Dear readers — with Andy Burnham on track to be prime minister, there’s just under a fortnight until we choose who fills his mayoral shoes. But thanks to the return of supplementary voting, this by-election likely won’t be decided by voters’ first choices. Instead, the biggest question will be who they're willing to settle for if their favourite candidate falls short.
To answer that question, we’ve once again wheeled out Mill Data Guy Josh Housden, who’s becoming something of a columnist for us. You might remember him from when he brought us the data on Makerfield, and then when he invented the supplementary voting predictor-5000. Now he’s back, and he’s identified the strongest Green, Conservative and Reform wards in Greater Manchester based on May’s local election results, and broken down the political geography of those areas using census data. Once he gave us that, we fanned out across those wards to put his findings to the test, quizzing Greater Manchester residents on not just who they want to be our next mayor, but who they’re prepared to back if their top choice doesn’t win.
A celestial summer at the Science and Industry Museum
This summer, the Science and Industry Museum is leaving the city behind and transporting visitors to outer space for a celestial takeover. There's a jam-packed calendar with daily, free family activities, weekly visits from the 30-foot Skybolt 2 space rocket, and a one-off solar eclipse event – where visitors can discover more about this rare natural phenomenon through interactive shows, live demonstrations and spectacular images. Click below to see the full programme and grab your tickets.
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