From Mamucium to Downing Street

Roman Manchester

In response to a question about what the Romans ever did for us, I said Manchester, or Mamucium/Mancunium as it was known then, when what has become my thriving city was a Roman garrison. Mancunian is the demonym for someone from Manchester.

It might not be lost on anyone that any town or city in England bearing the suffix -caster, -ester or -[c/x]eter was once a Roman garrison. These endings derive from the word castrum, meaning camp or fortification, and are indicative of a history stretching back almost two millennia. [Wikipedia: "Chester (placename element)"]

In the Castlefield area of Manchester, a reconstruction of the Roman gatehouse, walls and other features offers a historical education about the city. Signboards are dotted around the area, explaining the significance of the structures, the setting, the people and the times.

Manchester to Westminster

Today, however, another message comes from Manchester. The erstwhile Mayor of Greater Manchester, in post since 2017, has become the Leader of the Labour Party, and will be kissing hands on Monday to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I have met Andy Burnham on a few occasions, when I was a steward at Manchester Cathedral, and he attended civic or funeral services pertaining to our city. As I handed him the service pamphlet, he smiled, greeted me and thanked me: a man without airs and totally unassuming. If you were not told, you would never realise he held one of the more prominent political offices in the country.

Though I have not always agreed with some of his policies, the net benefit of his leadership of Manchester is commendable enough to make me feel excited about what he might do for the country as a whole. How Manchesterism would work for the UK, we do not yet know.

Against the Odds

The deputy leader of the Labour Party is my MP, Lucy Powell, representing Central Manchester. Until September 2025, she was Leader of the House of Commons, when she was sacked without reason. She then acquitted herself well in winning the deputy leadership election, despite the fact that her opponent was supported by the government.

Against the odds, we have people from Manchester and its environs proving that they carry a message which not only resonates but offers a different perspective on things. The status quo is over, and the advent of something new beckons.

This is neither to eulogise nor to lend hagiography to the named personalities, as they all have their work cut out. However, you cannot miss one essential detail: here comes Manchester, to the country and indeed to the world.

I wish them the very best in the arduous endeavour of realising the dreams they have for our country, and in how they hope we might dream along with them, to begin living the reality of those dreams and, better still, to see them come true.

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Jabbing a finger at the idiots of Downing Street

Any wonder he won?

When Boris Johnson won the general election in December 2019 on the promise codified in the “Get Brexit Done”, he must have thought he had won the lottery along with the immunity that gives power the impunity to do anything with an 80-seat majority.

With much regret, we grudgingly congratulated him and wished him well as we licked our wounds for the second time of voting for the sadly unelectable Jeremy Corbyn.

We broke for Christmas and ushered in the New Year then left the EU for a transition period on the 31^st of January, just as a menace brewing in China leading to radical measures was growing global tentacles. An epidemic evolving into a global pandemic was about to unleash itself on mankind, but Boris Johnson could not be bothered.

As an island nation bewitched by the populist sweet-talk of taking back control of our laws, our sovereignty and our borders, you began to realise it was all empty talk because none of that was done as the coronavirus cut a swathe through northern Italy and we saw the restrictions being deployed in China and South Korea, but scratch all that.

As if life really mattered

The UK now stands 5^th with 46,853 reported deaths from COVID-19 for the simple reason that in acquiring power the government of Boris Johnson seemed to have forgotten that it comes with great responsibility, the responsibility for lives. I believe that was his mind when on the 12^th of March, he said to the nation, “I must level with you, level with the British public, more families, and many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” [Source: COVID19LIVE.Info]

Blog - Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

Whether he is ready to admit it or not, the government has still not found the way to grapple with this pandemic, as they were advised on the 21^st of September to put the whole nation in lockdown but he has prevaricated and delayed with hubristic inertia, indecisiveness, and absence of resolve that we are now to go into a 4-week lockdown that does not portend an end to the crisis.

Failing on all counts

This pandemic thrives on crowds, close contact, and closed spaces, to tackle it, we need not just capacity for testing, but a prompt turnover of the testing results that feeds back into a tracking and tracing system, none of which are working despite the billions of pounds shovelled off to friends of the powerful.

We are at this point because despite all that is obvious around the world and in the territories of our neighbours, as Sir Keir Starmer with forceful conviction, “They failed to learn. They failed to listen. And they failed to lead. The result is tragic – but all too predictable.” [The London Economic: Sunak’s ‘name is all over’ delaying lockdown claims Starmer saying ‘result is tragic’]

They have consistently failed to learn time and time again, as populists, they will only listen to convenience and have to be railroaded by circumstances to take tough decisions late, much like shutting the stable door after the horses have bolted and rather than lead, they have had to follow disaster, defeat, death, when they should have prevented it.

If only leadership were just about Brexit and populist postulations, however, it cannot always be an easy ride, for when it is called upon by situation or circumstance, those in power must have the capacity and the ability to meet the challenge, or lives will be lost. We have not had this kind of loss of British lives, not since we were in WWII. Ineptitude has been compounded with unbelievable incompetence never seen in Whitehall or Downing Street, this is going to the record books.

Blog - Opinion: Of our PM, cometh the hour, cometh no man

Can anything rid us of the grip of this unconscionable kakistocracy? I’m afraid, this blog offers nothing more than a review of Boris Johnson’s unimaginative, talentless, gormless, ill-fitting cabinet of discarded woodwork. We’ll do some thinking elsewhere.