Meet Reform UK’s first Greater Manchester councillor

“My physicality is very important to me,” Tameside councillor Allan Hopwood explains. Pastas, cereals, cakes (heaven forefend) do not sit well with him. They fog his mind, they slow him down. He needs to be svelte, to stay sharp, so he opts for a diet of meat, fish and veg. He loves salmon. But why does Hopwood need to stay so trim? It can’t be for all of that leafleting, can it? The answer, of course, is biking. As well as being Reform UK’s first ever Greater Manchester councillor, a former military man, and a “fantastically good” actor (with minor roles in Peaky Blinders and Shameless), Hopwood’s real passion, his only “vice”, is off-road dirt bikes. On a dirt bike, a touch of extra timber can be fatal, he says, the last thing you want is “a load of extra flabby bits flying in the wrong direction”. But with his mind purely focused on serving his new constituents, Hopwood’s diet has slipped a little of late. That could spell trouble on the bikes…

…and so it seems, after no more than 15 of seconds whizzing around his farm land on his prized electric bike (80 horsepower, no less) the councillor has come catapulting off and landed in a heap among the long grass. Blimey, I think, there goes half of Reform UK’s entire Greater Manchester representation. But Hopwood is soon dusting himself down. “I’m not a winner,” he later tells me. “I’m a trier. But sometimes I win”.