11 Comments

I LOVE that article about Angela Rayner from 2012 - thanks for sharing.

Expand full comment

Great piece, but Parrs Wood School is very much in East Didsbury, close to the Stockport border

Expand full comment

Came here just to post this!

Expand full comment

Thanks - sorry! Will correct now.

Expand full comment

Vaguely election related comment: there seems to be some suggestion on twitter that there were Reform candidates with no significant online presence, and suggestions that they are not “real” people. I assumed that all candidates were vetted, so searched for the Bury North Reform candidate: Lynda Rosewell, she has been on twitter in the past @lyndimist51, but her last post was a year ago. Her 30 posts seem to correlate with Reform type interests, but all other Google searches for her just bring back election related pages. Am I just falling into a twitter conspiracy theory rabbit hole?

Expand full comment

Haha, you're not alone, I was just reading about this in my lunch break

There's a very funny TikTok series on the hunt for Helen Burns, Reform's candidate in Glasgow North https://www.tiktok.com/@kbfilms92/video/7389282828116118817

Reform has also admitted to the Guardian that it fielded paper candidates who did no campaigning and were just there to increase the party's votes https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/reform-uk-under-pressure-to-prove-all-its-candidates-were-real-people

And Mark Matlock had to go on GB News to say he was a real person and not AI https://www.gbnews.com/politics/reform-uk-candidate-hits-back-trolling-ai-bot

Expand full comment

Ha, yeah, I saw the Helen Burns videos. I’m not sure how I’d never come across paper candidates before. They’ve done well to find people with next to no online presence. It’s hilarious that Mark Matlock had to prove that he’s real.

Expand full comment

I don't know about Stockport Homes, but Manchester City Council need to pull their collective and proverbial finger out where repairs are concerned.

Over the last couple of years, they've moved into self-managing a number of council-owned properties that had previously been under the management of various housing associations across the city, some of which weren't meeting repair targets. Unfortunately, MCC are proving to be even worse on that front, so far - and don't even get me started on the drop in accessibility when it comes to communication on the subject.

Expand full comment

Interesting! Do you have any more info to share on this situation? I'm on mollie@manchestermill.co.uk

Expand full comment

Drat, I never had an email notification for this comment, and I don't often open the Substack app to see it that way. If you're still interested I can email? The situation certainly hasn't changed in that time.

Expand full comment

Yes absolutely, Tria, feel free to still get in touch.

Expand full comment