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Time to work smarter – time to work together
Time to work smarter – time to work together At our SmartCity event last week there were loads of great ideas to lift our city. Plenty of passion and a real burst of energy. This wasn’t just on the...
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Scotland’s independence push should inspire Manchester
I’m a Unionist. I don’t want the Scots to vote for independence. I think Alex Salmond plays fast and loose with his vision for a brave new Scotland. He seems to want to have it all ways – a business...
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Cocaine at Christmas – evil from production to consumption
It’s the party season and revelry will be everywhere. And it being Christmas, there will be snow. Not just the white slushy stuff that falls from the sky, but the South American sourced evil powder...
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What is the point of the Manchester Evening News?
I’ve sat in meetings with regional media executives thinking I’ve missed a trick. Being fair minded I sat there listening patiently to bold new strategies, to taps on the nose about hidden revenue...
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2014 – And things can only get better, again
There was much cause for seasonal cheer this week. Growth is back in the economy, unemployment is down and there seems to be a good feeling around again. It might be a rough time if you work for the...
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Downtown events – help us be the best
I had a conversation with a friend of mine before Christmas. My friend, somewhat provocatively, suggested that the schedule of Downtown events, like those of other business events everywhere, was ‘more...
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Talking enterprise with Cameron’s man
We pulled together a group of entrepreneurs and business owners this week for a session with one of the Prime Minister’s special advisers, a very engaging guy called Daniel Korski. Here’s what we...
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Manchester’s University?
How much a part of the city is the University of Manchester? I ask this because I think it isn’t enough. I sit on a body known as the General Assembly of the University of Manchester. It’s purpose is...
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Labour’s tax bombshell
I must admit to be being staggered by Ed Balls’ pledge to reinstate the top rate of tax to 50 per cent. Throughout the Blair years the top rate was 40 per cent. It was only in the last dying days of...
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Online Trolls – cyber-bullying in Manchester, Roger Cashman and gossip
Two comedians meet at a bar in Edinburgh during the festival. One says to the other: “How are you, what have you been up to?” The other replies: “what do you mean? Haven’t you heard? I’m just back from...
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Happy St Valentines Day
Given today is the day of mushy romantic love, it might be worth reminding ourselves about the power of the greatest force on earth – human love. Here’s my six point love letter today to the Downtown...
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The Green Party and the Co-op: two curious British failures
At the last General Election the Green Party secured their first MP when Sarah Lucas was returned in Brighton. Across the country there are a smattering of 139 councillors nationally and they have two...
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Don’t assault our staff – poor service guaranteed
I have a theory. The more prominent you see a sign in a business warning you not to assault the staff, the more likely you are to get really bad customer service. In airports, hospitals, train stations...
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Mind the Gap – forget gimmicks like Manpool, the cities of the North need to...
Evan Davis’ excellent documentary Mind the Gap: London vs the rest, has raised some powerful long term issues for the development of the nation. The runaway economic growth of London is not without its...
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At last the anti-SME backlash gathers momentum
No, I don’t have anything against small and medium sized enterprises. I just really dislike the term “SME”. I get even more annoyed when it gets used as a new word entirely, “the Smee”. The backlash...
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Politics and celebrity
JK Rowling’s intervention in the Scottish independence debate has thrown up the issue of whether celebrities should donate to campaigns and have a right to discuss major topical issues. I genuinely...
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The challenge isn’t to grasp, but to shape from below – thoughts on George...
In Manchester on Monday, political history was made. I felt immensely privileged to have a second row seat to listen to the Chancellor make a series of very brave and audacious statements of intent...
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Manchester loves Liverpool
I write this blog this week with some haste, for which I apologise. I do so however in spirit of the Northern Revolution, our conference at Manchester’s Town Hall, which we have completed on Thursday...
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Just a few more reasons why Digby Jones is wrong
Digby is an accomplished speaker. He has a good turn of phrase and likes telling stories. We know this because he told us so. At Manchester Business School on Monday this week Digby filled the room and...
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My trip to Pittsburgh and what Manchester can learn about city magnetism
Fourteen years ago I went to Pittsburgh to try and understand how the American post-industrial city was shaping up. I remember American friends asking me – “why would you go there?” A former steel...
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Should cities have their own foreign policy?
Don’t think I’m getting carried away by all this talk of devolution in the air, but couldn’t an extension of city freedom be an independent approach to international relations and a different policy to...
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Don’t bring the complexities and hatreds of Gaza to Manchester’s streets
Manchester is a proud city of immigrants with a long record of tolerance and support for international justice. But the right to protest and the right to assert that legacy is not the same as the right...
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Railing against rail
Before we get too excited about the long term exciting vision of a modern railway system that will link Manchester to Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool there is the humdrum matter of what to do...
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Remembering Tony Wilson
Our friend Tony Wilson left us 7 years ago last Sunday. On the anniversary of his death the tributes came thick and fast again. Terry Christian was particularly enthusiastic and his efforts ensured...
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What to do with the growing self-employed – a taxing question
There will soon be more people working for themselves than working for the government. The self-employed are the fastest group in the labour market and possibly the most misunderstood. Britain has the...
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The lure of London, the future of accountancy and Douglas Carswell
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in London lately. What is always a curiosity is the number of people I meet on the red-eye on the way down and then back home on the evening. Before you stop...
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Monocle magazine, the Dark Net and the Dark Peak
There’s a bit of a “back to mono” feel about this blog this week. Sometimes we rush enthusiastically towards the inevitable digital nirvana, the internet of everything and the “disruption” of the old...
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George Osborne, a Labour chancellor in all but name
As Scots build up a wall of fury about which side of the independence debate despises the posh boy Tories the most, the hate figure that emerges most often is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Tatton...
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A warning from history: politics will never be the same
The winner of the Scottish referendum campaign has been the Scottish people. It may have got a bit feisty. But Ed Miliband getting jostled in Edinburgh was nothing compared to the intimidation felt by...
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Go your own way
There were great people on various stages at the Labour Party conference in Manchester this week. There were great ideas too. The greatest of all were those grasped the change that is going on at the...
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A cleaner city, a prouder city
It was just outside the visitor centre on Piccadilly Gardens, a McDonalds bag fell from a buggy being pushed by a woman in a hurry. I picked it up and handed it to her, she glared at me, and...
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Broadband bun fight
I’m sure you’ve all been to those events where you just know the question and answer session is going to be a mixture of showboating and the grinding of axes. Where people don’t make a point, or...
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An opportunity Manchester mustn’t miss
Politics has always been about three things – ideas, competency and the future, so said Matthew Taylor of the RSA recently. Labour has always led on the ideas, the Tories are traditionally stronger on...
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These reports are great, but they lack the joy of life
I have read in full the City Growth Commission final report. There is very little I would disagree with. I leant back on a train journey and very much enjoyed ResPublica’s report DevoManc. Again, it...
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What’s the story?
Once upon a time there was a successful group of businesses in a creative sector that were doing OK, but wanted to break out of their “cottage industry” and break the grip of power on the centre that...
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This is a human rights issue
For too long social mobility for young people in the north has meant doing well at school, going to University and moving to London. The social cost of this has been enormous. A population declining...
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Politics – The Harsh Reality
Our latest poll is asking Downtown members and supporters if they agree whether Manchester was right to agree to a ‘Metro Mayor’ for the city region as part of the Devo Manc deal. The purpose of the...
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When Leese and Bernstein retire – what next?
When Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, he anointed his successor. We all know what happened next. I frequently hear it asked, what will the city leadership look like in the era after Sir Howard...
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Mary Portas comes to Stockport Market
I met with Mary Portas this week at the excellent Teenage Market in Stockport (it’s a market where enterprising teenagers sell stuff, not some kind of medieval recruitment fare where businesses bid for...
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Three things that don’t add up in the Autumn Statement
Manchester, so much to answer for. The magnetism of Manchester is something else at the moment. Another week in politics, another flurry of announcements, some of them even including a few new things....
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My ten year old son and his mates have their own YouTube channels and other...
It’s been a consistent part of my time at Downtown to support programmes that connect young people to business – apprenticeships, work placements, business engagement. Last week, along with 8 other...
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An extraordinary year for Manchester
It has been an extraordinary year for Manchester, a city that continues to evolve, a city that remains a work in progress. It is also a city that frustrates and one where opinion is always feisty and...
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The future might be very digital, but it’s also very local
I read a book over Christmas called The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett. I really enjoyed it. Very well written, entertaining, scary and hugely informative. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that I...
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A Bank of the North
The north south divide is getting bigger. No matter how fast Manchester pedals to keep the momentum, London just keeps growing. I heard at the University of Manchester this week that most graduate jobs...
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Manchester – the home of our national culture (almost)
In a couple of months time Manchester’s new contemporary arts centre, Home, will be opening its doors on Tony Wilson Place just off Whitworth Street and close to the old Hacienda night club. It all...
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Politics and business: a depressing and unhelpful week
If there’s one major problem with the current debate about political parties and their support from business it is the lumping together of practically everyone who runs a private company into something...
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Slavery Is Alive in Britain in 2015
We are celebrating the landmark of 150 years since the end of slavery this year and the victory of Abraham Lincoln’s Union Army in the American Civil War. It was a moral victory and one for which...
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Banks may be unloved and guilty of many things, but we actually need more of...
The future health of the financial services sector will be tightly linked to Manchester’s prosperity. It is banks, insurance companies, advisors and money management firms that will fill the offices of...
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The MHS and why DevoManc is deadly serious
I missed the party. How was it? You know, the one that celebrated the announcement that Greater Manchester’s devolution settlement was edging ever further to bringing local control closer to our needs?...
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Politics should matter more to business says Michael Taylor
I’ve been speaking at a number of business events over the last couple of weeks. In the course of doing so I’ve had a number of startling interactions, of which some are worth sharing. At one...
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