Labour’s renewal
13/01/2022
For the first time in a long time, Labour looks like it could win a General Election. Read why, in Frank McKenna’s latest Downtown blog.
NANDY IN THE RIGHT JOB.
02/12/2021
Jim gives his views on this week’s shake up in Labour’s shadow team as it affects the North. Five Greater Manchester MPs are in the Shadow Cabinet and none from Liverpool as Sir Keir Starmer continues his march to the middle ground.
Does politics affect business investment?
25/11/2021
How much notice do business investors take of the political shenanigins at the Town Hall? Jim previews a lecture next week by distinguished academic Michael Parkinson who will look at Liverpool. A city massively regenerated but with a political system that’s bust.
Big week for Labour and Starmer
23/09/2021
Keir Starmer and Labour host their conference in Brighton this week. Will the party show that it has learned the lessons of four consecutive General Election defeats – or continue its journey into political oblivion?
Burnham and Rayner on manoeuvres
13/05/2021
After last week’s big round of elections will there ever be a Labour government again?Frank and Jim give their differing views in this week’s blogs and Jim looks at the detailed results in the North West
Nandy triumph in Manchester
27/02/2020
Jim was at the Labour leadership hustings in Manchester this week and saw a strong performance by Wigan’s Lisa Nandy. He feels it may not be enough to stop Keir Starmer but she is a woman to watch as Labour tries to rebuild as a credible electoral force.
Is Labour coming home?
13/02/2020
Mayoral selections and the leadership contest suggests that Labour has finally realised the futility of Fantasy Island politics according to Downtown boss Frank McKenna.
Will towns be the government’s priority?
23/01/2020
Will towns be the new driving force of the Northern Powerhouse? This week Downtown held an event with one of the leading Chief Executives in local government, Wigan’s Alison McKenzie-Folan. Jim hosted the lunch and reports on her forthright views on the cities v towns debate.
Labour’s last chance saloon
16/01/2020
This week Frank McKenna suggests that the election of Rebecca Long-Bailey as leader will kill the Labour Party.
The destabilising decade
19/12/2019
In his last blog of the year, Jim looks back on the most turbulent decade ever in British politics. It began with Gordon Brown determined to make Labour the natural party of power and ended with it looking unlikely they will ever be in power again.
Labour’s Decade of Decline
19/12/2019
This week Frank McKenna reflects on the Labour Party’s decade of decline – and warns that only a change of direction can save it from oblivion over the next ten years.
Get Powerhouse done!
17/12/2019
In his final Downtown Monthly blog for 2019, Downtown Political Editor, Jim Hancock explores what the result of the 2019 General Election might have in store.