Northern correspondent, Financial Times. Ex-Manchester Evening News. ‘Cynical’ - Boris Johnson. Also find me on Bluesky. [email protected]
Manchester
Joined September 2009
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A year ago, I started following how the cost of living crisis was playing out at an Oldham school, checking in with the fantastic @NewmanRC_Head every few weeks. I ended up learning a lot about the British state, and its education system, to boot.
on.ft.com/3KYWPWv
Jennifer Williams retweeted
In 2004 West Yorkshire’s productivity was higher than Greater Manchester’s. In the period since then it has fallen behind; by a long way. And the comparison with the UK average is not good either.
Jennifer Williams retweeted
Was at Howard’s Memorial yesterday. What an extraordinary impact he has had on our great city, and what a prescient influence he was on what made a difference, in politics and regeneration. Proud just to have spent some time with him in Manchesters reconstruction at Hezza’s side.
The Howard Bernstein tribute newsletter: the lessons ministers should take from Manchester’s unfinished business
on.ft.com/3Z48Otx
The Howard Bernstein tribute newsletter: the lessons ministers should take from Manchester’s unfinished business
on.ft.com/3Z48Otx
Trying to write quite a complicated newsletter about regional economic development under this govt and my word, if Howard Bernstein didn’t already come into my head at virtually every moment when I’m thinking about this stuff, after the memorial in Mcr yesterday it’s extra
The lessons are oddly under learned imho. Not everything turned out right in Manchester and also some of it is subjective anyway. But as a lesson in applied economics, you’d have to be mad as a minister not to study what he did
Jennifer Williams retweeted
Very happy to see @TheDataCity data featured in the FT. Using our website matching and AI classification technology we've been able to classify the UK's companies into (five of the eight) sectors in the industrial strategy and then cluster them together. on.ft.com/4fKB75w
IIRC Howard Bernstein was talking about looking at a version of this before (and I think for a while after) Andy Burnham was elected, then it all went quiet
Eamonn Boylan appointed interim CX at Homes England. Potentially significant for mayors pushing for more influence over housing spend - he was Andy Burnham’s chief executive and oversaw the devolved fund that helped rebuild Manchester’s skyline
gov.uk/government/news/inter…
I’d assumed the predominant rows on my feed would be some sort of Trump driven culture wars at the back end of this week but instead I can’t keep up with the industrial energy policy and bat controversies
Wrote about this strategy a few days after the general election. Reform didn’t launch its manifesto in Merthyr for no reason
Transport secretary confirms govt IS looking at the potential for a new rail line up the west coast, including private finance options:
on.ft.com/4hH8fwO
Later, I asked Andy Burnham what HMT thought about the idea and he said “I honestly don’t know, I’m not in the Treasury.” I said Rachel Reeves is over there, you could ask her