Tears at Boohoo: the battle for control of the Mancunian fast-fashion giant

Dear readers — where might you find Mancunian jazz poet and jujitsu aficionado Alabaster DePlume, universally despised retail entrepreneur (as well as the brains behind the biggest mugs on the planet) Mike Ashley and United Utilities COO Matt Hemmings, a man committed to “innovative ways of treating wastewater”, all in the same space? Probably nowhere, to be honest, with the notable exception of today’s Monday briefing. 

Catch up and coming up:

• Last year, when the Royal Exchange Theatre was forced to cancel its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the media fallout became one long nightmare. The play’s director accused the theatre of censorship, and its chief executive eventually stood down. But there are two sides to every story. If you want to know what really happened, read Mollie’s investigation, or, if you’re more of a podcast person, Mollie and Jack recorded a special episode on the saga, which you can find here.
• Speaking of the stories that sometimes get lost: Over the weekend Ophira looked back on the contributions North Hulme made to the UK Hip Hop scene, just for them to be forgotten amongst the furore over the city’s indie bands. But no longer: read that here.
• As for this week, on Thursday Mollie will be finding out what’s gone wrong with Media City — starting out with the development’s original intentions to turn the Quays waterfront into a vibrant, quirky new neighbourhood, and why critics think it may have lost its creative edge and become too corporate in the process. If you’d like to make any last-minute contributions, get in touch.
• Then at the weekend Daniel Dylan Wray will be marking the 25th anniversary of ‘The Alcohol Years’: Carol Morley’s documentary on Manchester in the 80s, in which she tries to recollect the five years she lost in an alcohol-fuelled blur.

☀️ This week’s weather

Tuesday ☀️ Dry with long spells of sunshine, breezy in the afternoon. 16°C.

Wednesday ☀️Breezy, dry and mostly sunny. 16°C.

Thursday ☀️ Warm and breezy with sunny skies. 19°C.

Friday ☀️ Dry, breezy and sunny. A little cooler. 17°C.

Weekend 🌤️ Remaining dry but feeling cooler, still with plenty of sunny spells.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

👜 There are more tears at Boohoo, the Manchester-based fast-fashion retailer, as the company’s seemingly endless power struggle rages on. Mike Ashley, a retail entrepreneur so unlikeable he makes Philip Green seem like pleasant company, as well as Boohoo’s largest shareholder, is described as a “longstanding rival” to the company’s founder Mahmud Kamani. Tensions exploded at the end of last year, when Ashley accused Kamani and the board of having “lost its ability to manage” and attempted to remove Kamani as a director, which shareholders ultimately rejected. Separately, The Times reported some very strange allegations about three police forces investigating claims of Boohoo executives being stalked and “corporate espionage”. Now, Ashley has blocked the company’s attempt to rename the Boohoo brand to Debenhams, the department store that Boohoo rescued from bankruptcy last year. Know more about the Boohoo power play? Get in touch.

🎓 A vote of no confidence in the University of Greater Manchester’s most senior leaders and their ability to safeguard the university’s future has been passed. A clear majority of staff voted that they no longer have confidence in the vice chancellor George Holmes and the university’s senior leadership, according to the UCU, in a ballot that received a total of 231 votes. If the 231 votes are indeed 231 individual people, that would make up 27% of the university’s workforce. Today, the UCU and Unison will write to the board of governors to inform them of the outcome and demand a new leadership.

❓ Is Ahmed al-Doush, a senior business analyst at the Bank of America who lives in Manchester, really guilty of terrorism? Seven months ago, al-Doush was taken by plain-clothes security officers at Riyadh airport and placed in a Saudi maximum security prison under anti-terrorism laws, but his wife Amaher Nour says he has never so much as criticised the Saudi government, let alone associated with Saudi dissidents. “I keep asking myself why, why, why has this happened, and I can’t get to the bottom of it because it’s not rational in any way,” Nour told The Times. “He has no political associations.”

💦 United Utilities, the water company that has a monopoly over the North West, has revealed a 31% reduction in sewage dumping in 2024, with the figures showing 19,270 fewer spills compared to last year. Matt Hemmings, the company’s chief operating officer, said the reduction was the result of years of investment into “innovative ways of treating wastewater” and increased storage on sites. While it’s a very good thing that there have been fewer discharges of untreated sewage in our waterways, it’s worth noting that the regulator currently does not require United Utilities to release the data of the volume of each spill, meaning that while we are seeing fewer spills, we still don’t know if the spills over the last year were higher in volume than last year, and therefore still don’t know what kind of environmental damage is being inflicted. In response to our previous reporting on this topic, a United Utilities spokesperson said the company is committed to transparency and “providing as much information to people as possible on our storm overflow performance”.

🚌 As part of the changes brought in by the Bee Network, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) promised to increase the frequency of services and revive bus routes that were abandoned during privatisation. As we reported back in 2023, commercial bus operators can cut routes that face low demand, even if that means getting rid of a service that takes someone from their home in Tameside to their job in Stockport. So how’s that going? We asked TfGM and, according to their data, we have a brand new bus route: the 615 bus that takes you on a pleasant route through the countryside between Horwich and Wigan, replacing a service that was previously clinging to life under privatisation. TfGM has also increased the frequency of 26 other bus routes that were being mercilessly cut by their private operators, including plenty of additional weekend services.

👮 According to a press release sent on Saturday, Greater Manchester Police secured murder charges for a suspect they named as Paul Robson, in response to a fight between two drivers near the Elk Mill roundabout. One hour later, after, we imagine, lots of panic, the force issued an urgent correction. “The man charged is named Andrew Robson, not Paul.”

Quick hits

❤️ A woman found in the water near Chorlton Water Park on 21 March last year has finally been identified. Laura Stanley, 38, was originally from Derbyshire and was living in Stockport until her death, and is described by her family as “a proud and loving mum”.

🏛️ Marcin Majerkiewicz has been sentenced to life with a minimum of 34 years in prison for the murder of his housemate Stuart Everett. Earlier this month, we covered Everett’s death and the police investigation in depth, which you can read here.

📱 Sky has closed its call centre in Stockport town centre, putting up to 500 jobs at risk. A Sky spokesperson said the changes would make it “future ready” as it shifts to prioritising digital communications over phone calls.

📰 Jim Mullen, CEO of Reach Plc, the London-based company that owns dozens of local news titles including the MEN, has resigned with a £662,000 bonus, bringing his total pay in 2024 to £1.25 million. Lucky Jim!

🍺 Band on the Wall in the Northern Quarter has acquired the pub next door, the Rose and Monkey, for an undisclosed sum.

👟 Adidas has released the latest edition of its very popular SPZL trainers, which it has named after Failsworth.

Home of the week

Any aspiring Mancunian gymnasts in need of a place? This three-bed barn conversion in Hyde has exposed beams for days, for £450,000.

Our favourite reads

Manchester’s radical black female activists: ‘We didn’t define ourselves as feminists’ — The Guardian

The Guardian’s Chris Osuh looks back at the founding of the Abasindi Co-operative, a black women’s activist group that started in Moss Side in the ’80s. Zulu for “born to survive”, Abasindi was influenced by anti-apartheid groups in South Africa, and was a spin-off of Manchester’s Black Women’s Co-operative. Its legacy, Osuh writes, is everywhere, from specialist health centres and arts collectives to housing associations and educational trusts. “If it was set up in Manchester in the ’80, ‘90s or ’00s for the benefit of the Black community, there will be an Abasindi connection.”

Alabaster DePlume grapples with it — The New Yorker

The New Yorker caught up with Alabaster DePlume, née Angus Fairbairn — a jazz musician and poet from Manchester — and found him on a jujitsu mat. DePlume has been finding strange similarities between making music and getting caught up in tangles of limbs at the dojo. “When you’re rolling with someone, as soon as you’re trying to do a thing, you’re fucked. It’s like playing music. What’s the opposite of sleep? It’s trying to sleep.”

Our to do list

Tuesday

📚 We’re having a very bookish April Fool’s day at The Mill. Serenity Booksellers in Romiley will be welcoming author Danielle Giles into their literary lair, to celebrate the release of her debut novel Mere.

🎤 And Castlefield Gallery are hosting Other People’s Poetry, a night of poets reading out the poems that inspire them.

Wednesday

🐦 If you can make it out to Macclesfield, then at 10am there will be a spring birdwatching course at Tegg’s Nose country park. Tickets are a little pricey – £45 – but that’s for three sessions.

🎻 And Matt and Phred’s will be hosting a gig from Northern legends Boba Swing — expect everything from Argentinian Tango to Romani Trad. And it’s free!

Thursday

🎭 Theatre and Performance 2nd-year students (from what establishment isn’t clear) will be presenting This Is Where It All Began, an outdoor performance walk at Castlefield Viaduct, starting at 2pm. Look for the person in the orange hi-vis!

📸 And Thursday also marks the opening night of Never Work With: A photography exhibition by Scott Kershaw and Alex Grace, presenting their latest work with children and animals. There will be a Q&A and music from 6:30 til late, and the event is free.