Shit yes. My apologies. I meant to say "the majority" of those that do...... I appreciate that some are actively engaged.
Places like Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside, Stockport still look pretty second hand if we're being honest.
Oldham and Rochdale are not great places, Bury has a vibrant town centre and Stockport seems to be getting investment.
There's plenty of areas just outside the city centre that are pretty bad, but that's in many ways down to the people who live there.
As someone who lives in Bury, the town centre is actually pretty nice and there’s just been millions in investment into ‘the World Famous’ Bury Market, which is always absolutely heaving. For good reason. And I thought Stockport was ‘just like Berlin’ nowadays? 😂
About Oldham and Rochdale though, I take your point…
If we “nuke from orbit”, then in a few generations time we will have genetic monstrosities roaming the area.
Central Manchester looks great, is built largely from Blairite-a-like foreign investment.
There's also the small matter of the IRA doing a billion quid's worth of improvements in the 1990s.
I thought Stockport was ‘just like Berlin’ nowadays?
If you mean covered in graffiti and dog shit, then yes. Yes it is.
If you mean covered in graffiti and dog shit, then yes. Yes it is.
I live on the sunny southern fringes of Stockport and very rarely bother to go. However I would say that recently it is looking a whole lot better than a few years ago. Some effort is being made. Now if only they would knock down the Merseyway shopping centre and open up the river.
I live on the sunny southern fringes of Stockport and very rarely bother to go.
Happily my mum and dad ****ed off (especially for them since good chance shipman would have been their doctor in later years) when I was a kid to the unicorn filled uplands of the south. I do remember going back to see nanny and grandad in stockport where if we did go to the playground at the end of the road a) we would need to dodge the burnt out cars and b)check the slides for left over syringes.
I know inaccurate memories and all that but until someone I really trust explains how it has changed I will give it a miss.
For the Stockport vs Berlin comparison I will tend towards in Stockport there isnt sufficient use of attack dogs and snipers.
Interesting article here, but summary is that Hartlepool reciebved the largest post-brexit funding of any town...... and still voted reform
https://tradersunion.com/news/financial-news/show/2506035-hartlepool-regeneration-funding-backlash/
Burnhams devolution plan is good, but I expect it means Reform mayors and councils with a lot more influence at first (until they crash & burn before getting voted out)
Well that all sounded like pretty ambitious stuff and makes a lot of sense. Definitely a big shift in tone from the present labour leadership
Rochdale though
Riverside isn't too bad, the town hall looks good after its refurb, and opening up the river was good (though there are now acres of light covered paving which makes the glare something else on a rare sunny day).
The big problem is that there's just too much retail and the Wheatsheaf and Exchange need to be knocked down and developed.
Still, they've started on the old council offices...
Went into Oldham the other day though, and it is horrendous. It wasn't great before and now it's not great and a building site. Given the implosion of Oldham Council this isn't the town's biggest problem mind you.
It's a good read. I've heard countless lazy journalists over the last few weeks saying we've no idea what he plans to do', to which the only reply is that he's literally written a book, going into detail. Why not start by reading that, eh?
I'm sure it'll now be open season on him in the press. We can't have chippy northerners trying to upset the Westminster status quo that they love so much
If you mean covered in graffiti and dog shit, then yes. Yes it is.
I live on the sunny southern fringes of Stockport and very rarely bother to go. However I would say that recently it is looking a whole lot better than a few years ago. Some effort is being made. Now if only they would knock down the Merseyway shopping centre and open up the river.
Snap. I cycle through on my commute home, but avoid it. Although did come in for Foodie Friday the other month - that was good. Decent around the Market now for pubs and food outlets, but the rest I avoid. We need some 'investment'.
That's how to deliver a speech with some sort of a plan, and sound like you mean it.
(Sure it's not going to be a guarantee of anything yet - but all my family were on board just because he can communicate an idea at least.)
Puts in perspective how terrible Starmer was/is at this.
I have many concerns over the bullshit talk of fiscal rules but I believe he will get around it with the 'borrow to invest' element - which is misconstrued nonsense but sounds good to the naive folk that don't understand how finances work. And that's fine for now.
It's nice to hear talk of hope you know.
What was also refreshing - as well as an actual positive message of hope - is that it was immediately followed up in the afternoon with some very slick looking social media to reinforce the message, in a clearly planned manner. Whats the word for that again? Oh yeah... a comms 'strategy'. Almost like there's now somebody in power who fully understands how the modern media landscape functions and where most people get their 'news'.
Half the problem with the labour party hasn't just been how bad the messenger is (and he's been BAD!), it the way it's been conveyed. The comms have been absolutely dreadful. Unforgivably bad, right from day one. Farage and Reform learnt during the Brexit campaign how to fully exploit social media, so hopefully this means the Labour Party have just caught up. We noted (and yes, this is really nerdy) on the news footage the other day that he had members of his Mayoral comms team down in London with him. Hopefully all the people presently in the Labour comms posts have been given their well-deserved marching orders, for doing a true bloody awful job!
I do agree that the comms have been refreshingly good. I would like to know how he is going to reconcile thf spending he says hd wants with sticking to the weird fiscal rules
It's nice to hear talk of hope you know.
I think that is the thing most people want to hear - it was what gave Polanski his boost.
It's the thing everyone wants to hear. Starmers biggest mistake, amongst many, was his initial pessimism and telling everyone that things were going to get worse before it gets better.
Nobody wants to hear that from a new government. All Boris Johnson ever did with his boosterism was tell everyone how marvelous things were going to be in his brave new world, while knowing he wasn't going to actually do any of it - 40 new hospitals anyone? Just look how long he got away with that for.
At least Andy looks like he actually plans on delivering it, while having a lot of the qualities that allowed Johnson to get away with murder, ie: an actual personality
It's the thing everyone wants to hear. Starmers biggest mistake
A lack of vision - "There's no such thing as Starmerism" I understand what he was trying to do, move away from ideology driven decision making to pragmatism. But it is boring and there's nothing to hang your hat on.
This at least has a vision behind it, and people can see an endpoint. Don't disagree with any of it. Now let's see it delivered.
Starmers biggest mistake, amongst many, was his initial pessimism and telling everyone that things were going to get worse before it gets better.
You can say that if you have a big majority to push through the tough decisions and a vision to sell of what the short term pain will deliver down the line.
That complete lack of vision, together with starting on the wrong tough choices, was where it began to unwind.
What we needed were sunlit uplands.
Have we discussed his stance on Brexit? From what I can see he thinks it has been damaging but doesn't want to continue the old arguments. I can't see anything that says he is pro or anti the idea of rejoining.
This at least has a vision behind it, and people can see an endpoint. Don't disagree with any of it. Now let's see it delivered.
It won't be, he won't be around. Yes a 10 year plan is what is required but people want to see their lives improve in a week (and those people unfortunately get to vote) so out he will go after not delivering stuff quickly enough and not sorting out the immigration "problem"
Have we discussed his stance on Brexit? From what I can see he thinks it has been damaging but doesn't want to continue the old arguments. I can't see anything that says he is pro or anti the idea of rejoining.
unless he has flip flopped again he remains a hard brexiteer with the same red lines while pretending he can negotiate frictionless trade and travel . Same stance as labour has had for a while.
This stance ignores "the 4 freedoms are indivisible"
This at least has a vision behind it, and people can see an endpoint. Don't disagree with any of it. Now let's see it delivered.
It won't be, he won't be around. Yes a 10 year plan is what is required but people want to see their lives improve in a week (and those people unfortunately get to vote) so out he will go after not delivering stuff quickly enough and not sorting out the immigration "problem"
The test is not can he solve immigration - but can he make people feel better about it. He seems willing to actually look at issues and try something different so he MIGHT manage something. There's also been some window dressing policies announced recently which if "positive" he can claim, or if bad he can scrap! He also seems quite good at pointing out when others have a lot of hot air - so we will see. If Farrage gets a kicking over the £5M then I can see that side of the house in fighting and self harming in the process. The real win would be for him to change the focus away from immigration!
Andy's decentralisation is Lib Dem friendly, should be Scotland, Wales and NI friendly, and he's previously criticised first past the post and whipping: so even if he doesn't manage to win an outright majority he might manage to steer through a programme of change by working with others. People always say they want to see politicians fight less and cooperate more.
he remains a hard brexiteer
campaigned for Remain, and has often said that he'd like the UK to rejoin in his lifetime hardly puts him in the 'hard Brexit' category. For me that's the likes of Farage, and the Tory hardliners, and I don't think he belongs there.
Sigh...
Every time we get onto the subject of Burnham, your hyperbole mode goes into overdrive and you lose what little sense of perspective you possess. He is not a hard brexiteer by any metric, uncle Jezza. I think the word you're looking for is 'realist'.
He wants to get stuff done, and the Labour Party has unfortunately pissed away 2 years of their majority already. So the last thing on earth he's going to do is immediately get himself bogged down in ten years of negotiations while reopening a civil war. And neither would anyone else with anything between their ears. You, like most of us, would love the UK to rejoin the EU, but the reality is that that's a long process that it won't begin under any time soon under any government of any flavor.
Also worth bearing in mind that his new constituency supported Brexit, talk of rejoining probably won’t go down too well there.
I see no reason why UK people can't spend 180 days in the EU. That would be an easy win.
At some point someone is going to have to tell the brexitters to **** off. This is our last chance.
He can say you've had 10 years to make it work. You've failed we will try another way
It won't be, he won't be around. Yes a 10 year plan is what is required but people want to see their lives improve in a week (and those people unfortunately get to vote) so out he will go after not delivering stuff quickly enough and not sorting out the immigration "problem"
There needs to be a balance.
The comments above about Starmer are right in as much as he came in and gave a very pessimistic view of things but with a (badly delivered) message that you can't fix this overnight and yes, things may well get worse before they get better because we've still not seen the most damaging parts of Brexit / inflation / Iran / cost-of-living and all that needs to work through the system.
Whereas we've also seen what happens when you promise sunlit uplands and Spitfires over the white cliffs and all that nonsense.
Far more needs to be made of the absolute disaster that was the last 14(?) years of Tory government.
no single market, no customs union etc is the hard brexit position.
Burnham supports this position
Change the record TJ. we'er not rejoining the EU any time soon. I don't like it any more than you do, but to accuse everyone who's realistic enough to recognize this sad fact as a 'Hard Brexiteer' is frankly ridiculous
If he set about trying to do it on the day he was appointed PM, how far do you reckon he'd have got by the time he came to the end of his term? If he made it that far?
There's one sure fire way to ensure that absolutely nothing gets done in this country for the next ten years and that's to re-open the whole Brexit can of worms. Thats what got us into this mess in the first place, the total political paralysis it induces, which would be no different trying to go back in as it was leaving
Sigh...
Every time we get onto the subject of Burnham, your hyperbole mode goes into overdrive and you lose what little sense of perspective you possess. He is not a hard brexiteer by any metric, uncle Jezza.
Of course, you famously never do that. 😁
no single market, no customs union etc is the hard brexit position.
Meanwhile, in reality...
Perhaps his claims to decentralise powers will extend to allowing Scotland and Northern Ireland to rejoin the EU (or at least giving the devolved nations more power to set the terms of their relationship with the EU).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5966zn39po
Although I suspect his definition of 'decentralise' is based on his own ideas rather than the wishes of the people he is proposing decentralising powers to.
you may believe his position is realistic or pragmatic but its undeniably a hard brexit position
I believe its stupid and self defeating. Rejoin is a vote winner and economically positive
Also worth bearing in mind that his new constituency supported Brexit, talk of rejoining probably won’t go down too well there.
Supported, yes. Past tense, ten years ago.
I believe its stupid and self defeating.
You're not going to get an argument there
Rejoin is a vote winner and economically positive
Lets replay the next ten years of Brexit bickering and ensure that absolutely nothing gets done for the next decade is unlikely to win you any elections
you may believe his position is realistic or pragmatic but its undeniably a hard brexit position
If it was undeniable then you wouldn't have at least two posters here denying it now, would you.
What you're doing here is the equivalent of calling someone a racist because they referred to a blackboard. Hysterical language might well be a tried-and-tested method of selling 'newspapers' to actual racists, but here on STW it undermines any point you're trying to make I'm afraid.
Rejoin is a vote winner and economically positive
Probably, but, there is an issue of timing. He's not even PM yet - and might never be, though that's looking increasingly unlikely - and you're champing at the bit for major policy decisions on a massively divisive, highly controversial topic.
Can you imagine what would happen if right now he were to announce that he intended to rejoin the EU? Do you suppose those that led us here in the first place would go "oh well"? It would be career suicide, not because it's an unpopular idea at all but because everyone from Polanski to Putin would smell blood and ****ing bury him.
There are very powerful people who are absolutely shitting themselves right now at the prospect of Burnham in No. 10 North Downing Street, he'd have to be braindead to give them the slightest whiff of a brexit turnaround at this juncture.
The problem is, if nobody starts the process we'll never rejoin.
What you're doing here is the equivalent of calling someone a racist because they referred to a blackboard. Hysterical language might well be a tried-and-tested method of selling 'newspapers' to actual racists, but here on STW it undermines any point you're trying to make I'm afraid.
'Hard Brexit' has a pretty clear definition. No Customs Union, no Single Market, and no other agreement that would require a return to Freedom of Movement.
Any politician whose red lines include the above is a Hard Brexiteer. If you've got another definition (other than you should be more like Rupert Lowe or Nigel Farage) then feel free to share it.
If you support Hard Brexiteer politicians then you may not describe yourself as a hard brexiteer, but you're making it clear that you agree with hard brexit enough that you are prepared to support hard brexiteer politicians.
The problem is, if nobody starts the process we'll never rejoin.
True, but as noted above, now is not the time for Burnham to be starting that process, especially given that he's not PM yet!
Depends what you mean by "process". Yes, we can't take any real legal actions towards rejoining. However we can talk positively about the idea of rejoining, which is a necessary first step. If Burnham isn't prepared to do that, he's just adopting the hard brexit position.
There seems to be a lot of straw-manning and point scoring going on.
