Dear readers — regular Mill readers would have been forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief last week, after we reported that the year-long saga of infighting at the Carlton Club was drawing to a close. The club’s so-called ‘New Guard’ had triumphed over its Building Company, who had initially attempted to evict them in March. Or so it seemed. Now, the Building Company has come swinging back, accusing their opponents of being “Thieves, Liars and Traitors” and saying they are planning legal action. That’s our main item below.
More than 20 new Millers joined our ranks at the weekend after we published, Jacob Hartley’s piece exploring the situation at Haigh Hall in Wigan. The grand old Grade-II listed building had been undergoing a £37 million renovation headed up by two surrealist filmmakers: Al Holmes and Al Taylor. That is, until a couple months back, when the two Als were unceremoniously let go from the project, prompting uproar. You can read the full piece below.
📚 Don’t miss your chance to attend The Past and Future of News — a conversation between Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, and Joshi Herrmann, founder of The Mill, at the stunning John Rylands Library on Thursday 16th January. Tickets are limited, and for the first week, they’re exclusively available to paid subscribers — get yours today!
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🌧️ This week’s weather
Tuesday ⛅️ A cold and frosty start with patchy fog. 6°C.
Wednesday ☁️ Mostly dry but predominantly cloudy and chilly during the daytime. 6°C.
Thursday 🌧️ Much milder but unsettled and windy with spells of rain. 12°C.
Friday 🌧️ Cloudy, breezy and damp with showery rain. 9°C.
Weekend 🌦️ Windy on Saturday with outbreaks of rain; drier and brighter by Sunday.
We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.
Your briefing
🏠 “Thieves, Liars & Traitors”: The epic battle over the identity and future of the Carlton Club might be entering its second act. For the uninitiated: a Community Interest Company was set up in 2021 to formalise social events at the club and get access to certain grants that could carry out much-needed maintenance in the 111-year-old building. However, the Building Company, who hold control of Rowan Lodge, the building itself, believed this move was a “mini takeover bid” designed to oust the long-standing members of the club who had been there decades. The Building Company served the CIC with an eviction notice back in March this year. We wrote two long reads on what went wrong back in September, which you can find here and here.
But now, it’s the Building Company that’s on the backfoot. As we reported last week, the CIC “used mechanisms available to us” to remove all the Building Company directors, replacing them with the CIC directors (with one exception). It’s unclear how exactly this happened, though it seems that the Building Company changed its address to Rowan Lodge on 8th November, creating an opportunity for the CIC to register themselves as directors. The result is that the CIC has a 40-year lease to stay in the building, and two Building Company directors have been dismissed after disciplinary proceedings. The CIC called it a sign that they can begin to “look forward to the future with confidence” and start “righting historic wrongs”. However, in an email to The Mill last week, the Building Company has accused the CIC of being “Thieves, Liars & Traitors” and said the CIC stole their mail. On Facebook, the Building Company said this: “The CIC needs to be investigated, their accounts registered on Companies House, needs to be audited properly. Their treachery cannot continue and they get away with it. They are ‘Thieves, Liars and Traitors’!!!!” Unwilling to take these accusations lying down, the CIC called the deposed Building Company directors “bad actors” who placed the club into a “deadlock” by threatening eviction and tabling a “hostile lease” that would have put the club out of business, and added: “Our actions, all shared with Companies House, have been to apply the Building Company’s own articles and to return it to its original purpose — to provide a home for the Club and the community. We have acted both legally and for the greater good.” And most importantly “We did not steal mail.”
🎶 Salford Lads and Girls Club has been saved from closure after meeting their target of raising £250k by the end of November. A GoFundMe was flooded with donations from readers after the MEN put out an urgent appeal, with Salford Council also donating £100k (and Morrissey stumping up £50k). The gas company Cadent got them over the line with a last-minute £30k donation. Laura Slingsby, the club’s head of youth operations, says the club anticipates spending £394k next year, almost double their average annual spend of £221k each year between 2018 and 2023. Why? Slingsby told The Mill this number was drawn up to reflect rising utilities, insurance and maintenance costs, plus the need to invest in more staff, as the club is mostly volunteer-run. “The club will still be mainly run and staffed by volunteers, with a relatively tiny paid team of staff, as it always has been,” she added. “A core paid staff base enables the club to carry out its activities with due diligence, good stewardship, professionalism, and the ability to grow, ensuring that donations are spent well, and maximising funds to beneficiaries.”
📃 The Assisted Dying Bill has passed after MPs backed it by 330 votes to 275. The new legislation will be limited to terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. In Greater Manchester, the vote was split almost exactly in half — out of 27 total MPs in GM, 12 voted for the bill to pass, and 11 voted against. The other four, Stockport’s Navendu Mishra, Oldham East and Saddleworth’s Debbie Abrahams, Rusholme’s Afzal Khan and Gorton and Denton’s Andrew Gwynne, did not vote. Mishra said he was unable to attend Westminster due to “unavoidable circumstances”, but that if he had the chance to vote, he would have backed the bill, making the vote split 12/12. You can see how your local MP voted using the BBC’s helpful search tool.
🍸 The 1970s-inspired Northern Quarter cocktail bar Sammy’s had a run of bad Google reviews recently, which were kindly screenshotted and sent to our inbox by a Mill reader. The reviews have since disappeared from public view. In fact, Sammy’s presence on Google Maps and Facebook seems to have been deleted altogether (though their Instagram is still active). Sammy Shonn, the bar’s owner, didn’t respond to our questions about what happened. If you know more about this story, get in touch with Mollie and Jack.
🎄 It’s December. There’s no getting around it. You need to start sorting out those Christmas presents pronto.
But don’t fear — we have the perfect gift for the Manchester lover in your life. With a subscription to The Mill, they’ll spend the next year being reminded four times a week just how much they mean to you.
Our prices for gift subscriptions are:
- Three month subscription: £25
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There is a tiny snag! In order to offer these deals, we need to get off our current platform (Substack) which doesn’t have this functionality. But we’re moving over to a new platform in the next two weeks — so will have it set up in plenty of time for Christmas.
Quick hits
🎂 Independent Wigan councillor Maureen O’Bern asked her Facebook friends to send birthday cards to Tommy Robinson, who has been jailed for 18 months for contempt of court.
👮 Greater Manchester Police has arrested a 27-year-old man in Bradford on suspicion of voyeurism and harassment, after an MEN reporter passed information from their investigation into the notorious Manchester nightlife videos, which film drunk women on nights out in Deansgate without their consent.
📰 Popbitch reports that one of the North West offices of Reach Plc, the company that owns the MEN and the Liverpool Echo, has been without heat for three whole months, prompting staffworkers to opt to work from home. HQ execs have been sending “beggy emails” asking people to return to the office.
😬 Politico reports that Stockport Labour MP Navendu Mishra asked 14 parliamentary questions relating to the UK’s relations with India since September 2023, but failed to declare he had accepted thousands of pounds in donations from Indian organisations.
Home of the week
This three-bed terraced house in Stretford looks directly onto Victoria Park, and features an open-plan living and dining area with all the room to swing the pet of your choice in. £395,000.
Our favourite reads
'I hoped that one day these photos would be important to people and help them to remember' — The Manchester Evening News
A series of photos by photographer Paul Thorpe capture life in Greater Manchester between 1977 and 1986, including photos of Derker demolitions and an Oldham carnival procession. “[I] just go out looking for good images,” Paul says. “I’m more likely to photograph the spectators than the event.”
‘Everyone was happy, but it became annoying’: Ethiopians look back on Band Aid — The Guardian
Guardian writer Chris Osuh speaks to the UK’s Ethiopian community about the aftermath of Band Aid. Osuh visits the Red Sea Bar and Café in Moss Side to discuss Habesha life in Manchester. “The first thing that comes to the head, when someone says Ethiopian…. Is someone who comes from poverty,” explains Zed Berhe. “Even today, some people would rather say they are Habeshan than Ethiopian.”
Can England’s new breed of mayors help fix its left-behind regions? — The Financial Times
“The story of England’s so-called metro mayors began in Greater Manchester a decade ago,” writes Jennifer Williams for the FT. “The area’s council leaders had long argued that they needed more levers to close an economic divide with the South East that had persisted since the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.” But how can the Manchester model be applied to other regions in England that have lagged behind on productivity?
Our to do list
Tuesday
🎻 Chetham’s School of Music Performers are hosting a lunchtime recital at Carole Nash Hall. Tickets are free but booking is required.
✍️ Reserve Wines in Didsbury are hosting a festive creative writing class with no prior experience necessary. The class will take you through the process of penning your very own Christmas story, with prompts and exercises for getting into the flow. £19.12.
Wednesday
☕ The Tameside Canal Boat Trust, in partnership with Bridge View Cafe, are offering a 90-minute canal boat cruise aboard their narrowboat StillWaters. For £16.50 you get a butty, a brew, and a boat ride along the historic Ashton Canal. Tickets are available here.
📖 And Blackwell’s Bookshop are welcoming UoM lecturer Luke Yates, for the launch of Platform Politics: Corporate Power, Grassroots Movements and the Sharing Economy. Yates will be discussing how companies such as Airbnb, Uber and Deliveroo have revolutionised the way we live – with particular focus on tactics used to avoid regulation. Tickets cost only £4, or £14.99 with a copy of the book.
Thursday
🍴 Manchester Jewish Museum are promising an intimate dining experience surrounded by history for their new event The Table: A Culinary Journey through Jewish Migration. The four-course meal will explore Moroccan, Syrian, and Eastern European flavours, each inspired by a story from the museum’s collection. A £50 ticket gets you all four meals and a cocktail.
📽️ And the Whitworth are hosting a special screening of Through the Olive Trees, a cinematic masterpiece by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. The film tells the story of unrequited love and resilience in a remote village harrowed by an earthquake. Tickets are free and include a screening of the film, a Q&A, and a cup of chai.
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