‘He’s massively at risk’ — what a by-election this week might mean for Sir Graham Brady
Plus: the ‘cannon fodder’ of Bury New Road, and a review of the Royal Exchange’s newest show
Dear Millers — we hope you all had great weekends. Today, we’re taking a look at Thursday's by-election in Stretford and Urmston. It’s been called to elect a replacement for Labour's Kate Green, who stepped down last month to become the deputy mayor of Greater Manchester. It might give us some interesting cues about Labour's increasing takeover of once-Tory Trafford.
But before that, thanks for all your tweets and emails over the weekend, responding to Joshi's insightful long-read about the disparities between the North and South of England, the hoarding of power in Whitehall and the pitfalls of short-term thinking.
For the piece, Joshi spoke to three of the region's top economists about what levelling up would look like if it was taken seriously. It was shared by economists, think tanks and editors from some of the national papers.
🎄 Last chance: We’re sending a free copy of North Country: An anthology of landscape and nature (worth £14.99) and a personal Christmas card from the team to anyone who buys a gift subscription or an annual membership to The Mill by this Thursday. The book contains a beautiful Mill essay about Borsdane Wood by Dani Cole, alongside contemporary writers like Lemn Sissay and classic writing from the Brontës and Elizabeth Gaskell. In order to get a copy of this lovely book in time for Christmas, you have until midday this Thursday to sign up — we’ll ask for your postal address after purchase to send the book and card.
Speaking of gifts, if you can’t face the Arndale, we love these antique maps of Manchester, Salford and Lancashire, which offer a glimpse into Manchester’s not-so-distant past. They’re from the independent seller Ninska Designs, a longtime Miller — you can find her shop here, and she says anything ordered this week should arrive comfortably before Christmas.
This week’s weather
Our forecast is from local weatherman Martin Miles, who says this week will be “crisp and sunny by day, frosty and freezing by night, although there is a strong hint of something milder soon.”
Tuesday 🌥️ Dull at first with the odd light snow shower. Bright spells will develop during the day. Feeling cold. Max 2°c.
Wednesday 🌤 Breezy with long periods of winter sunshine. Max 3°c.
Thursday 🌤 Dry and mostly sunny with light winds. Max 3°c.
Friday 🌦 Sunny intervals with the occasional wintry shower. Feeling slightly milder. Max 4°c.
Weekend ☁️ Transient snow is possible before milder air moves in and temperatures climb to the seasonal average. An end to this cold spell is in sight.
You can find the latest forecast at Manchester Weather on Facebook — daily forecasts are published at 6.15am.
The big story: A by-election in Trafford
Top line: It’s the Stretford and Urmston by-election on Thursday. The seat came free after Kate Green resigned as MP last month to become Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Context: For over a decade, Trafford was a Tory stronghold, the party’s northern flagship, a thorn in Labour’s side. But since they lost control of the council in 2018, the party has been in a state of slow-motion collapse. They have lost 16 seats on the council in four years.
On the other hand, Labour now have 41 council seats. The council leader, Andrew Western, is standing in this week’s by-election and he shouldn't struggle to get elected: “Labour are going to piss it,” one insider texts.
What’s caused Trafford’s Labour surge depends on who you ask. Western would say the Tories were knocked off their perch by a solid campaign from a Labour group that knows what local people want. Others see something different. Our source told us:
The main reason that Trafford has come back to Labour is because of demographic change and gentrification.
Places like Altrincham and Sale are some of the clearest examples of that. Once old-money Valhallas for retirees; now full of craft breweries and vegan lunch spots for young professionals and families, who are more likely to vote Labour.
That's just as well. One person with knowledge of Western’s campaign says: “it’s a good job it’s not marginal, because we’re fighting a pretty shit, disorganised campaign.” They say the office is in Hulme, outside the constituency, and people are turning up to find it closed. They describe the campaign setting up in a car park in Stretford to “operate out of someone’s boot.”
Nevertheless, it’s unlikely Labour are going to have much competition, not least from the Conservatives. One Miller in Urmston who normally votes Tory emailed in to say they’re voting Labour because Western was the only candidate to send any campaign material: “not prepared to vote for an unknown!”
Said “unknown” is Emily Carter-Kandola, 29, an associate director at London comms firm Lexington. Her priorities are protecting the green belt and supporting small businesses.
“It’s for her CV” one source tells The Mill, “where she’ll say, ‘I stood in the Stretford and Urmston 2022 by-election’ when she goes for, like, South Hampshire in three years' time.”
“The Tories are a spent force in Trafford” one Labour councillor from another borough says. But, while there may be a move away from the Tories, it isn’t necessarily all going to go in Labour’s direction. “The Greens are the ones to watch,” they say, but they don’t expect Labour to lose to them this time. Their main worry is turn-out, there are lows of -5°C expected for Thursday.
If Labour do win by a big margin in Stretford and Urmston, it is likely to put more pressure on Sir Graham Brady, Trafford’s only Tory MP in Altrincham and Sale West. There are six Labour councillors, five Lib Dems and four Greens in his constituency, although the Tories still have more seats than any other party.
Brady is the most prominent back-bench MP in the Tory party as chair of the 1922 committee. That’s the powerful group that takes letters of no-confidence in party leaders. As you could imagine, Brady has had a busy few years.
“He's massively at risk,” says one insider. At a by-election in Chester earlier this month, there was a 13.6% swing from Conservative to Labour. “Even on the swing there was in Chester, he would lose.”
Bottom line: It’s all in the swing. Polls predict that Labour would enjoy a 14.2% swing if a general election were held tomorrow, bigger than Chester. If the swing on Thursday is in line with the polls, or even with Chester, it would give the Tories some serious cause for concern. More locally: should Western win, he will immediately stand down as council leader, and a general meeting will be called to pick his successor. The Mill hears that race is also a foregone conclusion. Tom Ross, the executive member for finance and governance, who ran against Western for the Labour group leadership in 2014, is expected to take over.
Home of the week
A Grade II listed three bedroom country home in Bolton is on the market for £600,000. It retains original Tudor features, with private gardens and tranquil surroundings.
Your Mill briefing
Andy Burnham and London Mayor Sadiq Khan say Avanti West Coast should have its franchise removed if it doesn’t improve services before the end of the year. Labour say that Avanti and Transpennine Express are cancelling 18,000 trains a month, the mayors say Avanti should not be allowed to operate in 2023 if it doesn’t restore previous services. Senior Tories in the North agree the government needs to step in if the operator doesn’t make big changes fast. Last week, a passenger rail performance review by the Office of Rail and Road found that Avanti West Coast trains were the most likely to arrive late, with 60% of its services failing to arrive on time. The operator also cancelled more services than any other operator between July and September of this year.
Channel migrants are “cannon fodder” for organised crime groups, according to Greater Manchester’s Chief Constable, Stephen Watson. In an interview with the Telegraph, Watson said migrants become a source of labour for crime groups operating in places like Bury New Road in Cheetham Hill, where GMP are currently cracking down on the sale of counterfeit goods. “They are likely to become damaged people and hardened criminals,” Watson says. “They will be a net burden on the state for the rest of their natural lives. There are so many reasons to sort this out.”
A pig’s head left on the roof of a mosque in Stockport is being investigated as a hate crime by GMP. Worshippers found the head upon leaving the mosque on Friday. "It was clearly done on purpose to terrify us,” says Tayyab Mohiuddin, trustee at the Heatons Muslims Community Trust, “and people are fearful it could go further." According to Mohiuddin, CCTV shows a car pulling up and two people getting out to place the head on the roof.
Four of the ten best state secondary schools in the North West are in Altrincham, according to the Times. Altrincham Grammar School for Girls took the top spot, and Altrincham Grammar School for Boys came second. The rankings are based on the first set of post-pandemic results for state secondary schools.
Listen to our podcast 🎧
In our latest podcast, Joshi and Darryl talk about the Labour party’s bold new blueprint for decentralising power in Britain.
“What it’s really about,” says Joshi, “is the the concentration of power in this country, in Westminster. And how the Labour party has come to the conclusion that the thing holding us back, the problem in our democracy and our economy, is we’re much too centralised.”
They also discuss a scathing report on a local prestigious school — which we reported on here — and run through those texts about Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram’s DJ battle. Listen here.
Our favourite reads
The women turning to sex work to make ends meet — The Financial Times
This long read documents the lives of sex workers in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and London, many of whom have recently turned to the industry as financial pressures mount. We hear particularly from Michelle, a 38-year-old sex worker in the North of England, whose husband lost his job at the start of the pandemic and has struggled herself to stay in work. “When her client base shrank during the pandemic she took on riskier clients, including one saved in her phone as ‘avoid, avoid’ and others who tried to push for services such as strangling… Michelle says she has always maintained strict boundaries around what she allows men to do to her but, as her income slips, so do her limits.”
I Went to a DJ Battle Between Two UK Mayors — Vice
“Who on earth comes out on a weekend night to watch two middle-aged politicians playing records?” It’s a question asked by the writer Elsie Britt, who headed to Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram’s charity DJ battle last weekend. There’s a great passage about the most awkward moment of the night: “Musician Lee Mavers, Rowetta says, preferred Manchester to Liverpool in his youth because he could get better gear here. Both politicians visibly flinch.”
Maxine Peake brings Betty Boothroyd’s story to the stage — The Guardian
Maxine Peake’s portrayal of the former MP and first female speaker in the House of Commons is charming, theatrical and slightly wonky, according to this review of Betty! A Sort Of Musical, which is showing at the Royal Exchange until January. “During a fever dream of a second act sequence, Peake’s Boothroyd proves herself in the role of speaker, facing a set of trials including a rap battle against Dennis Skinner. It’s silly, surreal and often very funny.”
Our to do list
Tuesday
🖊️ Head to Wandering Palate in Monton for relaxed and informal life drawing sessions in the middle of the shop floor. Tickets include a glass of wine on arrival.
🎭 The National Theatre’s production of The Ocean at the End of the Lane is showing at the Lowry Theatre. Written by Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline, Good Omens and The Sandman, expect a production that is memorable, haunting and evocative. Book here.
Wednesday
🎞️ If you’re ready to get in a festive mood, Tim Burton’s iconic The Nightmare Before Christmas will be showing at the Chapeltown Picturehouse in Cheetham Hill. Book here.
🎤 A rare appearance from Pete Rock, a legend of the 90s “golden era” of hip-hop, at the Blues Kitchen this Thursday, whose DJ sets fuse elements of jazz, hip hop and crisp soul. Book here.
Thursday
🎧 It’s a weekday, but Blossom Street Social in Ancoats has a great selection of organic and natural wines which equals no hangover. Laura Zuanella, a DJ who plays mostly soul, disco and funk, will be playing. More here.
📽️ There’s a free screening of the 1966 Czechoslovakian surrealist film Daisies at Cafe Blah in Withington. The film starts at 8pm, but arrive early to hear DJs playing soundtracks from the Czech new wave era. More here.
For our glitteringly well-informed weekend to do list — which we send out every Thursday — hit the button below to join us as a member.
Keep up the good work Mill people. But please don't fall for the 'best' schools line parroted by The Times. Exam results are just one measure. As a previous comment has pointed out, these are largely selective schools, and they are in affluent areas (including the comprehensives mentioned in The Times). Let's be more nuanced and sophisticated in discussing school performance.
Trafford schools? Of course they come near the top. They select the top 11 plus takers! It’s the 80% who “ fail” who should get the reporting.