Tag Archives: Manchester

People in Manchester vent their feelings about the cost-of-living crisis

Following on from the people of Glasgow discussing the Tory-engineered cost-of-living crisis, Politics Joe has also interviewed people in Manchester.

The channel joined an Enough Is Enough event in the city at the end of August where, as in Glasgow a few days later, attendees made it clear that they were not impressed with politicians who go on holiday when the nation is in crisis (among a host of other complaints).

Here’s the clip – watch as your fellow citizens vent their feelings:

And over the weekend, Mancunians told the Express newspaper/website what they thought about new prime minister Liz Truss and her response to the crises facing the UK:

Katie Wilde, a trainee solicitor from Withington… claimed that Liz Truss’ premiership won’t “last long”.

“I don’t think it’s going to be very permanent, to be honest. I think the Tories might be coming to the end of their era”, she added.

The reason for this, she said, is because of the way “a lot of massive events have been handled”, citing the pandemic, energy crisis and cost of living emergency as examples.

When asked why she thought Liz Truss was chosen by her peers, she said she thought she was chosen “maybe, as a scapegoat”.

She added: “The Government are facing a lot of issues at the minute and if it all goes terribly, which it seems to be, maybe they will use Liz Truss as a scapegoat.”

Michelle, a nurse from Didsbury, said she “wasn’t happy” with the outcome but believes “Rishi wouldn’t have been much better”.

“I think they’re all as bad as each other so it doesn’t really matter”, she added.

When answering what the PM’s first job should be in office, she said the “cost of living”, calling it “ridiculous”.

She added: “The corporations should be taxed because these are essential things – people need to heat their homes and afford food so they don’t die.

“It’s scary to think how many people could die this winter because of these issues, especially the elderly and vulnerable”.

Do you agree? Do you have other concerns that you think should be raised?

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Denial of ‘surge’ vaccination suggests Tory Covid-19 response is now politically biased

Mealy-mouthed: Jenrick said he was following scientific advice by denying “surge” vaccinations to Greater Manchester. But isn’t it more accurate to say he is starving a Labour-voting area of the help it needs?

Would they have said “no” if Greater Manchester had a Conservative mayor?

That is the question that should be on everybody’s lips after Tory minister (and he’s as corrupt as they come) Robert Jenrick rejected GM mayor Andy Burnham’s call for “surge” vaccinations in his metropolitan area, where there has been a significant increase in Covid-19 cases.

Jenrick said: “We are going to stick with the advice we have received from the JCVI, our advisers, which say that it is better to continue to work down the age categories on a national basis, rather than adopt a regional or geographical approach.

“Their advice has served us well so far as a country, they have got the big calls right since the start of the vaccine rollout.”

Oh really?

In that case, why are Covid-19 cases on the increase in the UK yet again, boosted by the rise of a variant that probably would not have had nearly as large an effect if vaccination doses had been delivered on the timescale advised by the manufacturers?

For example, The Writer had the first Astrazeneca jab on April 4 and – according to the government – should receive the second dose between eight and 12 weeks later. I’m now in the middle of the 10th week since that injection and haven’t heard a whisper about a second inoculation.

Burnham’s call has won approval from the public:

And Jenrick’s dismissal of Burnham is being treated as political favouritism:

Others have suggested that the Tories simply don’t care about the North (ex-Red Wall Tory voters please take note).

In a rational society, when there is a pandemic infection with a vaccine available, inoculations would be concentrated in areas with increased cases of the disease.

But we don’t live in a rational society. We live in one that is run by Tories.

They do not understand or care about Covid-19 and its effects on the stock (which is what they call you).

They are simply going through the motions in order to appear to be acting competently.

And if they can use a fatal disease to reduce support for their main political rivals, then they are low enough to do that.

Source: Ministers reject Burnham demand for surge vaccination in Greater Manchester – LabourList

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Tories announce lavish new support scheme for businesses – after snubbing Manchester with a pittance

Stung: Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

Tory chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a new support package for English areas under Tier 2 Covid-19 restrictions in a move that seems time to snub Greater Manchester.

The north-west English area had been under Tier 2 restrictions until earlier this week, when Sunak’s government forced it into Tier 3 with a financial support package that has been vilified as punitive and unfair.

Now the BBC is reporting:

Rishi Sunak announced big changes to the Job Support Scheme (JSS) – set to replace furlough in November.

Businesses in tier two areas, particularly in the hospitality sector, had complained that they would be better off if they were under tier three restrictions.

Sunak delivered his announcement in the House of Commons:

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was unimpressed – and even that usually-staunch supporter of the Tories, the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg, had to agree that he made a fair point:

Burnham expanded on this in a TV interview:

Anthony Browne, the Tory MP appearing on the day’s edition of the BBC’s Politics Live, tried to justify the timing of the announcement:

If it takes time to evolve a policy change like that which Sunak announced in Parliament, then that means it would certainly have been under discussion when the talks with Burnham were taking place.

So it also follows that the Conservatives holding those discussions – like Robert Jenrick, who spewed such a lot of nonsense about it earlier in the week – deliberately failed to mention it to Burnham.

Why?

The only reason that I can see would be to corruptly engineer a financial disadvantage for the Labour-voting people of Greater Manchester.

Once again, it seems, the Conservatives are using the Covid-19 crisis for their own selfish political gain.

How utterly despicable.

I am glad to see that the £2,100 per month grant is retrospective and may be backdated to August 2.

I hope hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester use it to take as much as they can from Sunak and his twisted government.

Source: New government Covid scheme to pay up to half of wages – BBC News

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Jenrick’s definition of fair funding: £237/person in his rich constituency – £7.95/person in Manchester

Robert Jenrick: what dictionary did he use when he looked up his definition of fair?

Why was housing secretary Robert Jenrick part of the negotiating team handling support for Greater Manchester while it is in Tier 3 Covid-19 restrictions?

Clearly, it can’t be because he can be trusted with money; he corruptly induced a fellow MP to approve a grant for his constituency totalling £237 per person recently – contrast that with the £7.95 per person for Manchester. And Jenrick’s constituency isn’t in Tier 3!

Doesn’t it seem more likely that the opposite is true – that he was certain to deprive Manchester of the cash it needed? The precedent is there in his handling of Richard Desmond’s Tower Hamlet’s planning application, which Jenrick manipulated in order to deny London’s poorest borough £45 million.

He seems to have thought he could get away with this sleight of hand.

He thought wrong.

So after he appeared on TV saying this…

… the public responded with the facts:

And today the Commons will be debating whether children should have free school meals because, after years of Tory deprivation, their parents can no longer afford to feed them. What will Jenrick’s contribution be?

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No sugar for Lord Alan’s sidekick after he tells Mancunians to ‘suck it up’

‘Suck it in’: but public reaction to Claude Littner suggests that he’s the one who sucks.

If he had an ounce of self-consciousness, Claude Littner would be apologising to the people of Manchester – and the UK – after his TV outburst.

The businessman, said to be worth £34 million, told Mancunians who will enter Tier 3 Covid-19 restrictions tomorrow (October 22) to “suck it up” and “take it on the chin”.

Easy for him to say! He won’t be trying to survive on £5.84 per hour.

Sprinkled among these harsh words were lines straight out of Boris Johnson’s script: “Work together”… “Make sure the NHS is protected”.

For once, the public reaction was harder than the “hard man” of The Apprentice:

No it doesn’t.

And he’d be complaining to the government pretty damn fast if his income stream dropped because his employees were too busy starving to come to work.

Johnson forces Greater Manchester into pointless Tier 3 lockdown – penalising people for voting Labour?

 

Businesses in Greater Manchester are to close at huge cost to themselves after Boris Johnson imposed Tier 3 lockdown without offering a reasonable support package.

Tier 3 conditions don’t mean every firm will close – but significant harm will be done. The financial support package Mr Johnson is providing totals £8 per member of the local population.

Not only that: Tier 3 conditions will not stop the spread of Covid-19 (although they may slow it down a little).

So there seems little point to this…

Apart from to harm a Labour-voting area. I think this is party political.

Here in Wales, the Labour-led government is imposing a two-week lockdown in which all businesses apart from suppliers of food/groceries will close and people will be discouraged from leaving their homes.

The support package for this totals £300 million – more than £90 per person for the two-week period.

It’s still not perfect. It’s still controversial. But it’s hugely better than anything Johnson is offering.

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Coronavirus: since lockdown, hundreds are now homeless in Manchester alone

Andy Burnham: he’s Mayor of Greater Manchester. What’s the situation everywhere else?

So how well do you think those Tory policies to protect us all and keep us in our homes are doing?

According to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, 344 people had been recorded as newly homeless and requiring accommodation between the time the coronavirus lockdown was imposed and April 22.

He said 115 people were sleeping rough.

On top of this, people are being released from prison with nowhere to go, and government support – announced for people found to be homeless before lockdown – isn’t available for the newly-homeless.

Oh – and evictions haven’t stopped completely, despite Tory promises.

That’s just in Greater Manchester. What’s happening to the rest of the UK?

Source: Hundreds of people have become homeless during the coronavirus lockdown says mayor of Greater Manchester | Granada – ITV News

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Theresa May’s insulting payment offer shows her contempt for Manchester bomb victims

An explosion hit Manchester Arena at the end of a pop concert by US singer Ariana Grande in May 2017, killing 23 people – including children – and injuring a further 500 others. Among the dead was the single male attacker who detonated the home-made bomb.

Theresa May has delivered a slap in the face to the people of Manchester, showing once again that she is running a country that works only for the rich – and not for everyone as her lying propaganda claims.

After the Manchester Arena Bombing last May, she promised the city, “Whatever you need, it’s there.” Now she has gone back on that promise. It was a lie.

The total cost of the bombing to the public, for police, health and council services, came to £17 million but, in a letter to Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Mrs May has offered to pay only £12 million.

She has told Mr Burnham that this is “reasonable”. The people of Manchester are likely to take a different view.

Mrs May’s decision shows her contempt for the city – especially when we consider the huge amounts of cash she has pulled from her Magic Money Tree for other purposes, while still claiming there is no money available for the rest of us:

The real reason Mrs May won’t stump up the cash seems obvious, although she’ll never admit it.

The people of Manchester aren’t rich Tory donors, and aren’t likely to prop up her government in return for a bung, like the DUP (for example). In other words:

There’s simply no profit in it for her.

Mayor Andy Burnham has slammed an offer from the Prime Minister to pay just £12m towards the £17m total bill arising from the Manchester Arena bombing.

The city believed the Government had promised to foot the entire £17m cost for policing, health and council services in the aftermath of May’s atrocity which claimed 22 lives and injured 512 others.

But now it has says it will pay only ‘reasonable costs’ of £12m.

Mr Burnham has slated the offer as ‘not good enough and we expect these costs to be paid in full’.

Last week Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament ‘the majority’ of the cash originally promised would be paid but in a letter to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham she has only vowed to pay ‘all reasonable costs’.

Mr Burnham declined to reveal the full contents of the letter but said it was ‘inconclusive’ and failed to give Manchester the backing it deserved.

He said he was told at the time ‘whatever you need, it’s there’, and added: “I think we can expect those words to be honoured.”

Source: Government will not pay Manchester the full £17m needed to cover Arena bomb costs – Manchester Evening News

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Here’s why Theresa May must go: She doesn’t care about people

Some might say This Site uses this image too much, but it amply demonstrates Mrs May’s lack of empathy with other human beings – even children [Image: Getty].

The rest of the Tory Party might be ganging up on Theresa May, but that doesn’t mean she should remain as prime minister. She should go, not because her own people are pushing her, but because she won’t meet the people of the UK unless she is pushed.

Consider her reaction to the Manchester bombing. Has she bothered to meet relatives of the people who were murdered? No:

What about her public relations skills after the Grenfell Tower fire?

She simply doesn’t want to know.

And if she doesn’t care about us, there’s no reason we should care about her.

Today (October 6), Mrs May told us she would continue as leader because the members of her Cabinet support her. But how long can she continue when nobody else does?

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Here’s why Theresa May must go: She doesn’t care about people

Some might say This Site uses this image too much, but it amply demonstrates Mrs May’s lack of empathy with other human beings – even children [Image: Getty].

The rest of the Tory Party might be ganging up on Theresa May, but that doesn’t mean she should remain as prime minister. She should go, not because her own people are pushing her, but because she won’t meet the people of the UK unless she is pushed.

Consider her reaction to the Manchester bombing. Has she bothered to meet relatives of the people who were murdered? No:

What about her public relations skills after the Grenfell Tower fire?

She simply doesn’t want to know.

And if she doesn’t care about us, there’s no reason we should care about her.

Today (October 6), Mrs May told us she would continue as leader because the members of her Cabinet support her. But how long can she continue when nobody else does?

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