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Here is today's Mancunian Way:
by BETH ABBIT - Tues June 21, 2022
Hello,
How will Keir Starmer react to the two Greater Manchester MPs who joined striking workers today? The Labour leader is said to be considering disciplinary action after ordering frontbenchers not to join RMT picket lines.
But at least three junior frontbenchers went against his instructions - including Stockport MP and Labour whip, Nav Mishra. “As a proud trade unionist, I stand with all workers on our railway network who are taking industrial action to fight for their jobs and keep passengers safe," he tweeted.
Backbenchers have also shown their solidarity with striking workers. Salford and Eccles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey tweeted from London's Victoria Station:
“Solidarity to all on strike today. All they want is fair pay and to protect jobs and services."
Today’s rail strikes have caused problems for millions of travellers up and down the country. Boris Johnson has urged passengers to ‘stay the course', claiming proposed rail reforms are in their interest. But the RMT - whose members are striking over pay and redundancies - say the government is ‘actively preventing’ a settlement to the dispute.
Piccadilly train station was largely deserted this morning. Bar manager MJ Shannon had to take a £30 Uber from Hale to get to the station for a train home to Newcastle. ”It’s not the worst inconvenience in the world, all the major lines are still running,” she said.
But canine hydrotherapist Amber Zito was less positive after missing her train to Huddersfield and waiting an hour for the next one. “It is not great is it? Everything is kind of going tits up at the moment, planes, trains, everything. Nothing seems to be running properly. I blame the Government for the strike. I don’t blame the people who work for train companies at all. They are only trying to do what everyone wants for their job. But it’s frustrating when you want to get somewhere.”
Piccadilly handled more than 130,000 visitors last weekend, but was running just 20 percent of normal weekday services today, with local routes stopped.
Clayton Clive, RMT branch secretary for Manchester South, was manning the picket-line at Piccadilly and said travellers have been ‘very supportive’. “We do not want to cause anyone any inconvenience, or make people late for work but we have been backed into a corner where we have no other choice but to take this action and I think people can see that.”
Gary Neville is among those to show his support, tweeting: “If 1000’s workers go on strike its because it’s become a last resort,to prevent colleagues losing their jobs and to stop being treated unfairly.These are good people yet this Gov will divide and try and turn us on them!Transport under @grantshapps is in turmoil!”
With barely any trains, it’s been busy on the roads. In Manchester at 11am, congestion levels increased from 27 percent on June 14, to 34 percent today, according to TomTom.
'I am working every day to survive'
More and more women are turning to sex work to make ends meet as the cost of living crisis starts to bite. That's according to charity workers who support street sex workers in Manchester.
They say the number of women approaching their service for the first time has increased significantly since the start of 2022. Many are returning to sex work after several years, or have only recently started working in the trade for the first time.
Staff at Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH) expect demand for their services to increase as more people are pushed below the poverty line. Many of those helped by MASH were already struggling with on Universal Credit as inflation reaches the highest rate for 30 years and energy prices soar.
MASH takes an outreach van to ‘beat’ areas of the city four nights a week so women can access condoms, food and drink and speak to case workers. The charity also runs a drop-in centre, specialist sexual health clinic, offers counselling and supports women with everything from finding a home to reporting violent crime.
CEO Annie Emery says the pandemic and changes to the welfare system have exacerbated many women’s 'already precarious life situations'. Many lost income overnight, faced eviction and depended on emergency food parcels.
“Women, unpaid-carers, workers on zero-hours’ contracts were already struggling and these living cost hikes are pushing more into complete crisis and survival mode," she says. ‘MASH has been around for 30 years and we are concerned that we’re now starting to engage with women who moved on from sex work years ago. It is clear that their financial struggles are leaving women with extremely limited and insecure options.
“There are also more women coming to us for the first time who have turned to sex work as their last option to keep a roof over their heads. What is consistent is the strength, resilience and perseverance of the women we support who are simply trying to live day to day. Looking at what’s to come we are predicting demand for our services will only increase."
Click here to donate to the charity to help women in crisis.
Weather, etc.
Wednesday: Sunny intervals. 23C.
Pollen count: Very high.
Roads closed: Delph New Road, Dobcross, in both directions for roadworks between Wall Hill Road and Oldham Road until August 15.
Eccles New Road westbound closed for gas main work from Stott Lane to Gilda Brook Road until June 28.
Disruption expected to most train operating companies between June 21 and 26 due to industrial action.
Today's Manc trivia question: Which railway viaduct was the world's largest when it opened in 1840?
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter
A crazy amount of money
So will we get the underground station at Piccadilly that Northern leaders are so keen on? It's not looking hopeful after yesterday's Commons debate on HS2. Transport Minister Wendy Morton said an underground station to link HS2 with Northern Powerhouse Rail would cost a 'crazy amount of money'.
Crazy eh? Didn't Crossrail cost £18.9billion? And wasn't it £4billion over budget? Strange that what's seen as 'crazy' for the North is a perfectly sound for the South.
During the Commons debate about plans for a new stage of the line between Crewe and Manchester, Withington MP Jeff Smith stressed the 'importance of integrating' HS2 with Northern Powerhouse Rail by building an underground station at Piccadilly.
But the Transport minister said HS2 Limited had investigated the feasibility of an underground station, telling MPs: “That work has found that an underground station would cause major city centre disruption during the construction period, it would significantly delay the opening of services into Manchester by more than seven years, and it would add around an additional £5 billion to the cost of the Crewe to Manchester scheme alone. That is absolutely a crazy amount of money on something which is quite frankly worse.”
Heywood and Middleton MP Chris Clarkson called for analysis of options for the station to be published. “Digging up a square mile of the city centre is certainly not going to deliver the value for money that we want," he said. “That said, if I could encourage the HS2 minister to publish the cost-benefit analysis for both versions of the station in the House of Commons Library I think that would enable us to have a more fulsome debate."
Cheriff and Junior
The families of Cheriff Tall and Abayomi 'Junior' Ajosetwo - both shot dead during a lockdown party in Moss Side have described their continuing pain two years on from the double murder.
As John Scheerhout reports, the name of a suspect - believed to be from Birmingham - was very quickly known by police, but he has so far evaded capture. Detectives suspect he may now have fled the country.
It’s thought Cheriff, 21, was shot first when a row erupted with the gunman. Father-of-three Abayomi, 36, was shot after stepping in to help during the party, which was attended by around 400 people in a car park off Caythorpe Street, in the early hours of June 21, 2020.
Abayomi's widow, Lola, says every day is a reminder he's not here. She describes Abayomi as a doting father and husband who ‘loved partying and loved being around family and friends’. “He just wanted everybody to be around and happy and laughing and dancing."
Both families are appealing for anyone with video footage or information to help bring the killer to justice. Cheriff''s father, Moussa Tall, said: "He's a killer, he's dangerous to society. Maybe he already killed or is awaiting to kill again. Somebody who killed two people in one night with no remorse, without anything and without any respect. You know that (person) can kill again. So I'm calling for that somebody who knows something to just come forward and help us, help the police to catch this killer because two years is too long.”
North Manchester Hospital
Demolition work has started at North Manchester General Hospital. Limbert House is being knocked down to make way for a new multi-storey car park and cycle hub - the first phase of the total redevelopment of the site. It forms part of the government’s plans to build 40 new hospitals by 2030.
Chairman of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Kathy Cowell, said it was a pleasure to see the ‘excellent progress’ being made’. “The new car park will tackle the long term parking issues faced by our staff, patients and visitors when it opens next year,” she said.
Manchester headlines
Scrapped: Plans to create a new place of worship in Manchester for a church associated with so-called gay 'conversion therapy' have been pulled. Plans to use part of the ground floor at the Sheridan Suite, on Oldham Road, as a place of worship for Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries has now been withdrawn. Concerns were raised about the church and its association with so-called 'conversion therapy' following an Liverpool ECHO investigation. A spokesperson for the Sheridan Suite said the application was withdrawn as soon as they were made aware of the alleged practices within the Church.
Prison rats: Reports of a growing infestation of rats and mice at HMP Forest Bank has sparked a visit from environmental health. One recently-released inmate told the M.E.N: "You're in your pad at night and you wake up in the morning and half your food has been chewed at. It's horrendous. There are rat droppings everywhere." Prison bosses said: “We are fully committed to providing a clean and safe environment."
Inspection: Richard House, in Cale Green, Stockport, has been ordered to improve for a third time after the Care Quality Commission found medicine and recruitment failings had put people ‘at risk of harm’. The care home has again been rated as ‘requires improvement’ after inspectors found ‘multiple and repeated breaches of regulations’.
Hit parade
This image from the 1980s shows the day HMV opened on Market Street.
Worth a read
Ben Arnold has been to the Manchester Jewish Museum to find out how the catering team there won Cafe or Restaurant of the Year at the Museum and Heritage Awards. "It is a tranquil oasis amid the continuum of Cheetham Hill Road," he writes.
You can read Ben's lovely review here.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me, the next edition of the Mancunian Way will be with you around the same time tomorrow. If you have any stories you would like us to feature or look into, please contact me at beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk
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The answer to today’s trivia question, which railway viaduct was the world's largest when it opened in 1840, is Stockport, which has is made up of 11million bricks.
