Rochdale is a political minefield, so why do so many want to be its MP?

‘It’ll be pretty poisonous, to be honest’

Dear Millers — welcome to your Thursday edition of The Mill. Over the last few days, we have been speaking to councillors, insiders, Labour anoraks and the otherwise well-informed about the party’s selection for a candidate to stand in Rochdale’s next by-election, following the sad death of Sir Tony Lloyd. The shortlist will be announced sometime today, so we’re getting in early with the runners and riders we hear are up for the plum Labour seat. But in a borough like Rochdale, beset by scandals both historic and new, will it be such a cakewalk?

Yesterday, members received a brilliant double-header newsletter, which included pieces from long-time Mill subscribers (who, we submit, were also at one point journalists). David Ward wrote about the 200-year-old playbill he’s been passing on his stairs for years, wondering just who the actor was on the cover. Plus: Andrew Rosthorn looked back on a wild night at Piccadilly Radio, when one of the station’s investors hijacked the mic. If you aren’t yet a member, hit the button below to subscribe and read that edition, and the second half of today’s.

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Your Mill briefing

🌳 Stockport’s Lib Dem council is in hot water. In 2022 it rejected a 200-home development on Mirrlees Fields, a country park by its offices. The rejection was against officers’ recommendations, and now the planning inspectorate has overturned it. The Lib Dems say it is a sign the government “has no interest in protecting green spaces” while opposition groups say the council are to blame for pulling the borough out of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework and “dragging its feet” on a local plan to guide development in the borough. One councillor suggested to The Mill that, in a hurry to get a local plan prepared, the council will now focus house-building in the town centre to hold on to their ageing voters. “There’s going to be a showdown.”

⛓ Andrew Malkinson — who was wrongly imprisoned for 17 years for a rape in Salford — could have been exonerated a decade earlier, had the Criminal Case Review Commission followed a review’s advice to re-evaluate DNA leads. Malkinson, who was released last July, is now calling for the chair of the CCRC Helen Pitcher to lose her OBE. 

🚗 An update on our main item from this week’s Monday briefing: councillors discussed the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s plans to reduce road deaths to zero by 2040 yesterday. They found the draft report a bit thin: “There doesn’t seem to be that much meat on the bones,” one told us. “It was kind of hive-mind, ‘what do you guys think?’ I thought we’d be a bit further on by now.” An action plan is expected by autumn.

👮‍♂️ Sadiq Al-Lami has been named as the 30-year-old man who died after an altercation at some traffic lights in Didsbury in the early hours of Tuesday morning. An 18-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody for questioning. Al-Lami’s family said: "Sadiq's warmth and love touched the hearts of everyone that he met." 

🗳 And finally, the Liberal Democrats have selected Chris Northwood, the current councillor for Ancoats and Beswick and first openly trans councillor to be elected in the city, to be their candidate for Manchester Central at the next general election.

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Rochdale is a political minefield, so why do so many want to be its MP?

By Jack Dulhanty

This year’s by-election in Rochdale is going to get “pretty poisonous”, according to one insider. Over the years, the borough has been plagued by scandals, many in relation to the sexual abuse of young people — be that by grooming gangs whose victims the local authority failed to protect, or by the area’s own former MP, Cyril Smith. 

Last year, its Labour deputy mayor had a harassment claim filed against him, with the local council delaying an investigation into the claims. Now, many in the controlling Labour party have lost confidence in its leadership. 

Whichever way you look at it, Rochdale is a tricky seat. And its by-election will attract more scrutiny than usual. Whether that’s from the media scoping out the successor to Sir Tony Lloyd (Rochdale’s admired MP from 2017 until his death last week), activists targeting the town for its history with grooming gangs, or other political groups like Reform UK, founded by ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

So, given the complications surrounding the seat, why are so many people gunning for it?