In defence of Manchester’s Abu Dhabi deals

Editor’s note: For the past few weeks, Manchester’s close relationship with the Abu Dhabi owners of Manchester City has been a national story. The council has been accused of offering “sweetheart deals” to Sheikh Mansour’s companies and Andy Burnham has this week ordered a “manual trawl” of records that might turn up further details of his meetings with the club’s executives.

Today, we are publishing a forthright essay from a man who was at the heart of Manchester's economic revival. The economist and former Downing Street aide Mike Emmerich was a close advisor to Sir Howard Bernstein, who negotiated the Abu Dhabi relationship as chief executive of the council.

Emmerich is also Bernstein’s biographer – his book is set to be released early next year. This opinion piece is based on his first-hand interactions with Bernstein and the research he has conducted for the book. It takes aim at the critics of the Abu Dhabi deals and how the media has covered the story – not least The Mill.

When I came back to Manchester in 2002, the city was too much like the one I had grown up in during the 1970s. Buildings were still empty, and new ones still too hard to fund. It was still a place where people had to do what I had done, and go to London to make their careers. It may feel like a party city now, but in those days, wherever the action was, it didn’t feel as if it was in Manchester. 

After working for economics think tanks and the government, I wanted to do my bit to put my hometown on the road to prosperity, and to build on what had already been started. I worked first at the University of Manchester and then set up New Economy, the economic research and strategy body for Greater Manchester’s councils. That made Howard Bernstein, who drove much of its agenda, my de facto boss.

One thing I only came to see late in writing his biography is how much Bernstein cared about the public record. As chief executive of Manchester City Council, he commissioned countless reports and studies, and delved endlessly into economic research. Deep in my own research for my book about Bernstein, The Knowledge Broker, I started to wonder when somebody was going to write the real story of Manchester, as I see it. 

The critics of Manchester’s economic model have had the field largely to themselves in recent years, and since Manchester City were found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules last month, the decisions the council made to attract overseas investment have become a national talking point. Bernstein died two years ago, so he can no longer defend his record. After staying quiet for a few weeks, I’ve decided that someone who has researched the Abu Dhabi deals needs to speak up and set the record straight, even if that means pre-empting my own book by several months.