I was born and brought up in Manchester. I’ve lived in Bury, Prestwich, Crumpsall, Withington, and West Didsbury. I went to Manchester University — and I taught there and at Manchester Met. As a kid, I was part of the Manchester music scene, playing gigs at the Boardwalk and Band on the Wall, etc., and frequenting the alternative music clubs (42nd Street, Hangout at Isadora’s, Banshee, Brickhouse, Ritz, Venue, and so on). I’ve published peer-reviewed research on Manchester’s creative industries.
I know the town pretty well.
Like anywhere else, it’s changed over the last 20 years. The changes in Manchester are almost all for the worse. The urban metropolitans — living in the city centre and in places like Chorlton, Prestwich, and Didsbury — push an agenda of suicidal empathy, which is wrapped in a visceral hatred of the white working class. They facilitate the abuse carried out by Islamists in satellite towns like Rochdale, Oldham, and Bolton.
Shortly after the Pakistani rape scandal broke nationally, the city council was vigorously promoting Islamophobia Awareness Month. This in a city where 22 innocent people were slaughtered by an Islamist nutter with a bomb made of nuts and bolts.
Islam and so-called ‘anti-racism’ will dominate campaigning for Gorton and Denton. ‘Free Palestine’ is screamed in the streets every Saturday; synagogues and Jewish schools need more bloody security than 10 Downing Street; sexual abuse and harassment is endemic.
It never used to be like this.
It’s so important — SO important — that
@reformparty_uk wins in Gorton. A single by-election victory cannot reverse a deep and complex culture of racism, intimidation, and blatant sectarianism, but it might serve as a catalyst. It might just BEGIN a process. Manchester desperately needs to re-establish its confidence. It was a city of culture, of revolution, of bravery.
You know what? it was fun. It was just the best place to grow up. We need to save it before it’s too late.