Andy Burnham: pledged to make Manny “one of the best places in the world” to live 11/03/21

 Given that Greater Manchester has one of the biggest student populations in Europe, it’s five higher education institutions boasting a reeling 96,200 people, one may suggest that it’s a crazy idea to encourage the elderly to settle somewhere overcrowded by voracious and overly hormonal youths. However, considering this pledge in light of the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps it’s not such a far fetched idea after all. 

This last year has seen a population of once youthful and enigmatic 20 somethings grow old prematurely, confined to our couches instead of the clubs. When I settle down on a Saturday night in front of the 3rd ‘Twilight’ film - a franchise which has proved to be really divisive for my flat, but objectively if you’re team Jacob you just are wrong *- with my mug of hot chocolate and a stolen corner of my flat mate’s electric blanket, it’s pleasant. What it’s not however, is the ‘best days of your life’ experience I’d been led to believe university would provide. At this point, the sparkling vampires on the screen before me seem more real than the LEDs of ‘42s’.  

To make Manchester ‘one of the best places in the world to grow up, get on and grow old’ Burnham doesn’t actually need to do anything, at least where the aged population is concerned. With cups of tea offered more regularly than glasses of wine, and young people counting lines of crochet instead of coke, Manchester already seems like a pensioner’s paradise. I can even vouch for the numerous agreeable parks the elderly may wish to amble through between reruns of ‘antiques roadshow’;  a socially distanced, slightly frosty walk (socially distanced of course) pretty much all we’ve been allowed to do. For months. 

God bless him though, of course none of this confined frustration is actually Burnham’s fault. In October of last year the man took it upon himself to oppose Bojo’s covid strategy. The Mayor accused the government of treating Manchester like a “sacrificial lamb” for regional lockdown policies, advocating instead for a national lockdown in order to combat the currently ongoing pandemic. Labour’s motto “For the many not the few” serving multiple purposes here. 

Being from Newcastle myself, I couldn’t agree more with Burnham’s accusations. I was disappointed but certainly not surprised when Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle were essentially left to fend for themselves in tier 3 while London remained in tier 2. You know London, that famously underpopulated and safety-conscious city. One that just so happens to be the home of many of the politicians deciding on the covid regulations, including the Prime Minister himself. Funny that. 

Graffiti on Manchester’s now fallen (well, partly deconstructed) Berlin Wall railing against the North being treated like a ‘Petri dish’ suggested support for Burnham and his conclusion that the government were “willing to sacrifice jobs and businesses here to try and save them elsewhere.” In fact, unlike the majority of the UK’s politicians, Greater Manchester’s Mayor’s reputation actually improved due to his handling of the pandemic and ‘The Economist’ even claimed he had “a bigger impact on the government’s Covid policy than any other Labour politician, including Sir Keir Starmer.”

With his new pledge to work towards making Greater Manchester “a region where no person or place is left behind,” Burnham feels like the stable figure the nation needs after Bojo and his tory cronies gave us trust issues through their lies about covid infection rates. Not to mention the commitment issues we developed through simultaneously being forced to go through the worst break up of our lives i.e that of our relationship with the European Union. Or the victim-blaming of university students. At this point, I feel like the PM ought to be responsible for an awful lot of therapy invoices - and a hell of a lot of ‘Ben and Jerries’.  

Furthermore, judging by his track record, Burnham does seem to do good on his promises. Recognising the severity of homelessness and rough sleeping in Manchester, the “Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity’ has so far raised more than £2,000,000 and set up an ‘emergency homelessness Covid-response’ up to a maximum of £10,000 per organization. 

Fair enough Prime Minister is a very different job role to Mayor, but if we consider that as the Mayor of London Johnson succeeded in wasting £43 million on a garden bridge that was never built and left office with four of London’s boroughs in the top 10 of the Uk’s poorest boroughs, in comparison I would say Burnham could be doing a lot worse. 

* And in honour of ‘The Guilty Feminist’, ‘I’m a feminist but Bella is absolutely responsible for literally every single problem including a mass war between the world’s most dangerous predators and life just would be easier if she didn’t exist.”