A few weeks ago, at the Labour Conference, the BBC’s Chris Mason asked our Prime Minister what he thought of the just passed verdict that Manchester City were guilty on all 114 charges and what he thought their punishment might be. Well, we all know Burnham is a big football fan, a ‘mad’ Everton supporter and engaged with the game. Yet, unlike the answer any other, self-respecting, non-Man-City-fan, football supporter would have given, the PM said he wouldn’t like to see too harsh a punishment, and further investigations need to be made, because Everton were deducted points in 2023, blah, blah, blah. He was considered. He was non-committal in his condemnation. He equivocated. And was actually questioning the validity of the legal processes involved.

Well football fans don’t do that. We CONDEMN, to death if possible, the transgressions of other teams. But Burnham was ‘kind’ to Manchester City.

And at the time I saw that I thought: ‘oh’. Because it wasn’t the reply I expected. It was too soft, too ‘forgiving’, too balanced after such a resounding thumping in the court. Burnham was effectively choosing ‘the wrong side’. It was one of those ‘oh!’ moments like when Trump suddenly became a Russia fan in the war. It sort of jars.

But then you have to consider that our Andy was the Mayor of Manchester. At the time of City’s exponential leap from mid-table-no-hopers to World domination. Which brought renovation and riches to ‘his’ City. As the Abu Dhabis rebuilt the stadium and regenerated the area. All good. And along the way a ‘relationship’ built up, inevitably, between the Mayor and those who were hurling billions at his city. Because in politics, and certainly where great sums of money are involved, there is always a quid pro quo.

I learned this morning that the ‘City of Manchester’ (under Burnham’s stewardship) gave the Abu Dhabi property development company (owned, as is most of that country, by Sheikh Mansoor) a ‘loan’ of £55 million towards building homes. None of them ‘social housing’. Itself really odd given Andy’s frequent rants about the need for such places and his oft-heard disgust at Maggie Thatcher for selling off all the council houses.

You first have to wonder why Abu Dhabi needed 55 million of anyone else’s money. And you have to wonder what may have been bestowed upon the then Mayor in return for his overly favourable considerations towards them.

I love a good plot. Will this be the end of Andy Burnham? Will Angela Raynor instigate an investigation into the whole ‘Manchester thing’? Its so exiting its like an episode of Batman!

Happy Monday

A xxxx