The Northern Agenda Laudable

This week​,​ Rob Parsons speaks to an author who's asked the question: How did the North become a place of lost potential and broken dreams? And what can be done to make it one of the most dynamic and forward-looking places in the world once again?

Alex Niven is the man behind the book The North Will Rise Again, which covers the colourful adventures of its inhabitants, the expansiveness and optimism that defines Northern culture,

A native Northerner himself, having returned to his home city of Newcastle with his family in the last few years, Alex explores issues like radical regionalism, Northern identity austerity, the impact of Brexit, the collapse of Labour's 'Red Wall', and calls for regional devolution.

​Meanwhile, with a General Election coming this year and Labour miles ahead in the polls, ​i​t's high time we scrutinised what a change of Government might mean for the North of England.

It's been very easy for Keir Starmer's Labour Party to slam the failings of levelling up and the promises of the Boris Johnson Government that failed to materialise, but voters up here deserve to know exactly what the Opposition would do differently if they got into power.

So how much do we know about Labour's policies which might affect the North? Someone who's been looking at just that subject is Joseph Timan, political writer for the Manchester Evening News​,​ he tells Rob what we've learned.
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This week the Northern Agenda podcast comes from the headquarters of the North East's Chronicle and Journal newspapers in the centre of Newcastle for a special mayoral hustings edition.

In a month's time one of the five people speaking to Rob Parsons over the conference room table will be the new elected mayor of the North East.

They'll have powers and funding - some £4.2bn over 30 years - to impact the lives of millions of people in a huge patch stretching from Berwick to Barnard Castle.

So the stakes will be high when voters across Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland pick their preferred candidate - meaning there is all the more reason to know who they are and what they'll do if they get into power.

Joining Rob Parsons for the hustings is Jamie Driscoll, the independent candidate who is currently mayor of the North of Tyne, university archivist Andrew Gray standing for the Green Party and Dr Aidan King, who works at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary for the Liberal Democrats.

Labour's candidate is Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness and for the Conservatives we have Northumberland County Councillor Guy Renner Thompson. Sunderland councillor Paul Donaghy, who is Reform UK's candidate, couldn't make it so has sent in a recorded message.

Hear them set out how they'd approach the job and their position on the big issues that will likely matter to voters, including answers to questions sent in by Chronicle and Journal readers.
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In the next few months as the impending General Election dominates our politics, The Northern Agenda podcast is going on the road.

Across the North of England voters will be going to the polls five years on from the dramatic 2019 election where large swathes of our region broke the habit of decades by switching their allegiance from Labour to the Tories, putting Boris Johnson into Downing Street in the process.

If the polls are anything to go by, those so-called 'red wall' seats are now set to go back to Labour - plus a few more besides.

But polling can only tell us so much about what’s happened in the North in the last 5 years.

We want to hear from these Northern communities directly so between now and the election The Northern Agenda will be going to key seats around the North, we might even venture into the Midlands, to find out what’s making them tick.

First stop for Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons is the seaside resort of Blackpool, where there will soon be an early electoral test for Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak.

In just a few weeks there’s going to be a by-election in the Blackpool South constituency after its MP, Conservative Scott Benton, was caught by The Times newspaper offering to lobby ministers and table parliamentary questions on behalf of gambling investors.

But there’s more reason to care about Blackpool than just political intrigue - it tells us a fascinating story about the decline of coastal towns and the challenges facing the so-called ‘levelling up’ agenda. So have a listen as The Northern Agenda takes the temperature at the country’s most popular seaside resort.
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Why is it that bright young people from the North are so much less likely to apply for our two most prestigious universities, Cambridge and Oxford, than their counterparts in the South East and London?
It's a question that gets right to the heart of our North-South divide and this week on the podcast Rob Parsons tries to answer it with the help of a Cambridge University academic who got a place there as a working class daughter of a cleaner from Greater Manchester.
Director of Admissions at Cambridge's Pembroke College, Dr Caroline Burt, is now trying to ensure more people like her follow the same path.
She also has a book out, calle 'Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State' - find out more about it at this link.
The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons​.​ This week's episode is produced by ​C​eleste Adams
You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/
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This week Rob Parsons finds out about a new museum display celebrating the trailblazing contributions of Muslims living and working in the North of England.

Leeds City Museum’s Voices of Asia Gallery is hosting Muslims in the North, which explores the pioneering work of prominent Muslims in fields including commerce, healthcare, law and research.

Maria Hussain, lecturer in management and organisations at the University of Leeds Business School, whose research underpinned this display, tells Rob how she hopes the exhibit will help people in the North appreciate cultural diversity and explains her aim of "decolonising civic spaces".

Plus: Is Boris Johnson really going to be campaigning for Rishi Sunak in the North ahead of the General Election? Has Levelling Up failed? And should we be letting 16-year-olds vote in parish council elections?

Rob talks over these big issues from the news this week with Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.

The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/
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This week Rob Parsons speaks to two political best mates who were born just a few miles away from each other in Liverpool and have gone on to be two of the best-known elected figures in our region.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region, have teamed up to write a new book where they share their formative experiences and set out an ambitious ten-point plan to rewire and reimagine our country beyond the Westminster bubble.
Their book Head North, which is out today, sets out how both men were shaped in different ways by the Hillsborough disaster and how we can spread political and economic power throughout the UK, away from the centre of power in London and towards the North.
The timing for the book is pretty interesting - both men are up for election in a few weeks and there's a General Election not far away where they might hope some of their radical ideas could become Labour policy.
Find out what they thought of each other when they first met, how Keir Starmer might react to their radical ideas and their take on the row over Labour abandoning its £28bn-a-year green jobs pledge.
The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.
You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/
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