‘Reform left my mum to the dogs’

Dear readers — hello and welcome to the Horticultural Herald, which is actually the rebranded Manchester Mill, after we spent the weekend raking in very lovely emails, comments and Big Thumbs Up following Friday’s scoop: that Reform UK broke electoral law in Gorton and Denton (more on that in a minute). In honour of our new focus we hit the allotment on Saturday, mulching, weeding and pruning. We have exciting plans to bring you Mill Jam once the weather picks up, so stay tuned for that. For now, behold: both of our Jacks, doing The Full Monty Don…

Meanwhile Ophira spent the weekend doing “actual work” — wandering around with Hannah ‘The Plumber’ Spencer as she’s known in the ring, the Green candidate in Gorton and Denton. This is to reassure you that we won’t just be talking about Reform all the time, we’ve got pieces on Green and Labour in the pipeline too. But first, more on Reform, specifically an update on the illegal letters sent by the party and written by an elusive pensioner: Patricia Clegg. Today, her son turns his back on the party he once loved, claiming Matt Goodwin’s team have thrown his 74-year-old mother “to the dogs”.

But before that even, here’s the obligatory bit of the newsletter where we quote your praise of us. Of Friday’s scoop, over on Bluesky, Adam Tucker says we’ve done "extraordinary work”. John Parkinson calls it “solid local reporting”. And on FKA Twitter, Honeybee_24_7 writes “[y]ou call yourself a quality newspaper yet your articles read like Labour propaganda! Why the anti Reform rhetoric? No one apart from the whining left care about the leaflet.” [sic]. Lovely stuff, keep it coming.

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‘74 years old and shit on’

On Friday we broke the news that Reform UK had committed electoral fraud in Gorton and Denton. Residents across the constituency were receiving peculiar, fake-handwritten letters from a pensioner named Patricia Clegg, urging them to vote Reform. But, as it turned out, these letters were actually commissioned by the party themselves — which means that, by law, they should have had an imprint on them explaining as much. They did not.

We brought this up with Reform, who blamed the letter’s printers, Hardings. We brought it up with Hardings, who told us that all their proofs are checked by their customers before printing. Then we brought it up with both of them again, by which point the pair seemed to have come to a consensus: After showing Reform the proof and having it cleared, Hardings then accidentally removed the only legally significant part of the letter from every single copy, and sent them out. It was entirely Hardings’ fault, they accepted full responsibility, and had apologised to the party for the mistake. We asked Reform if they planned on suing Hardings for causing them to breach electoral law, and they ignored the question. And indeed why ruin a long-lasting friendship over a simple mistake? Reform and Hardings go way back — the party paid them almost £1.5m to print unsolicited election material during the 2024 election.

Now, as promised, we return to you with updates. Since Friday the story has been picked up by the Guardian, the BBC, and the MEN. Matt Goodwin spent the weekend under fire from journalists, constituents, and angry folk on Facebook — but perhaps none angrier than Andrew Damien Clegg, the 50-something year old son of Patricia Clegg, our letter-penning pensioner.

In an outraged comment on one of Matt Goodwin’s Facebook posts, Clegg claims that his mother never signed off on the letter. He says that Reform tried to blame the printers, but it’s actually Reform’s fault, who he says “left [his] mum to the dogs”. He also says that all his previous comments on the subject had been mysteriously “removed” (we asked Matt Goodwin’s team if they’d been deleting Clegg’s comments from below Goodwin’s Facebook posts, but they ignored the question).

“I was a supporter and a fan that stood up for a party I agreed was right but now no more,” he adds — noting that since the publication of the piece, his mother had been hounded by the press. On this point, The Mill would like to add that we approached Patricia Clegg once over Facebook, but have never called her or shown up at her address.

When we asked Reform UK if it's true, as Clegg alleges, that they had “shit on” a 74-year-old pensioner, they said they had been in touch with the Clegg family and had “apologised for the distress caused by a genuine error on the part of a third-party contractor, which was entirely outside our control”. They also assured us Patricia Clegg still plans to vote Reform later this month, even if her son is feeling less charitable.

The Forgotten Babe

When Tony Easom was seven years old, he saw the funeral cortege for Eddie Colman go past his school. Colman, one of eight Manchester United players to lose their life when British European Airways Flight 609 skipped off a slushed runway in Munich and through a fence on 6 February 1958, was about to be laid to rest in Weaste Cemetery. Easom pushed to the front to watch. Half a century later, a pub conversation brought Easom’s attention to another grave. It turned out the lesser-known Busby Babe, Geoff Bent, who also died that night, was buried just down the road from him in Irlams o' th' Height. But unlike Colman’s, Bent’s grave was a mess of tangled weeds and faded marble. “He was the forgotten Babe,” Easom tells The Mill. Since then, it’s been Easom’s personal mission to maintain Bent’s grave. He has the grass trimmed, he washes the United scarfs that rest on it at home, and every year he comes here on the anniversary of the Munich Air Crash, to sing the Flowers of Manchester. We paid Tony a visit on Friday, and raised a mug of tea to the Geoff Bent, the Forgotten Babe.

The old Curiosity Gap

Welcome news for any of you who hate the degrading practice of clickbait which has almost the entirety of local news in the UK in a stranglehold: there’s no such thing! As Private Eye reports in their latest magazine, Reach PLC bosses (these are the owners of the Manchester Evening News and countless other local titles, plus the Express and Mirror) insist they do not produce “clickbait”, but they have developed a handy new term to describe all the clearly-not-clickbait articles they publish. Reach journalists are instead being tasked to explore the “curiosity gap” in their headlines. Take this recent headline: “Aldi shoppers deem product so good people are 'buying trays full of it'”. After scrolling past several ads you will eventually find out that your local paper has just paid a journalist to write about a white chocolate protein pudding (which tastes “remarkably similar” to a Milky Bar Yogurt). Curious stuff indeed!

Over in the Green corner

And Reform isn’t the only party who’ve found themselves in hot water over campaign letters in Gorton and Denton. Robert Ford, a political scientist at the University of Manchester, says he’s lodged an official complaint with a returning officer over the use of his quotes in Green party leaflets. When Ford wrote a great article about the upcoming by-election, he wasn’t expecting to find quotes from it, alongside his face and name, published on Green party letters in a way he claims misrepresents his views. That was last week, and Ford clarified at the time that he hadn't endorsed their campaign and contacted the party; Greens said it was an oversight on their part and one that wouldn’t happen again. But now Ford is alleging that “despite personal assurances to the contrary”, the Greens have “misrepresented” him on a second leaflet, and he’s escalating the matter via an official complaint.

Mill vs Milne

Television’s Daniel Timms here (aka Mill Media's head of strategy) recounting our reporting on Andrew Milne, the London landlord terrorising leaseholders across the country — from Southport and Sheffield through to Bolton. Daniel made his break for the goggle box on Channel 5, but that’s not the only place our reporting has been making waves. Last month, Bolton MP Phil Brickell raised our investigation in Parliament, and he’s still urging the Solicitors Regulation Authority to remove his licence to practice. He told Channel 5 that Milne’s actions are “an egregious abuse of power” and that he has “no idea” how many residents may be affected across the country.  

This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌦️ Mostly cloudy with light showers followed by more widespread rain after dark. Max 11°c.

Wednesday 🌧️ Outbreaks of rain which will be heavy between late morning & early afternoon. Light winds. Max 11°c.

Thursday 🌦️ Turning wet during the morning with showery spells of heavy rain. Remaining wet during the most of the afternoon, albeit with some drier & brighter breaks later. Colder. Max 8°c. 

Friday 🌦️ Breezy & cold with a mix of bright spells & showers which may be wintry to the hills. Max 5°c.

Weekend 🌦️ Cold & bright on Saturday before milder air arrives from Sunday, albeit with wet and breezy conditions. 

Home of the week

We’ve obviously picked this home of the week mostly because of the stairs, which are fantastic. It’s a two-bed in Salford on the ship canal, and it’s £300,000.

What our writers are up to this week

🍕 After spending the last nine days moping around about the fact that Veganuary is over, Lucy has finally been mollified. That’s because, according to Ramona, it’s Marguary, and you can celebrate at the city centre bar with £6 margs and £1.25 margarita pizza slices. The deal runs Wednesday to Friday until 28th Feb, so that’s the majority of her weeknights sorted till March, when the moping will undoubtedly start back up again.

⚽ Ophira has recently decided to become 'obsessed with football'. An occasional Celtic-match-attender as a child, she’s now at long last testing the waters in Manchester. So this is less a recommendation and more of a request for your recommendations — where’s the best place to watch the Premier League tomorrow in the city centre? 

🧠 Known narcissist and psychology buff Jack Dulhanty (who thought he was being paid a personal compliment upon first hearing the term “superego”), is eyeing this talk about the psychology of Carl Jung at Friends’ Meeting house. Expect insights into the dreams and shadows of the human mind. Info here.

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