A pitch to Makerfield…and the country PLUS Is Eccles the new Dubai?
“Cheers lad! ” says Andy Burnham, waving to a stranger who has called out his name. As he marches down a street in Ashton-in-Makerfield we watch the King of the North smiling broadly as the opening chords of Elbow’s.
He explains how he was a pupil at a rival school that got “battered” on the rugby pitches here adding: “I didn’t hold it against them. I sent my three kids here because Eddies is a great school.
"Footage then shows Mr Burnham ambling around the constituency, bantering about football and taking selfies with people. A voiceover explains he “saw what Thatcher’s government did to places like this”. Arguing that deindustrialisation “left places like Makerfield behind” he says “Britain has been on that path for the last 40 years”.
“It was the sense of injustice I got about the way this country is run that took me towards politics,” he says. A quick montage of pictures that reads like Burnham’s greatest hits follows. He talks about fighting for miners, the families of the Hillsborough victims and perhaps his most famous moment - “when Boris Johnson’s government tried to treat people here like second class citizens during Covid”.
“What all of that taught me is that Westminster doesn’t work for people in this part of the world and communities like this across the UK,” he says.chatting to young people and talking about how much he loves the city. There is more waving. More selfies. The familiar sound of Oasis’Burnham talks about his achievements in Greater Manchester as “the end of neoliberalism and trickle down economics”.
We then see him opening a pub and drinking a pint as he describes the by-election as “the most consequential of our lives”.
“I don’t take anything for granted and I’m ready to accept the consequences whatever choice people make,” he says, before we hear from ordinary members of the public endorsing the mayor. And it nakedly reads as a pitch to the nation rather than just the constituents of Ashton-in-Makerfield. As journalists covering every spit and cough of the mayor’s three terms in Greater Manchester, it’s easy to be cynical about Andy-core. The Adidas.
The DJ sets. Those eyelashes. But you can’t deny his popularity. Anyone who has walked through town with the mayor can attest to the steady stream of people who approach him on a daily basis.
Often just to say ‘hello’, regularly for selfies and sometimes to quiz him on policy. Men made up 71 per cent of the 214 councillors elected to Greater Manchester’s councils during this month’s local elections. Women gained just 62 of the seats contested. This marks a sharp drop from just two years ago, when there was a 60-40 split between male and female councillors elected.
The M.E. N’s analysis should ring alarm bells according to Dr Sarah Longlands, of the Centre for Local Economies think tank, She says: “When local leaders don’t reflect the local population, and when women are excluded from decision making, then both our democracy and economy suffer. ”New Hulme Green Cllr Bernard Ekbery who has been up for every election in the last 36 years and has finally been elected.
Picture Jason Roberts / Manchester Evening NewsBernard Ekbery has been campaigning for the Green Party for so long that he remembers delivering party pamphlets to theand the UAE, but that’s not put a hold on Michael Felse’s ambitions. The city’s first Reform UK councillor wants to turn part of Salford into the ‘UK’s Dubai’.should be transformed in a way similar to the Gulf state.
He has spoken of a vision for a ‘long-term future based on cultures, art, innovation and quality jobs’ in the city. It's an incredible achievement for wife-and-husband duo Alyson and Paul Mitchell, who have managed the venue for more than 14 years. Though they’re more accustomed to serving locals, the duo say they did once have a visit from Andy Burnham.
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