Manchester parks, London Fields, and the politics of the post-work pint

Dear readers — we hope you all had a great bank holiday weekend. You haven’t seen us since Saturday, when we published Jack’s account of his trip to Bilbao with the Manchester United faithful. Mark called it a “lovely read”, Libby said it “totally [captured] the pain and madness of being a football fan” and Micky aptly noted: “you think United fans have it tough, try getting to Morecambe and home again on a Tuesday night in January”. But perhaps the most effusive of all the praise heaped at Jack’s door came from Steven, who said this: “a brilliant piece of culture writing almost as good as anything Ophelia writes” [sic, presumably]. 

Anyway, we’re back. Today’s edition sees the return of a tried and tested format: the writer’s edition, where one Mill writer takes you through a compendium of their current recommendations, blazing hot takes and gripes about the Manchester. This particular edition also features a bonus ball: a Q&A with the much-loved actress and long-time Mill member Julie Hesmondhalgh, whose theatre company have a new play about the far-right at Deansgate's 53Two. 

Before we get on with it though, some important housekeeping: In a week’s time, we’re celebrating five years of The Mill at The New Cross and we want you there. This isn’t just another event. It’s a celebration of everything we’ve built together — five years of independent journalism — and will feature behind-the-scenes looks at our biggest investigations (including what really went down with Sacha Lord and the University of Greater Manchester), conversations with our journalists and a room full of your fellow readers, so you can meet the people you have been talking to in the comments section! We still have a few tickets left, but they’re going fast.

And another piece of housekeeping! Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running a small experiment: turning some of our stories into audio, narrated by the journalists who wrote them. Whether you listened or didn’t, your feedback will help us decide how (or if!) we move forward with audio. This short survey will take less than 2 minutes to complete.

Summer music Sundays at RHS Bridgewater

From our sponsor: Sunshine and music are a perfect pairing — so get yourself down to RHS Bridgewater tomorrow, or next Sunday, for live music in beautiful surroundings. Tomorrow’s event is a local brass band (the Cadishead Public Band) and next week there’s the Caribbean Carnival inspired Cacophany Arkestra. Then on the 6th July the Rajastan Heritage Brass Band (pictured) will bring a mix of folk songs, Bollywood hits, spiritual qawwali, Bhangra beats.

There’s no extra charge beyond entry to the garden, which is free for RHS members.

Your briefing

🏛️ Oldham Council leader Arooj Shah has narrowly survived another vote of no confidence. 28 councillors voted in favour of the Liberal Democrat Group’s no confidence motion in the Labour leader, with 31 voting against. Shah was accused of taking part in a “grubby deal” to nominate Failsworth Independent Party councillor Brian Hobin as deputy mayor, a move that Lib Dem councillor Howard Sykes has criticised as an example of Labour strategically making alliances with independent councillors and “using every trick in the book to cling onto power”. In a full council meeting, Shah defended the nomination and said the process was done fairly. In a vote, Hobin was elected the council’s next deputy mayor, with 31 votes for and 28 against. We have written about the fractured politics in Oldham and the Failsworth Independent Party before — go deeper with Joshi’s long read from 2021. Or prefer to listen? You can hear Joshi and Darryl telling the story by clicking the player below.

📰 The North's best business journalist (and long-time Miller) Michael Taylor reports on the collapse of Wakelet, a startup "once feted as a successful example of Manchester tech entrepreneurship". According to The Business Desk, Wakelet recorded millions of pounds of losses and fell into arrears with HMRC to the tune of £126k. Its shareholders included former Manchester United defender, Rio Ferdinand, former Manchester City player Joleon Lescott and politicians Chuka Umunna and Sayeeda Warsi, not to mention several members of the Kamani family from fast fashion business Boohoo.

📰 We enjoyed this long read in the New Statesman about the legacy of George Osborne and the impact of 15 years of austerity. It examines his gift as a strategist (“He could threaten to damage the state and the economy even more aggressively than he actually planned to, and the consensus was that this was what any smart centrist would do”), his “glib, detached approach to running the economy” and how the effects of his radical experiment with austerity are still being felt today.

Manchester parks, London Fields, and the politics of the post-work pint — a writer’s edition from Ophira 

A place in the sun:

My colleague Mollie has recently acquired a shade-mapping app that tells you where in the city is in sunlight at any given hour. The verdict? Very few parts of the city are in sunlight at any given hour. This is of course due to the proliferation of high-rises that Manchester has made itself famous for, that not only block out the sun, but take up space that theoretically could have remained (or been turned) green. One such place is Ancoats Central Retail Park — a park until recently home to the city’s largest DIY skatepark. The skaters campaigned hard to save their space, to no avail, and now there’s a separate petition doing the rounds, campaigning for the retail space to be turned into a “proper Manchester city centre park”, as opposed to the current plans for a new digital campus. The petition has gathered a modest 238 signatures so far, but it’s not without its opposition, who claim that Manchester benefits from being in immediate proximity to the countryside so has less need for green spaces than other cities, and that, to put it plainly, “parks don’t make business rates”. Thoughts in the comments please!