Dear Millers — we hope you had as wonderful an equinox and subsequent sunny Saturday as we did (Lucy went to Proove for her mum’s birthday, Jack D sat in a beer garden for three hours and drank five pints at an average of 1.7 pints an hour, Ophira went to the grand re-opening of the Todmorden band stand, of course).
Our piece over the weekend, looking at where Manchester’s food scene is at right now, drew the variety of responses we’ve grown to expect from an article about Manchester’s food scene. “What's so interesting to me is that the independent restaurants in Manchester have financial backers — they are investments, they must go viral, they want to ‘make it’,” said one reader. Others disagreed with the very premise of our article, that the scene isn’t as fun as it once was. “Are we saying that £1 oysters at Posie isn't fun? That sitting at the bar at Another Hand watching your epic hasselback potato being lovingly prepared isn't fun? That bagging a much coveted spot at Skof isn't fun? Course it is.” They make a fair point, we must concede — and more on novelty potatoes later in the briefing.
Jason Bailey, the founder of GRUB MCR who was quoted in the piece as moving away from food and drink towards place-making, wanted to clarify that GRUB is in fact expanding, not downsizing, “but is forming a place-making company to counter the challenges currently faced by the industry.”
Read on for banned books, heavily topped tubers, and a possible spy HQ.
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The school library in Greater Manchester in the midst of a purge
It’s rare to hear about book banning in UK schools, with such stories better associated with a growing conservative backlash in the U.S. But, according to Index on Censorship – a publication that monitors suppression of free speech – a book ban of unprecedented scale has occurred on home soil, at a school in Greater Manchester. The unnamed school’s former librarian has spoken to the publication about the alleged censorship on the condition of anonymity — both for her and the school in question — which she says all started when she stocked Laura Bates’ Men Who Hate Women (a non-fiction book about extreme misogyny) late last year. The librarian, who Index has called Emily, put the book on a recommended reading list for Year 11 children, following safeguarding training on incel culture. When the school’s headteacher saw the list, they demanded the book be pulled from the shelves and the school launched an investigation into allegations that Emily had exposed children to extreme views.
Emily later noticed numerous books had been pulled from the shelves, such as comic books and graphic novels. The library was then closed temporarily as a safeguarding measure, with Emily instructed to audit its books. Any book not written for children, any that had themes that could be upsetting to children, or ones that could be deemed inappropriate, had to be removed. “I ended up removing biographies of World War II airmen, literally less than a week after Remembrance Day, because they weren’t children’s books,” she said.
Emily soon discovered that the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) had reported her to the local authority for introducing inappropriate books to the school library. She contacted the School Libraries Group (SLG), who were shocked by her treatment, and Emily ended up resigning. The LADO meeting still went ahead, concluding that while she hadn’t harmed children, she hadn’t followed safeguarding protocol either. “The fact it’s gone through safeguarding means Emily will never be able to work in a school again,” Caroline Roche, chair of the SLG, said. The full list of nearly 200 books deemed inappropriate by the school was drafted up with the help of AI, and includes Twilight, The Da Vinci Code and Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Index approached the school for comment and they didn’t respond.
Know more about this story? Get in touch with Ophira.
The government’s new digital hub, and spy HQ?
The Manchester Digital Campus — a giant civil service hub — has been approved by the treasury. The campus, to be built on the old site of the Ancoats central retail park (until recently home to the city’s largest DIY skatepark), was given planning approval by the council last year and is expected to house 8,800 staff from multiple government departments. The development is described as “not just a new building – it is a transformation of how government works.” Mill readers with long memories may recall the controversy about how much money Manchester City Council spent securing the old retail park site. It overpaid by some £7m based on a valuation completed by Jonathan Bernstein, the son of the late Sir Howard Bernstein, former CEO of the council.
The departments set to make up the new campus have not been outlined in the government announcement, all we know is their focus will be digital work. A piece from last March by property site Green Street raised interesting questions about the building’s design, including a three-metre high wall surrounding one office, with fins on every window and a restrictive vehicle access policy. Green Street reported this could be a new location for GCHQ, the intelligence and security organisation that is currently based in Heron House on Albert Square.
‘Savvy potato mongers’ punting their ‘hulking tubers’: the North West makes the New York Times
If you’ll allow us, for just a moment, to expand our jurisdiction to Preston, then that would allow us to bring you this important update: The Americans have found out about jacket potatoes. An article published on Friday by the New York Times and titled “What Are Jacket Potatoes, and Why Are the English Waiting Hours for Them?” casts the US spotlight on the Preston Flag Market, where a family business named SpudBros is serving “heavily topped tubers” (as per the article) to allegedly thousands of people a day, some willing to wait in six-hour queues. “Better known in the British culinary vernacular as ‘jacket potatoes’ or ‘jacket spuds,’” reads the article, the “hulking tubers” serve as an “endlessly adaptable vehicle for baked beans, tuna salad and all manner of other peculiarly British toppings.” To top that all off, the NYT piece also refers to the SpudBros themselves as “social-media savvy potato mongers”. It’s honestly a delight to read, and deserves a chapter to itself in the next book of Second Mentions.
Is that really a new town?
How would you define a new town? It’s something we’ve been asking ourselves in the office this morning after Victoria North, a regeneration project going from the northern fringe of the city centre to Collyhurst, has been included in a list of “new towns” backed by the government. But, as Place North West points out, only one of the seven included in the list is a true new town, the others are urban regeneration projects or expansions. The New Towns Programme — which aims to support the delivery of 500,000 homes — has faced pushback from communities across the country over greenbelt development, and seems to be switching to areas with less pushback and a pre-existing market. Victoria North is one of the smallest of the new towns, with 15,000 homes set to be built in the next 15 years in comparison to, say, the 40,000 earmarked for Tempsford in Bedfordshire, currently a village of 600 residents. A new tram stop and park will also be included in the plans, though that will be funded by Greater Manchester’s own Good Growth Fund.
This week’s weather
Tuesday: 🌧️ Cloudy with heavy rain setting in from late morning. Turning windy. Max 12°c.
Wednesday: 🌦️ Windy and unsettled with a mix of sunshine and wintry showers. Feeling very cold in the wind. Max 7°c.
Thursday: 🌦️ Early wintry showers then dry with plenty of spring sunshine. Breezy. Max 8°c.
Friday: 🌦️ Rain clearing early then dry with largely cloudy skies. Max 10°c.
Weekend: ☁️ Milder & drier but often cloudy. Average temperatures for the time of year.
Home of the week
We have once again chosen a home of the week based almost entirely on its proximity to Manchester’s best park, Boggart Hole Clough. It’s a 3-bed, and it’s going for £280,000.
What our writers are up to this week
🎤 This Thursday the team will be off to Stage & Radio to see up-and-coming London band Bedroom Tax play their first show in Manchester this year (though really we’re there to see well-established Manchester band Woioi play their millionth show in Manchester this week).
📚 It’s your last chance to get tickets to see novelists Neil Rollinson and Jon Doyle in conversation at Blackwells. Their new novels The Dead Don’t Bleed and Communion both centre on men in old industrial towns (one in Northumberland, another in Port Talbot) seeking new lives. Get tickets here.
🎼 An evening of Radiohead performed live by a full band, vocalists and string quartet at Manchester Cathedral on Saturday evening, with particular attention given to the band’s most recent studio album (on what is its 10th anniversary), A Moon Shaped Pool. It promises to be very beautiful and perhaps also very sad. Tickets.
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