 44 best supported clubs in the country, firmly in the third tier.

I said after the Norwich game that we should probably have been relegated last season in order to give us a chance to regroup and rebuild. As it is, we've a manager fighting fires and dropping his own recent signings to the bench, in order to make way for his new new signings. Sounding for all the world like his old mate Steve Kean, Owen Coyle ducked a question about his clear lack of contact with the owners in India by saying he's trying to bring in new faces to give the "group" a boost.

At the end of the match I joined in the applause of the players we put out to face Fulham yesterday. I was pleased that most of the fans did too. It was a better performance than we'd been used to, but it was a sign that we now approach each game as the plucky underdog, not the entitled former champions.  

Holiday reading review, eight recommendations and one stinker

I'm just finishing the last of my designated holiday reads - Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive - about his life with depression. I hesitate to describe it as a battle, because it doesn't do it justice. It just is. His depression is part of who he is, it doesn't define him. Anyway, he is talking at the moment about what a period of intense reading does for him. For me, that's what holidays represent, that and sunshine and spending time with the people you love the most.

I read two biographies, two factual books, five thrillers, one set in Ibiza and Liverpool, one in Scotland, two in the US, one in Geneva. And then there was one I ditched, which I'll come to later.

So here's a quick review, left to right. The latest Jack Reacher is another stormer. I think I've read them all now and they are like a guilty pleasure, a comfort blanket, a familiar journey involving bad people bullying good people and the satisfying dishing out of rough justice.

Jon Ronson's So You Have Been Publicly Shamed was on the reading list for a debate I hosted at the International Festival of Business in Liverpool. The social media apprentices at Juice Academy wanted to thrash out whether social media is out of control. After reading Ronson's book and after seeing the destruction of civil debate before our very eyes, I am convinced it is, especially the way the algorithms continually serve to amplify our prejudices and fill our echo chambers with more and more noise.

Kevin Sampson's The House on the Hill sees the return of Detective Billy McCartney. I liked his attention to the musical and cultural detail of Ibiza 1990 that peppered and then lit up a sharp and urgent writing style. I loved that he has the brass neck to retrospectively write a terrorist plot based on what we know now, rather than what was going on back then. Flawed characters and plausibly but outrageous bad guys permeate the pages. I loved it.

Tim Marshall's medley of football songs and culture, mixed in with his early life, was a bit of a ramble, but I lent it to a football mad teenager who lapped it up. I was pleased he identified this fantastic Stockport County song as one of the best.

Robert Harris' Fear Index picked up on the terror of a world led by machines out of control. I devoured Dave Eggers' dystopian Silicon Valley tale The Circle last year, this Hollywood movie script in waiting was every bit as good and brilliantly researched.

I gave up on Martin Amis' Lionel Asbo. Disgraceful poverty porn masquerading as irony.

After randomly ploughing through James Crumley, Mark Timlin, Kevin Sampson and now Lee Child, I've found a new author to immerse myself in. Christopher Brookmyre's Scottish noir is rapier sharp and lightning quick. Full of knowing references to football, politics and Scottish culture, I think I'm going to like Jack Parlabane almost as much as Jack Reacher.

Having seen New Order on my special birthday for the first time, it seemed right to get Bernard Sumner's take on the evolution of one of the greatest bands of my lifetime. It's an extraordinary early story, jaw dropping at times. But the edited highlights of the New Order story seem to be as fascinating for what's left out as much as what is in. That said, he doesn't seem to leave much out of his account of the deteriorating relationship with Peter Hook.

Finally, Gone Girl was a strange experience. A skillful manipulation of the loyalties and emotions in the story, veering between the perspectives of the two characters. Rarely comfortable, sometimes shocking.

That's a pretty good catch up on where I'm up to book wise at the moment. I have to read a lot for work, so fiction and biogs are a nice complement to industrial strategies, sector reviews and political tracts. Any recommendations gratefully received.

The Face - the magazine from 1983 that defined my life

Back in early July, I finally managed to track down a copy of the ultra rare July 1983 edition of The Face magazine. Reading it now it is such a treasure trove of personal memories and cultural totems.

Foremost is Kevin Sampson's splash on football terrace fashion, probably the first such piece in the media. A chronicle of something I knew, something that lived, but was truly of the street and not in any way media made. But there is also a rare interview with New Order, pre-Blue Monday, which massively opened my eyes and ears to them and what they were all about.

But it's also got so many of the staples of my journalistic and cultural upbriging, Robert Elms, Julie Burchill and one of those random Face delights about horror films. 

I bought mine at WH Smith's in Lancaster, providing a massive vindication to my sartorial leanings back then, but I lent it to one of the Blackburn lads when we went to Swansea away and I never got it back. Maybe I influenced a movement, maybe it just got binned.

I was a habitual Face reader, later migrating on to i-D and Arena, but this was the starting point. I simply can't overstate how influenced I was by The Face, and subsequently all that was inspired by the publisher Nick Logan and his crew - it shaped not just what I consumed, but how I approached journalism, ideas, politics, design, aesthetics, fashion, music. Even my university dissertation in 1988 was about male sexuality and the modern media (I'd have got a first if my approach hadn't been so 'journalistic').

I have searched for ages for this particular copy and am embarrassed to say how much I paid on eBay, but it's going in a glass case.

Leaked scouting report on Blackburn Rovers

Leaving the DW stadium yesterday I found a copy of the scouting report on Blackburn Rovers prepared for the Wigan Athletic manager Gary Caldwell.

"OK lads, this should be a piece of cake. We know Owen's teams won't be as fit as us, so make that count. All that table tennis and card schools get you so far. Think of them like a League One side. Put pressure on their weakest players and it'll work for us.

"When they've got possession press them at every opportunity in midfield, or even in the forward positions, none of them can turn and create space, so just keep pushing them and the ball will go further backwards. If they're daft enough to play Stokes and Marshall behind Graham it will open up the whole midfield for us, especially down our left where Feeney will be. He's fast, but never tracks back.

"Lenehan will charge into challenges, but make sure you're quickly in the space that he leaves. Byrne can't cover it on his own and as long as we press across the middle he'll soon realise the only option is to go backwards.

"Defensively just keep putting pressure on Henley and Lowe, neither have any confidence. Both are out of position. 

"If we get a free kick in the final third, have a go. They've no clue how to build a wall and there's a good chance the keeper will fluff it.

"If you have a chance to get it in the box, give Duffy some stick, or get the ball near him, there's always the chance he'll spoon it in his own net, handball it or rugby tackle one of you.

"As you were lads. Three easy points."

Honestly, it would have been better if we'd been relegated last season.Grim reflection on Rovers loss to Norwich

I always feel optimistic at the start of a new football season. The sun is shining, the horrors of the previous season are long forgotten and every team starts afresh. We'd also moved to superb new seats right on the half way line, no restricted view and perfect for keeping that Maltese tan topped up.

In our usual pre-match prediction I even shed my nauseous negativity and predicted Blackburn Rovers would beat deflated and relegated Norwich City, expecting they'd be unused to the rough and tumble of Championship football, just as Newcastle proved by surprisingly losing to Fulham the night before.

Joe and Louis, far better readers of football than I, went for a loss and a draw respectively.

We shouldn't really have been surprised. Why on earth a team consisting of 10 of the same team that were crap last season, plus a new signing from relegated Bolton, would find a winning mindset should be obvious. Norwich, relegated they might have been, seemed to assert their collective superior quality in order to prove a point. Rovers, frankly, have no point. Even before the opening goal I couldn't work out a game plan that played to the collective strengths of the team. 

If there is a sliver of optimism it is that the three subs who were introduced, three new signings to boot, were the three stand out performers. Gordon Greer can potentially boss this team, Anthony Stokes shook off the curse of wearing Chris Brown's lead lined number 9 shirt by scoring and Jack Byrne looks like the first Rovers player since Tom Cairney who can do the unexpected AND turn an opponent in midfield. 

They are also the only three players who are winners. Once the first goal went in the rest of the squad did what they did all of last season. They fell to pieces. They have no collective belief. No options. No answer to the constant puzzle about what Ben Marshall's best position is. No confidence in each other to grip a game of football.

Part of me suspects the manager knew all of that. He wanted the team he inherited to prove what they were all about and they stooped to that challenge. 

In many ways it would have been better if we'd been relegated last season. I know that sounds dreadfully negative, but I don't think we can bounce back until we hit our floor and we haven't yet. We're sliding down the pecking order in the Championship, outspent, out thought and out supported by more and more clubs. A club in perpetual decline with no real plan to arrest it.

It's going to be a fairly grim season I'm afraid. 

Corbyn's hopeless performance at PMQs is a willful act of trolling

Just watch the video above. There is no spin required. There is no mainstream media manipulation, neither is there any plot from Blairite backstabbers failing their leader that has created this pitiful display. Just a woeful performance from the worst opposition leader I have ever seen.

I have constantly scratched my head at the appeal of Jeremy Corbyn. I just don't get it, so I'm probably the worst person to even try. It's not that I wasn't prepared to give him a chance, I just never thought it would go well. When I said that the party had given up being a serious party of opposition in favour of being a protest movement (five minutes after his election), I was accused of spouting bitter rubbish. I was right though.

Even his plea for kinder gentler politics - something I would support, but didn't believe - has been a failure, especially when you see the bile that his acolytes come out with. Last night Chris Williamson (not an MP) said there were Labour MPs who were "sleeper agents" activated by Tory campaign chief Lynton Crosby. A brick through an office window becomes a trigger for an entirely alternative narrative, based on whatever set of unknowns they want to construct or believe. There are literally no words. 

His barmy army of followers always have an excuse. Someone is out to get him, his words are taken out of context, it's the MSM, or the Blairites. It is deluded paranoid nonsense.

I just think he's trolling the PLP now. He is basically saying: 'I really don't give a toss about this, just watch me win, just wait until you see me at the Momentum rally with my adoring crowds, yes I'll ramble on about "austerity" and "human rights" and "peace" with the same stump speech I always give, but just you watch them lap it up. Watch the cult of Jeremy sweep me back to be leader of a party that you've screwed up.' 

He's not even attempting to lead them. He's going through the motions. He wants them all gone. He could stop even pretending to go to PLP meetings, he could go to Cuba Solidarity rallies instead of campaigning on something relevant and it would still achieve his aim, to wind up the rest of the MPs and anyone who doesn't support him. He wants them all deselected, replaced with more like Richard Burgon and my former MP Diane Abbott, possibly the worst politician I have ever voted for.

So, you either think that PMQs matters, because a good performance on it will lead the news that night, or that doing any media interview matters, that communicating with the public is worth doing, that developing a policy platform to win over former Tory voters matters, or you don't. And if you don't then maybe you just want to build a protest movement and go on marches and shout about the wicked Tories. I don't. I want Labour to be a serious party again.

Stranger Things on Netflix - a word to the bad guy

One of the great delights of parenting is sharing your personal predilections with your offspring. I'm lucky, blessed and flattered that I have "something" to share with all my lads. And the real thrill is how much more knowledgeable and better at the things I like they are; to pick a few - football, geography and, as I discovered at the weekend, film criticism.

So, the youngest and I sat down and binged on Stranger Things on Netflix over the weekend. It's a masterclass in tributes and "Easter eggs" to so many threads and genres. Small town America teen films, either romances or horror films, dark conspiracies, the supernatural, even Winona Ryder herself. It shouldn't work, but it does. There's a piece here in the NME that lists the references.

But it's Matthew Modine's depiction of the creepy CIA scientist that stood out for me. In one of those performances where the presence is far more dominant than his screen time suggests, he casts not so much a brooding shadow, but leaves his bad smell of incompetent menace everywhere, not least in the flashbacks of Eleven, the tortured child.

As I've reached the ripe old age of 50 I've seen the different types of bad guy come and go - mafia, Soviets, Nazis, despots, Colombian drug lords and now the one almost guaranteed to get a loud boo from the stalls, a government conspirator. Even though I wholly sign up to the cock-up theory over conspiracy every time, it's a reassuring anchor in any modern thriller. That said, over the last year I've quietly plodded through most of the Jack Reacher books. Lee Child has an uncanny talent for creating even more unpredictable and curious villains, the predictability is Reacher's way of dealing with them.

But unpredictability was never part of the Stranger Things playbook, increasingly we are given a nod to all that we know, whether it's true or not.

Sir Max Hastings at The Strand Group, while history unfolded outside

While history was being made last night, we gathered in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to hear one of our leading historians, Sir Max Hastings, deliver the Sir Michael Quinlan Annual Lecture. The event was curated, hosted and presented by Dr Jon Davis, someone who has been influential in my recent career change, and frankly inspirational in how he has delivered public engagement from his berth at King's College London, the Policy at King's initiative and the Strand Group. 

Alongside former permanent secretarys, ministers, and no doubt representatives from the guardians of our security - to quote Sir Max - the "spooks, geeks and thugs" we witnessed a provocative and timely look at Secret Wars and Future Wars from the prolific author and former Telegraph editor.

I took three things from the lecture, these are my thoughts, not those of either speaker (I'll add a link as soon as it's available).

• A free society cherishes freedom in how it allows intelligence to operate, and in how it is managed. Churchill got this, the dons and academics who were allowed time and space often challenged him. Despots don't allow this. Intelligence appears to have been manipulated to suit the purposes of the perceived requirements of the commissioner, over weapons in Iraq. But as Orwell said: "Liberty, if it means anything, is telling people what they don't want to hear."

• State security services, the diplomatic corp and the Ministry of Defence aren't able to recruit the brightest and best. This has been true for a long time. Money talks, but many British public servants are attracted to the sheer professional challenge of Brussels and the work of the Commission. That will all change now. But what of the notion of nationhood, a cause for which so many were prepared to sacrifice so much? A fractured nation, a divided culture, Scottish devolution, post-Brexit Britain. I wonder how vital this now seems. Edward Snowden is regarded as patriotic by many for his whistleblowing; to Sir Max, with whom I agree, he's a traitor.     

• Statecraft is a serious business. At the end Jon Davis updated us that the news from next door that this great office of state, once held by David Owen, Douglas Hurd and, until he died, Tony Crosland, will be occupied by (pause for a gasp) Boris Johnson. We thought he was having a joke at the expense of the special guest, a piercing critic. But no. I'll give it six months. 

New Order at Castlefield - best birthday ever

I feel so extraordinary, something's got a hold on me. New Order were brilliant. Incredible set, a real journey through their achievements, like a world tour. The Castlefield Bowl is a fantastic venue as well, open air and right in the heart of the city with a video and light show as good as I've seen. Crowd full of old gits like me as well as young lads with pyro. Felt great to be amongst it.

After we saw the Stone Roses, I was thinking which of my favourite songs I still have to see performed live. Obviously won't get to see the Clash or the Beatles. But the obvious one missing until now has been New Order. Just never managed to catch them live. 

The set was:

Singularity

Regret

Academic

Crystal

Restless

Your Silent Face

Tutti Frutti

People on the High Line

Bizarre Love Triangle

Waiting for the Siren's Call

Plastic

The Perfect Kiss

True Faith

Blue Monday

Temptation

Decades

Love Will Tear Us ApartPlay Vide
o

I remember when I was writing about music for Xpress Magazine in Perth, Western Australia in 1989 and the editor gave me New Order's Technique to review. It was the coming together of Ibiza party house music with Manchester's finest traditions and I gave it a five star review, it felt like most massive vindication of everything I believed in. I feel goose bumps now remembering Round and Round at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney at the massive Back to RAT party which I spent with my much mourned dear friend Stuart McGavin (RIP).

So to end with Love Will Tear Us Apart was just a perfect way to end a perfect birthday. Thank you Rachel. Thank you New Order. Music Complete, indeed.