As Andrew Marr, writing in the Spectator last week said:

“Who among us, really, predicted that Jeremy Corbyn would be romping ahead like this? Where were the post-election columns pointing out that David Cameron’s victory would lead to a resurgent quasi-Marxist left?”

Well this Bank Holiday weekend, Corbynmania arrives in Manchester.With the ballot papers sent out and the bookmakers paying out, what would a Corbyn win do to Manchester?

Our council leader has rather unexpectedly backed not the Northern Powerhouse on this side of the Pennine’s Andy Burnham, but the one from the other side Yvette Cooper.

” If we elect a leader who is a relic of a bygone age, there is a real risk that the party itself will become a relic of a bygone age.” he wrote in the Guardian two weeks ago, whilst of Greater Manchester’s candidate who spoke at the Local Government Association hustings:

“His perspective was narrow and backward-looking with all the hallmarks of an old-style centraliser dragged to the devolution table.”

So it is to Yvette that he looks, despite the fact that the region’s MP’s have come out in favour of Burnham.

But if, as expected Jeremy Corbyn wins, it becomes clear that Greater Manchester’s devolution journey and its cosy relationship with the Tories could quickly come unstuck.

Corbyn has already put himself at odds with Manchester’s leaders with his plans for the re-industrialisation” of the north and the overhaul of the existing Local Economic Partnerships.

Choosing to laugh his own version of the Northern Power House on the other side of the Pennines probably didn’t help matters but Richard Leese’s reaction to the speech of the 4th August was to tweet

“Corbyn completely ignores what Labour in the north is doing.”

Some would argue that certainly in this part of the world, Labour is actually helping the Tory bidding, the pictures of the ten council leaders sitting around the table signing the devolution agreement with the Chancellor did not sit comfortably with Labour’s old guard.

One was heard to remark that he was reminded of the ending of Orwell’s animal farm when the pigs assume the identities of their masters.Yet Leese would argue that he is simply following the example of his master, Graham Stringer who after Mrs Thatcher’s third electoral victory in 1987 decided that if you can’t beat them, join them.

However the chief executive of the Centre for Cities come out on the side of Corbyn.

“Despite running so many of the major cities that are campaigning for greater devolution, the national Labour party, having adopted a tentative and uncertain approach to devolution in the run-up to the election,continues to struggle to offer a bold vision for the future of cities.” adding that

“Conservatives have created a national debate with the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ concept, no leadership candidate can afford to ignore it.”

But back to the start of this piece and some food for thought

“how many people in 1992 told us John Major was an election winner? ”

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