“Pretty crafty in my view”: Is the Rail Minister taking Burnham and Rotheram for a ride?

Dear readers — Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram (Mayor of Liverpool City Region) are, to quote Rotheram in conversation with our Liverpool paper, The Post, “bezzie mates”. They write books together, they DJ together, they stick it to the south, together.

The latest to come out of the “burgeoning Andy/Steve bromance,” is plans for a new railway line between Manchester and Liverpool. Or, perhaps more accurately, plans for a new railway board, with some ideas about a new line. That might not seem like massive news, but the trans-Lancastrian duo, each facing imminent mayoral elections, are chalking it up as a serious win. We take a closer look in today's briefing.

Over the weekend, Mollie delved into a chaotic week for Co-op Live. The arena — set to be the UK’s biggest — has been beset by delays. As we found out when we went there, the people actually delivering the site weren’t at all surprised by its failure to open on time. “They kept saying it’s going to be ready,” says one worker on the ground. “And the workforce kept saying, not a chance. It’s just a bit of a joke, really.” “First rate reporting” commented one member. “Frontline facts. Just what we needed.”

This week, we’re going full-steam ahead into this year’s local and mayoral elections. So, if you have any tips, drop them in the comments or email us here in confidence. We’re also going to publish an investigation into the Islamic Centre in Manchester and its links to a wave of anti-blasphemy protests in the UK. If you know anything more about this story, please get in touch.

To get that piece, and access our vast back catalogue of long reads, essays and interviews, hit the button below and subscribe. You’d be joining over 2,500 other Millers in bringing nuanced, in-depth local news back to Manchester and the North of England.

Unmissable opening weekender for Manchester Jazz Festival at First Street

From today's sponsor: The Manchester Jazz Festival is back next month, launching with an incredible series of free gigs. Three stages in First Street (map), Manchester's most vibrant urban neighbourhood, will host the freshest jazz around today — with artists from around the world bringing music full of warmth and joy. Taking place from the 17th-19th May, all events are free, with two outdoor stages (main stage in Tony Wilson Place) and one inside HOME. Full details of all gigs are available here.

🌦️This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌤️ Breezy with pleasant spells of sunshine and the odd shower. 13°C.

Wednesday ⛅️ Mostly dry but largely cloudy and feeling chilly with north-westerly winds. 11°C.

Thursday 🌦️ Bright spells and light winds with the occasional shower. 12°C.

Friday 🌦️ Breezy with occasional sunny intervals and a few showers. 13°C.

Weekend ⛅️ Mostly dry and much milder with variable cloud allowing for sunshine at times. Temperatures will climb to the mid-teens, potentially higher in sunnier spots.

You can find the latest forecast at Manchester Weather on Facebook — daily forecasts are published at 6.15am.

The big story: Is the rail minister taking Burnham and Rotheram for a ride?

Top line: Last week, the mayors of Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region reached a milestone on improving rail capacity between the two cities, promising to open “an ambitious new Liverpool-Manchester line”. Currently, rail capacity between the two cities is stymied by ageing infrastructure and bottlenecks at either end of the line, with too many trains trying to fit through at any one time. The mayors’ offices described them as “winning the battle” for better rail services.

But, on closer inspection, all they have is confirmation from the government to discuss the idea, and little else. Insiders say that with such little commitment, this fairly small step is being blown out of proportion ahead of this week’s mayoral race. “Beneath all this transport related spiel,” says one source, “it's still just classic electioneering.”

Context: As you’ll remember, HS2 to the North of England was cancelled by the government during last year’s Conservative Party conference. Some of the money saved was then earmarked for other rail projects in the north, particularly Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), a major — if slightly nebulous — programme connecting key northern cities. 

• When the mayors met with the government to advise on how best to spend the money, they were met with plans to upgrade existing freight lines, which they described as a “shoddy, sub-standard option”. 

• So, they lobbied the government to take those options off the table and instead consider their proposals.

Details: The mayors — should they be returned at this month’s election — want to set up a new Manchester-Liverpool railway board to build the case for the most ambitious possible development. Burnham is, again, asking for an underground Piccadilly Station, which was originally hoped to be part of HS2. Rotheram wants a new twin-track line between the two cities. The problem for both mayors was that they felt their regions were being made to settle for lacklustre upgrades. Rail minister Huw Merriman said he is willing to consider these options.

But insiders say these requests are a bit garbled. Describing the mayors’ announcement, one rail insider said: “It's talking about several different things at once in an attempt to pretend there's a coherent rationale [or] developed concept. There, of course, isn't.” After HS2 was cancelled, it became even more unclear how NPR (sometimes called HS3) would work, seeing it needed to piggyback on HS2 infrastructure that will no longer exist. “The end result was a total dog's dinner,” another source says. 

• Because of this, people started to question whether they needed to go back to the drawing board on NPR, “Hence this latest announcement as part of the burgeoning Andy/Steve bromance.”

Sources say the HS2 money set aside by the government won’t be enough to build a new high speed line between Manchester and Liverpool, or the capacity enhancements required to make best use of it: “That is certainly still the case for Manchester's obsessive fixation with an underground station,” says the source. “Which wouldn't even be pointing in the right direction if we were building a high speed railway to Liverpool.” (Rotheram also wants a new station, saying Lime Street is already at capacity).

Bottom line: If (or, let’s be honest, when) Burnham and Rotheram are re-elected, their Liverpool-Manchester board is likely to put more detailed proposals to a Labour government. If that government has different ideas about where rail cash should be spent, things could get awkward. One source tells us it’s pretty shrewd politicking by Merriman: letting the mayors get on with it and building expectations, while sowing the seeds of future discord between them and a future government. “Pretty crafty in my view,” was their verdict.

Your Mill briefing

👮 Two men have been charged with murder in relation to the torso found in a nature reserve in Salford earlier this month. Michal Jaroslaw Polchowski, 68, and Marcin Majerkiewicz, 42, are due to appear before magistrates today. According to reports, they lived with the man — all three of Polish heritage — at a house in Salford. The victim’s identity hasn’t been revealed, but their next of kin have been informed. The charges follow more remains being found, some in Blackleach reservoir, in Salford, others in some woods in Worsley. 

🌹 Could the Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council really be at risk of losing his seat to George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain this Friday? Galloway, obviously, thinks so, calling the MEN “hirelings” after it apparently didn’t find enough people at Longsight market to say good things about him. It would be a serious upset if the Longsight election returns Shabaz Sarwar instead of Labour’s Luthfur Rahman but Galloway’s allure in South Manchester shouldn’t be understated. Read our recent piece about the increasingly fraught fight for Manchester’s Muslim vote here.

🏛️ Chloe Pomfret, a student at Oxford who grew up in supported accommodation in Manchester, has told the Times about the stark wealth divide at the university. When she joined the Oxford Union and ran for election she was called “council house Chloe”. “That was the first obvious sign of classism that really hurt,” she says. She has since got the university to let her do paid work during term time — normally banned — so she can pay for food. 

🛍️ Maximilian Davis, a fashion designer born in Manchester, has been named as one of the Times’ 25 most inspiring people under 30. Davis is currently the creative director of Ferragamo, the almost 100-year-old Italian fashion house. His own label, Maximilian, has been worn by Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and Rihanna.

🎵 Sounds from the Other City, an ambitious, multi-venue music and arts festival in Salford, returns this Bank Holiday weekend. Enthusiasts of indie music will have plenty to explore with Gruff Rhys headlining the main stage, plus Free Love, a Scottish duo playing experimental electronic works in French and English. Tickets here.

Home of the week

This four-bedroom barn conversion is nestled in open countryside in Hyde and has beautiful exposed stonework and beams. £675,000.

Our favourite reads

Was DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin really a victim of scientific theft? — The New Scientist

Is the story of Rosalind Franklin, the DNA pioneer often described as a “wronged heroine” and a victim of intellectual theft, more complex than we might have thought? Matthew Cobb, a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, talks about rediscovering a 1953 letter which suggests Franklin was already sharing her findings with Crick and Watson, the biologists credited for their paper on the structure of the DNA. What’s more, Franklin didn’t seem to feel wronged by them taking credit. “It deprives her of her agency,” Cobb says about the popular narrative about Franklin. “That’s not right.”

Yuko Mohri on Representing Japan at the 60th Venice Biennale — ArtReview

A lovely feature about Compose, a critically-acclaimed installation that showed as part of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition was curated by Sook-Kyung Lee, director of Whitworth Art Gallery, and created by artist Yuko Mohri, who sourced unusual objects from grocery stores around Venice to address environmental collapse.

Teenage boys talk masculinity — The New Statesman

In a new BBC Radio 4 documentary about what it means to be a man, a group of 16 year olds discuss their idea of how to become the perfect man, from earning a high salary and toning your body to being in touch with your emotional side. “When I was younger I thought maybe I couldn’t be a man at all,” one Manchester student says. “Like the person I am is, like, somehow less of a man. But even in recent months I’ve started to realise that I am still a man.”

Our to do list

Tuesday

🎙️ Book a table at the intimate city centre jazz club Matt and Phred’s to see Manchester’s best musicians and vocalists perform in celebration of International Jazz Day. It’s free entry, and if you buy two drinks you get a free pizza.

🎭 The Royal Exchange is showing an adaptation of Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer-Prize winning drama Sweat, which has been described as a powerful portrayal of working class industrialism. Tickets here.

Wednesday

🖊️ If your dream dinner party guest is the New Yorker’s resident illustrator Stanley Chow, you’re in luck. The Edge Theatre and Arts Centre in Chorlton is hosting a three course dinner where you can chat to Chow about illustration, do some of your own sketches and enjoy an exhibition of his works. Tickets here.

🏛️ Keir Monteith KC is giving a free lecture at the University of Manchester on the use of rap music as evidence against young people accused of serious crimes, asking whether this legal strategy creates a risk of wrongful conviction and denies rap’s status as an art form.

Thursday 

🎨 Waterside Arts Centre is showing On Me, a new play about violence and fear that portrays a blossoming love affair between two actors starring in a true crime drama. Tickets are sold on a pay-what-you-can basis, with prices ranging between £5 and £15, with an optional £2 donation that goes towards Trafford Rape Crisis and Trafford Domestic Abuse Service.

☁️ Ambient dream pop artists White Flowers are performing an intimate audio-visual show at YES. £11.20