Happy Birthday MCC Climate Emergency! Exactly one year ago today, Manchester City Council unanimously passed a motion declaring a climate emergency. It was a warm July day and the Town Hall provided the perfect backdrop for a piece of political theatre. Over the past year, Climate Emergency Manchester has scrutinised the Council’s progress against the […]
Review: ‘Never Counted Out! The story of Len Johnson, Manchester’s Black Boxing Hero and Communist’
In this guest post, Bernadette Hyland reviews Michael Herbert’s biography on Manchester’s black middleweight boxing champion and communist, Len Johnson. When my parents moved to Clayton, a working class suburb of Manchester in 1963, it was a large sprawling council estate surrounded by engineering and manufacturing factories and dominated by two busy main roads, Ashton […]
William Cuffay, black pioneer of the Chartist movement
Working class radicals from our past are very rarely remembered within our public sphere – there are few monuments to their feats and their personal collections feature little within the official archives. William Cuffay was one of these working class radicals, preserving no diary, autobiography or papers and his lack of wealth and power leaving only faint traces of his life to explore
Marcus Rashford’s school meals victory praised by Wythenshawe community
Marcus Rashford’s campaign to urge the government to extend free school meal vouchers over the summer holidays ended in victory following a government U-turn this week, and has been praised by sports groups and food poverty campaigners across Wythenshawe. Guest article from Wythenshawe Reporter. The Manchester United forward, who campaigned to keep the scheme which […]
Manchester’s New Ruins, Ten Years On
Ten years after publishing A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, author Owen Hatherley reflects on the past decade of neoliberal development in Manchester and its impact on the city. Last weekend, a few items down on the headlines, below the pandemic and the protests and curfews in the US, was a story […]
Seven reasons to support a cycling revolution in Greater Manchester
Cycling campaigner Nick Hubble explains why we should take advantage of government guidance and funding to build a regional cycle network for the post-lockdown recovery. Last month the government announced a comprehensive package of measures to boost walking and cycling (“active travel”) as we emerge from phase one of lockdown. These include: £2 billion investment in active […]
Campaigners cheer bold proposals for 100km Covid-19 ‘pop up’ cycle network
Proposals to install more than 100 km of ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes across Greater Manchester are welcomed by campaign group WalkRide. The plans, if implemented, will enable more people to travel safely during the Covid-19 crisis, and will keep pollution, congestion, and emission levels low. Walk Ride Greater Manchester today welcomed news that leaders are planning […]
Covid-19 and me: my experience
Anti-poverty activist and journalist Charlotte Hughes, explains the experiences and the problems she encountered when she came down with Covid-19 and why she feels that the government let her down. Charlotte, who has previously interviewed Ken Loach, questions the motivations behind government decisions and how it affects the poor. Whilst I haven’t had a test […]
Civil rights campaigners demand urgent action after Greater Manchester Police taser a man in front of his child
Northern Police Monitoring Project, and other civil rights groups, have written a letter to Greater Manchester Police and Police Crime Commissioner Bev Hughes expressing concerns over the tasering of a man in front of his child at a petrol station in Stretford on Wednesday 6 May. GMP have referred the incident to the Independent Office […]
Food for all – could we come out of this with a bold plan to combat hunger?
This pandemic has shown how communities can effectively redistribute food, but what happens next? Guest article from Manchester Confidentials The National Food Service is a campaign group with food hall branches across the country. Expanding that network, they say, will be instrumental to tackling hunger post-lockdown. Instead of expensive restaurants for some and food banks […]