Jonathan Schofield looks back at the big events (and some small ones) of the year
Part one: Labour triumphant, George Galloway, Tony Lloyd and Sir Howard Bernstein
The big event affecting Greater Manchester in 2024 was national not regional. On 4/5 July fourteen years of Conservative governance came to an end as the Labour Party swept to victory with a landslide haul of seats.
In Greater Manchester out of 27 MPs, 25 are now Labour and two are Liberal Democrats. Even that last bastion of Conservative representation, Altrincham and Sale West, was eaten up and became Labour.
In the present Labour Government there are important roles for three of our MPs. Angela Rayner, Ashton MP, is the deputy PM and housing, communities and local government secretary. Lisa Nandy, Wigan, is culture, media and sport secretary. Lucy Powell, Manchester Central MP, is Leader of the House of Commons. Greater Mancunians have returned to the Cabinet which is good news.
And, as we all know, the subsequent five months have been truly magical; the trains have run on time, the NHS is working like clockwork, all the potholes are being filled by teams of happy pixies and Britain is romping around like a cavorting lamb on the sunny uplands of peace and prosperity.
Well, no.
Keir Starmer the PM has told us to stop being daft about all the recent bad news and poor reviews of the budget but believe in him and judge him in four years or so. In other words, jam tomorrow. I'm doing something similar. In four years or so I’ll have written the definitive English novel, managed the England football team to success in a World Cup Final and opened a three star Michelin restaurant in Gorton. Judge me in 2029, not now, but then, judge me on the results.
What clouded the Labour Party victory was the atomisation evident at many of the counts with the Tory voters from 2019 turning to Elon Musk’s chief lickspittle Nigel Farage and the Reform Party; while many Muslim voters, largely over the Gaza crisis, turned to the sectarian-based Independent candidates or even George ‘The Hat’ Galloway’s Workers’ Party.
Big Labour majorities were cut. The ramifications for the next General Election could be enormous and more atomisation can be expected.
The ludicrous George Galloway in July narrowly lost the Rochdale seat he’d gained in a mad early spring by-election. Confidentials’ coverage of the latter included the startling revelation Galloway even wore a hat to breakfast. The man has no decorum. The fact he only lost in the General Election by 1,500 votes again underlines how the mainstream parties’ numbers were savaged.
The Rochdale by-election was caused by the death of a major regional political figure, Tony Lloyd in January. His long political career saw him hold many positions in the Labour Party and at Parliament. He was the interim GM Mayor before Andy Burnham.
June 2024 saw the death of another giant of GM public life. This time it was Sir Howard Bernstein, the former city Chief Executive and a major player behind Manchester’s resurgence. As Graham Stringer, MP, wrote on these pages: ‘In an objective sense Howard was a local government officer in name only, he would be much more accurately categorised as a social entrepreneur. From whatever world people came from they believed that Howard understood their problems and he could help by aligning Manchester’s interests with theirs.
‘Property developers believed he understood property, airlines were convinced he understood aviation, bus operators reckoned him an expert in urban congestion and sports administrators were confident he was an expert in organising multi sports events. Howard was also an unbridled optimist.’
At a moving celebration of his life which took place at the Bridgewater Hall in November it was also revealed how much of a family man he was. Oh and that he loved Lego. There was also something about Manchester City, then something more about Manchester City. Attendees all received a small Lego figure of SHB as a football player. You can guess what kit the figure was wearing.
Part two: Burnham wins, Deansgate loses, Town Hall delayed
In May Andy Burnham was re-elected as GM Mayor in the least unexpected result since the first two Avanti trains you wanted to get home from Euston were cancelled. Trains are one of Burnham's bugbears as are devolving powers to the regions, local transport and homelessness. One of AB’s assets is his ability to keep GM high on the news cycle. Every journalist has his number. If Man Utd loving Nick Robinson doesn’t interview him on the BBC once every eight days then something’s up.
Burnham’s Bee Network is on target to deliver an integrated transport system similar to London’s by 2028. Shame it looks like we will have nothing like the rail stock of the capital by then, indeed a late 2024 report found we had the worst performing rail infrastructure in the country in terms of reliability.
Meanwhile staying with infrastructure the city council has scored a massive own goal in the wacky and potentially dangerous remodelling of Deansgate. Only council members themselves, and very few of them either, support the narrowing of the road and the creation of cris-crossing cycle lanes that even most cyclists hate.
As the building works on Deansgate proceed at a pathetic pace, cars, buses and emergency vehicles also proceed at a pathetic pace and battle with each other across the western side of the city centre. People are getting out of cars to row and argue as the video below from Confidentials’ publisher Mark Garner shows. It might take a bus forty minutes to go a third of a mile or less. What will happen if there’s a genuine emergency around this area?
Manchester has forged ahead through pragmatism not as a doctrinaire city. This experiment on Deansgate to promote ‘active travel’ helps no-one while harming residents’ amenity and hitting businesses. As for helping make Manchester a carbon neutral city it’s a disruptive, idiotic, drop in the ocean especially as more and more cars become electric. It should be reversed.
Speaking of the city council more delays have hit the Town Hall refurbishment. The budget has soared too. Originally this was set at £325m with re-opening in 2024, in other words a six year project. The budget then rose to £353.8m but in October it was raised by another £79m with a re-opening in 2026...er... if we’re lucky. Unanticipated problems with the fabric of the building have been found, fair enough, then there's the usual Covid/Brexit/contractor reasons on repeat; you know, that mantra concerning every delayed building project in the UK.
Manchester Town Hall took nine years to build from 1868 to 1877. The refurbishment will take eight years at least. Of course, there were no Covid/Brexit/contractor issues back then just an architect, Alfred Waterhouse, changing his mind while work was proceeding, yet they finished on time. The good news is when the refurbishment is finished, given the other city refurbs such as Central Library, we can trust it will be magnificent and the Town Hall will once again be the jewel in Manchester’s architectural crown.
Part three: Co-op Live arrives, Oasis reform
The big opening in the city in 2024 was the vast 23,500 capacity state-of-the-art Co-op Live arena. Or rather this was the biggest series of re-re-re-openings in the city.
On 20 April Rick Astley performed a gig in front of the media and special guests who were slipping around in the wet paint and limboing under hanging cables. Several days after Astley’s rousing version of Never Gonna Give You Up an air conditioning unit gave up crashing from the ceiling during a warm-up by rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie as people were queuing up outside.
The good news after starting as a laughing stock the Co-op Arena is now functioning well and dragging in the big acts. It has, despite the controversy around its inception (does Manchester need another 20k plus arena?) and its opening problems, proved a city asset. By the way the building cost around £360m led by Oak View Group with City Football Group and even investment from Harry Styles. You can nearly refurbish a Grade I listed Town Hall for that. Nearly.
One act that won’t be playing at either of the two Manchester arenas in July 2025 will be disturbing the Heaton Park peace with up to 80,000 people attending over four dates. When Oasis, or rather Burnage brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, announced they were getting back together in July 2024 something akin to mass hysteria swept the nation and other parts of the world. Even the august Today programme on Radio 4 ran several features as though the news was akin to the Second Coming (get the Manc musical reference?) rather than a couple of ageing rock stars getting some whopper pay days.
It was crazier when the tickets were released. People, possessed in the way that’s only possible in the internet/social media age, clung to their computers and phones like zombies tearing flesh to get precious tickets for the various shows across the UK and Ireland. One woman who came on a Manchester music tour said she spent six hours on her laptop only to be thrown out as a bot when she got through. She said: “It was at that moment I realised I didn’t fucking like Oasis. I just got caught up in the hysteria.” She might have escaped one there. She might have been looking back in anger after trying to get away from muddy Heaton Park after a gig.
Meanwhile Definitely Maybe, an Oasis-themed bar is now open in the former Blackdog Ballroom in the Northern Quarter and bizarrely at the Bridgewater Hall in January there’s Live Forever – The Rise of Britain’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band which on the Bridgewater Hall’s website is described as a ‘Biblical show’. Maybe Radio 4 was right. Expect more, much more, of the same.
Part four: Football ups and downs and new appointments
In 2024 Manchester City won a record fourth straight Premier League title but lost to Manchester United in the FA Cup final. This was a sweet sharing of rewards between the city clubs and was a good moment.
By the end of 2024 the situation has dramatically changed. Presently Manchester City are on their worst run of form for a decade or more with the team apparently replaced by badly programmed AI replicants.
Manchester United have ditched Erik Ten Hag, who loved, like Keir Starmer, to tell people it was going to get better - eventually. Ruben Amorin has arrived and is presently delivering Oscar-winning performances as the lead character in a Groundhog Day-type movie of a man putting a brave face on every setback.
All in all it’s not been a dream start at Manchester United, to say the least, for local lad and billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliff. He bought a 27.7% stake in United for about £1.25bn and appears to have invested in a crumbling team and a crumbling stadium. Both teams will, of course, turn things around eventually but surely one of the fun facts from 2024 was that during the last game of the ’23-’24 season at Old Trafford a rainstorm created England’s third highest waterfall which underlined the parlous nature of the stadium.
Also in 2024 the University of Manchester said farewell to the fine Dame Nancy Rothwell, fourteen years the vice-chancellor, and said hello to Duncan Iveson, a Canadian, previously at the University of Sydney. The Chief Executive in Manchester City Council changed too as Joanne Roney left to take on the huge role of turning the ship around at bankrupt Birmingham. Tom Stannard replaced her as Manchester's Chief Executive, he previously performed the same role at Salford.
Part five: Anything else from 2024?
A great deal.
Nine acres of the former UMIST site in central Manchester were inexplicably re-branded SISTER; a tent city mainly of asylum seekers grew outside the Town Hall Extension in St Peter’s Square, was moved on and then came back and was moved on and then came back; beautiful Rochdale Town Hall re-opened; more towers were completed at Deansgate Square, more towers were completed elsewhere, lots of people complained about the new towers and lots of people loved them; a new city centre primary school opened also at Deansgate Square of which everybody approved; the MTV awards arrived at Co-op Live to general indifference; there was welcome confirmation of some Whitehall departments coming to Great Ancoats Street in the next years; several good new indie restaurants opened including Michelin-star contender Skof from Tom Barnes and some closed such as Greens, the 33-year-old veggie veteran in West Didsbury.
Phew.
Those were some of many things that happened in 2024. Just some. Here comes 2025 and whether one faces it with optimism or trepidation is down to each and everyone of us.
As Tony Wilson used to say: "So it goes".
Good luck and have a Happy Greater Manchester New Year. Things can only get…er…they can only get…fill it in yourself.
Get the latest news to your inbox
Get the latest food & drink news and exclusive offers by email by signing up to our mailing list. This is one of the ways that Confidentials remains free to our readers and by signing up you help support our high quality, impartial and knowledgable writers. Thank you!
Join our WhatsApp group
You can also get regular updates on news, exclusives and offers by joining the Manchester Confidential WhatsApp group.
