Is it time to bin off the Christmas markets? A war waging on St Ann’s Square

Two Mill writers face off over Manchester’s festive future

Dear readers — when a headline in The Guardian dismissed the Christmas markets in Manchester (and everywhere else) as “overpriced tat” this week, it kickstarted a heated debate in The Mill office. Indeed, it’s an argument that rears its head annually when Manchester’s mock-chalets are dragged out of whichever storage unit they’re kept in and into Piccadilly Gardens. Are the markets worth keeping?

A Mill reader survey two weeks ago was resounding: 65% of you said you hoped the markets would not return for 2025. The arguments against are many; overpriced, kitschy, bad for local businesses (this one is debated) and prone to clog the city’s streets to the point they’re barely usable. 

But is that the full story? In today's festive edition of The Mill two writers go head to head. In the anti-market corner, we’ve got Ophira, whose only experience of celebrating Christmas was so unsuccessful it put her mother in a stress-induced coma. Fighting the case for the markets, is Jack, a man so rich in festive spirit he’s been known to wear a reindeer onesie in July. 

Editor’s note: Today’s edition is paywalled halfway down, as is customary on a Friday. There’s plenty to enjoy above the paywall, including a cameo from Gary Neville at the English National Opera’s Holden Gallery party, but if you want to read the full edition you’ll need to sign up. While it’s important to us that the Mill remains accessible to all readers, which is why we continue to put out two free editions every week, it’s our 3200 paying members who fund our journalism and keep The Mill in operation. So why not have yourself an early Christmas present?

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Light up winter at the Science and Industry Museum

From today’s sponsor: Light Lab — a free, family-friendly exploration into light and colour — is coming to the Science and Industry Museum this Christmas. Between Saturday 14 December and Sunday 5 January come along to discover how to bend, block and move light with fun experiments and challenges.

The Museum is also screening a live recording of the first of the 2024 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, where Dr Chris van Tulleken will be discussing how what we eat affects our bodies and our brains, bringing science to life through live demos and special guest appearances. It’ll be showing on the 10th December — to book, click here.

If you would like to reach over 50,000 Mill readers in Greater Manchester, contact daniel@millmediaco.uk 

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Your briefing

🎭 The Mill was in attendance as the English National Opera celebrated its forthcoming relocation north at the Holden Gallery in Manchester School of Art this week. Alongside a lovely performance of Soave sia il vento from Così fan tutte by Mozart, there was fizzy wine, elaborate canapes and plenty of art administrators and business-y types enthusiastically giggling at Gary Neville’s jokes. “This is great, isn’t it?” Neville was overheard saying to a few middle-aged men in suits holding Champagne flutes. Meanwhile, the senior council figures and culture executives present seemed so jovial about the move that it almost made you forget there was ever any animosity at all. For the uninitiated, in 2022, ENO was threatened with a £12.6 million loss in Arts Council funding if it didn’t relocate from London, with Manchester rumoured as the new base for the illustrious opera company. Cue screams of protest, a petition with 57,000 signatures against the decision and Andy Burnham telling the Great Northern Conference: “If they think we are all heathens here, that nobody would go, I’m afraid it doesn’t understand us and therefore it doesn’t deserve to come here.” Fast forward to 2023, and ENO decided it was coming to Greater Manchester after all. In a rather excellent speech at the Holden Gallery yesterday evening, one that most dads at weddings would be proud of, Burnham compared ENO and Greater Manchester to a classic rom-com film “that starts with a rather awkward if disastrous first date” where you’re left wondering if they’re going to come home with you or not, and ends with you both falling in love. ENO’s full programme of events for Greater Manchester can be found here, beginning in June 2025 with a collaboration between ENO and the Hallé. A warm welcome to ENO.

🏡 Last week, a reader sent us a copy of a hand-delivered letter that had arrived through their front door in their lavish neighbourhood in Bowdon. “As we prepare to embark on a new chapter abroad, we wanted to take a moment to personally share some exciting news…” wrote Pamela and Shepherd Ncube, who announced they would be converting their £1 million home into a children’s home while they were away. Do the Ncubes have a burning social mission to help society’s most vulnerable? Or have they noticed a recent report in Private Eye, estimating that private providers of children’s homes can charge local authorities an average of £5,000 a week per placement? The Ncubes didn’t respond to our deadline of Wednesday this week to respond to our questions, but the next day, they quietly withdrew their planning application from Trafford Council’s online system. 

Our take: The fact that a home that was valued at £1,080,000 in 2017 is considered to be more profitable run as a children’s home rather than, say, renting it out or selling it, is just the latest example of how badly things have gone wrong with the care system. This week, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that the private care system, at its worst, was responsible for “bankrupting councils, letting families down, and above all, leaving too many children feeling forgotten, powerless and invisible". Luckily, the government has stepped in, announcing a huge crackdown on big private providers of children’s homes. The story is often framed in this context: huge corporations extracting massive profits from cash-strapped local authorities. But what about the smaller providers? Speaking to the BBC, Andrew Rome, an accountant and analyst of the care system, said the 10 largest providers only account for 26% of all children's homes in England. If we’re really going to get serious about tackling this scandal, both small and large private providers of children’s homes should be scrutinised.

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Quick hits

💰 Darren Henley, the chief executive of the Arts Council, says the investigation into Sacha Lord’s company, Primary Events Solutions, is ongoing. For the uninitiated, the Arts Council launched an investigation after The Mill revealed that the company obtained £400,000 in emergency funding, despite not performing many of the functions it said it did in its application. “Nothing has changed from the statements we’ve given beforehand,” he told The Mill at an event yesterday evening.

👠 The Fraser Group, majority shareholders of Manchester fast fashion company Boohoo, have demanded that Boohoo’s CEO Mahmud Kamani step down. Kamani, once described as “a tough deal-maker with an imposing nature and sharp brain” by the Guardian, is synonymous with “an abysmal trading performance, dismal financial results, further supply chain allegations, a sustained track record of governance failures and a ‘back pocket’ board, related-party cronyism, ill-judged, value-destroying capital investment, and a total disregard for the shareholders”, according to the Frasers, in a less-than-glowing letter written to shareholders.

📰 The High Court says there has been a “dramatic reduction” in the number of outstanding legal claims against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group for alleged phone hacking and other unlawful activity, with celebrities and public figures including Andy Burnham having settled with the company without admission of liability.

🚂 Denton has been revealed as the least used train station in the country over the last year, with people only getting off or getting on at the station 54 times between April 2023 and March 2024. Cue a hoard of train enthusiasts eager to get the experience. If you want to join them this Saturday, board one of the only two services leaving the station each week: to Stockport (8.42) or Stalybridge (9.16).

👮 Popbitch reports Reach PLC has banned its employees from using emojis on company calls after a disastrous online presentation where employees flooded the screen with thumbs down and angry face emojis whenever the company’s digital chief, David Higgerson, appeared on screen.

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‘There’s nothing worse than a trendy Christmas. Who wants an artisan bauble or a small plates Christmas dinner?’: In defence of Manchester’s Christmas markets 

By Jack Walton

My nan loves frogs. No really — she has a house full of them. Frogs on the windowsills; frogs on the side cabinets; frogs in the back bedroom. She even has some real frogs, though these she keeps outside in the pond, probably wisely. 

Back when I was young, Nan would take us to the Christmas markets at Westwood Cross, an out-of-town shopping centre in southeast England. Every year, she would comment on how the markets were getting earlier and earlier, before someone would say: “You think that’s early? That’s for next year”. Anyway, it’s good to get your Christmas shopping done early when you’re eight years old and you’ve got a busy festive schedule. I knew what I wanted: I was into Man United. And I knew what my brother wanted: he was two years older and into making money (he liked The Apprentice and was also just odd). Nan, meanwhile, that was easy: she liked frogs. And sherry.

I don’t need to describe the Westwood Cross Christmas markets to you; beyond saying that they’re exactly the same as the Manchester ones only much smaller and in much drearier surroundings. But I will say that they gave me an affection for all Christmas markets, even the ones described as “overpriced tat” in The Guardian this week. And whenever I visit a Christmas market, I look out for the frogs — like the ones me, my brother and my cousins would buy for my nan every year, a family of frogs that spawned at the same rate, or faster, as her own ever-expanding clan. The crapper, the kitschier, the better.