We're in print
There are 15,000 copies of The Mill circulating in the city
Dear readers — some of you might have received The Mill through your actual letterboxes this week. We’ve published our first ever print edition, and there are 15,000 copies circulating around the city.
The edition marks our first full year as a publication, but it also chronicles the strange and remarkable time we’ve all been through during the pandemic. The headline on the front page is “A city going through its longest year”. It also features a long read profile of Sir Richard Leese, for which we’ve spoken to people like George Osborne and Andy Burnham and plenty of others who have worked with Leese over the years. And it has a great new cartoon from the legendary Private Eye cartoonist Tony Husband.
We’ve had editions delivered to a few dozen streets recommended by our members, but if you haven’t had one delivered, please do pick one up from St Ann’s Church or from Mirage News on Cross Street, which has a bundle. There will be a decent stack of them at our concert tonight.
Here’s a little round-up of things you need to know about this week:
Our Christmas concert at St Ann’s Church is at 7.30pm tonight. It’s going to be a lovely event, with music from the church’s choir and a string quartet, and some great sing-along carols. You can book your tickets for it here, or come and buy them at the door. A few attendees can’t make it because they are self-isolating, so we have a handful of free tickets too — if you’d like one of those, just email editor@manchestermill.co.uk and we will sort you out, or just hit reply to this newsletter.
Last night we reported (in our members-only newsletter) that the police probe into senior Manchester councillor Rabnawaz Akbar has been dropped. We can report that Akbar has had his suspension from the Labour Party lifted, and he will resume his role as the council’s executive member for neighbourhoods. Akbar told us: “I want, first and foremost, to thank GMP for the thorough professionalism of their investigation of these outrageous and malicious allegations, for which they have found no evidence that could warrant further action.” Read the full story. That members’ post also contains some interesting reporting from Jack Dulhanty about the pressures on local A&E departments.
Covid-19 rates are rising in Greater Manchester. The GM case rate (new positives over the past week per 100,000 residents) is now 481.2, up 17.1% versus last week. That compares to the England rate of 553.3, up 9.1% in a week. And remember, these rates are calculated using data for the week ending four days ago (because more recent days are incomplete). See our dashboard below, and look out for the latest in our Monday briefing. How are the hospital numbers responding? So far, we haven’t seen an increase in admissions, but we will keep an eye on that next week.
