Private schools, 'population explosions' and an unloved town centre
We visit a seat in Labour's sights. Plus: An update in the Sacha Lord story as we're accused of 'tabloid click bait'
Dear Millers — we’re in the middle of the final full week of campaigning before the general election. Today, we’re looking at a particularly interesting race: Bolton West, a bellwether seat that has become a key indicator of how national elections are likely to turn out. Right now, it’s held by the Conservatives with a decent majority, but Labour is eyeing it greedily. Jack has spent a few days there speaking to candidates and locals and has written a great piece.
We also have an update on our reporting on Sacha Lord and his company Primary Events below, plus our usual briefing. But first a couple of bits of housekeeping:
Book your place: If you want to hear our editor Joshi talk about the elections next week, book your place for a live recording of The News Meeting, a great podcast produced by our friends at Tortoise Media. Joshi will be chatting with Tortoise founder (and former Times and BBC editor) James Harding and other guests at Material Source Studio just by Victoria Station at 6.30pm on Monday. You can reserve free tickets here.
Write for us: We’ve just done a big callout for freelance contributors. We’re very keen to expand our network of regular writers in the next couple of months, so please share Joshi’s tweet if you have writers and reporters in your network, and check out our new pitching page for more details about how to pitch and what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a huge range of pieces including data stories, cultural pieces, essays about local life and deeply reported long reads.
Your Mill briefing
🟠 Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem candidate for Hazel Grove, is in hot water after slurring a Liverpudlian on the doorstep. In a video taken by a resident's doorbell camera, Smart speaks with a woman from Liverpool who was visiting family at the address. When the woman explains she isn’t the resident and is from Liverpool, Smart says: “so you’re just here nicking stuff?” It’s sparked some anger, especially considering her Conservative opponent in the election, Paul Athans, is from Liverpool. Speaking to The Mill, Athans said Smart’s comment was “utterly disgraceful” and reinforces harmful stereotypes. “Is that the standard you expect from a potential member of parliament? Absolutely not.” Athans said the Lib Dems’ campaign literature has also attacked him for being from Liverpool, suggesting that him being from outside the area is an “insult” to voters. Pretty hypocritical, seeing Smart is from Lytham, also outside the constituency, and once ran for the London Assembly. “I’d like to think the people of Hazel Grove want an MP that respects everyone,” said Athans. “Regardless of where they were born.” A Lib Dem spokesperson has said Smart returned to the address to apologise.
🗳 Over in Oldham, police were called on Monday after Jim McMahon, the MP for Oldham West and Royton, was accosted by a group of six men while out campaigning to retain his seat. Footage seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service showed the men emerge from a car with a megaphone. One has been identified as a local councillor for the hyperlocal Oldham Group, Abdul Wahid. After chanting “shame on you”, the men followed McMahon as he tried to distance himself, shouting “you’re not welcome in Oldham”. The Oldham group have denied McMahon’s accusation that they were trying to intimidate him and “disrupt democratic process”.
🏛️ Four teenage boys have been convicted of the manslaughter and murder of Kennie Carter, a 16-year-old from Stretford who was killed in January 2022. The boy convicted of murder is 16 years old. Two other 16-year-olds and 18-year-old Latif Ferguson have been charged with manslaughter. Six others aged between 15 and 19 were found not guilty of both charges.
🚄 Part of a rail line connecting Manchester and Sheffield is set to be closed for seven weeks — from this Saturday until 25 August — while work is done to fix subsidence issues. Network Rail said: "If the work is not carried out, there is a risk of 50,000 tonnes of earth falling from the railway into the River Goyt." Passengers will be able to get as far as Marple before having to board rail replacement buses to Chinley. Worth mentioning that this is only affecting slower trains passing through all stations, not the direct lines most people use.
⚽️ On Tuesday’s rather boring match between England and Slovenia, there was one glimmer of positivity. Phil Foden, Kobbie Mainoo and Cole Palmer, who were on the pitch together near the end of the second half, all grew up within three miles of each other in Stockport, as pointed out by United We Stand founder Andy Mitten. Are you the perfect person to write the much-needed Mill long read on the footballing finishing school of Stockport? Please get in touch.
📰 Worth a read: The BBC spent time at the Forgotten Regulars club, at the Union Arms in Tyldesley. It’s a monthly meet-up for people with dementia, their carers and families. The piece highlights the lack of social care provision in England, and how the gap is filled by these kinds of clubs, and the unpaid carers working up to 50 hours a week.
‘Tabloid click bait approach’: The latest in the Sacha Lord story
You might remember that we recently raised serious questions about a conflict of interest at Arts Council England (ACE), the public body that inexplicably gave Sacha Lord’s company Primary Events over £400,000 of taxpayers’ money during the pandemic. We were told that one of the people assessing applications for the Culture Recovery Fund at the time was a staff member who, like Lord, was closely linked to Andy Burnham.
That was Karen Boardman, who was personally appointed by Burnham to lead a major review of the local music sector. The Arts Council did not knock down the suggestion that Boardman had been involved in assessing the application from Primary Events, which as we reported extensively last month, was riddled with false statements and misleading claims. A spokesperson for the organisation that is entrusted with distributing government funding for the arts said that it couldn’t talk about individual staff members. All they would confirm on the record was that the counter-fraud team at ACE was investigating the application sent by Lord’s company, which we already knew.
At the time of writing, we had not heard back from Boardman herself. We tried to contact her via friends, via LinkedIn and also through an email address that we found online but which bounced 24 hours after our request went in. Since publishing the story, however, we have heard from Boardman, who has sent a full statement responding to the story. It’s only fair to run that statement in full for everyone to read. It’s also reasonable to point out that nowhere in the statement does Boardman deny that she was involved in assessing the application from Lord’s company.
After Boardman got in touch, we agreed to run the statement but asked her three follow-up questions:
In the statement, you don’t seem to deny being part of the assessment of Primary Event Solutions' Arts Council application. Please can you tell us what your involvement was in that assessment?
Did you realise that the application came from a company owned by one of Andy Burnham's key advisors?
Did you declare your potential conflict of interest regarding your links to the GMCA?
Why did you not recuse yourself from involvement in this application?
Boardman replied: “As an employee of Arts Council England, it would not be appropriate for me to comments on the organisation’s processes.”
Here’s her statement in full:
I am deeply hurt and distressed that The Mill have chosen to name me in their story relating to their claim that Primary Event Solutions Limited submitted a fraudulent Arts Council Culture Recovery Fund application in early 2021. For the record, and to be factually accurate, I do not know Sasha Lord personally nor have had any direct association with Primary Event Solutions Limited.
The unfounded allegation and underlying implications of a Conflict of Interest is made by The Mill on the basis I worked alongside many colleagues at Arts Council England (ACE) supporting the creative sector during one of the most challenging times of our lifetime, whilst having links to the GMCA. These ‘links’ relate to some voluntary work I undertook to chair, one of three, round table discussions to inform the Greater Manchester Music Review in 2018, three years prior to Primary Event Solution Limited’s application to ACE’s Cultural Recovery Fund. This sensationalist article implies that I have acted without professional integrity and breached ACE’s Conflict of Interest and Code of Conduct policies. This is not the case.
There is one accurate detail in this article. I happily give up my time voluntarily to sit on the Greater Manchester Music Commission Steering Group (the Group) to help, support and champion our region’s music industry. Membership was invited by an open call late in 2021. I felt my experience of supporting the music industry spanning many years, from Project Manager at Manchester Music Network to my current role as a Music Relationship Manager for ACE, would be of benefit. GMCA agreed and invited me to join the group as a Commissioner.
The Mill article refers to this group as a ‘cosy world of appointees created by Burnham’. Nothing could be further from the truth. The commission is made up of strong, opinionated people who are willing to ask difficult questions. We are unswerving in our mission to support and promote music across our region, not to support the Mayoral agenda. I am very proud of the work I do as part of that group and deeply saddened this article attempts to call that into question.
I am also extremely disappointed at the tabloid click bait approach, The Mill has used to drive reader numbers. In particular the words ‘Woman close to Andy Burnham’ used as part of the ‘Exclusive’ headline. As one of the few female music managers working across Greater Manchester, with a 30-year track record of working in the Music Industry, I was appointed to the Group on merit. Accordingly, I find this approach/insinuation both disgraceful and insulting. As is the decision to publish a statement from a ‘disgruntled musician’ inferring the band I manage, Loose Articles, only got chosen to represent GMCA at SXSW because I am part of the Group, rather than on the basis of the band being one of the most exciting, all women groups to come out of the region right now. This tabloid style journalism demonstrates the kind of misogyny prevalent in this industry that the band and I are committed to fighting.
Whilst it is important to have free press and for publications like The Mill to hold public organisations to account, I don’t consider it is good journalism to cast aspersions and publicly question the integrity of individuals based upon supposition and anecdotal hearsay as this article has done.
Given The Mill’s commitment to promoting “thoughtful journalism” and “quality news” I trust The Mill will publish my statement in full to allow their readers to see there is no truth in the damaging implications made to sully my reputation.
There will be no further statements from me on this matter.
If you have more information on this story, please get in touch.
Bolton’s bellwether heads to the polls
By Jack Dulhanty
To understand why Bolton West is considered a bellwether seat — a constituency whose vote will forecast how the rest of the country is likely to go — take the 125 out of Bolton Interchange.
You'll pass through the terraces just outside the town centre and onto Chorley Old Road — a long thoroughfare of takeaways and garages — then head higher past Doffcocker where you’ll catch a glimpse of leafier Lostock. There, the roads seem wider, and lined instead with prep schools, large houses, and a golf course sponsored by the local Porsche garage. Afterwards you'll go up towards Bottom o’th Moor and each side of the road will fall away to fields and hills dotted with houses with huge glass features that overlook the landscape, then you’ll get into Horwich, which in parts feels almost like a village. To quote my colleague Dan, who grew up in the constituency: “It gets nicer as you go out.”
But the broader point is, the place is diverse — socioeconomically, at least. Demographically, to quote a local councillor, it’s “sort of older and whiter”. According to Electoral Calculus, it’s 87% white with an average age of around 51. The seat has always been marginal, but this year Labour are heavily targeting it. As we reported last month, they have sent activists from outside the area to help with campaigning, and the regional party has had a special organiser placed there since last year.
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