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Manchester dreamtime
“Manchester is easily, without question, now the coolest city in England,” proclaims Noel Gallagher, the founder of the stadium band Oasis.
Just ask Scott Lord, a man happy to say he is a beneficiary of the recent boom. In the span of Mr Lord’s lifetime – he is now 33 – a barren land of polluted canals, disused buildings and smog-filled skies has been transformed into a place of modern rentals, one gleaming football stadium, and sports, health and education centres reputed around the world.
That's alongside a concert venue with acoustics devised in a way that allowed Stevie Wonder to sing Ebony and Ivory for the first time in a decade.
Manchester is a city with annualised GDP growth running at 3 per cent, outstripping the rest of the country, even London. Once, just one in 10 graduates decided to remain but that figure is now one in two. And of course, there is the footballing success of Manchester City, a club that had won nothing in decades before it came under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, UAE Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court. It has now won all the trophies there are to lift.
There is little to riddle here. Take the role of now deceased city father Sir Howard Bernstein. For a city to thrive, the lesson from Manchester shows that leaders have to put their politics aside and collaborate with central government. This Sir Howard did, originally with Tory grandee Michael Heseltine, securing funding to rebuild after an IRA bomb devastated parts of the city centre, and then two decades later with a new Tory government.
“There was artistry in the way Howard Bernstein saw a future that few others could when they stared at that grey canvas of industrial Manchester 40 years ago,” said George Osborne, a former chancellor and one of his many collaborators.
The club was bought for £210 million, including debt, in the start of an investment of an estimated £3 billion in both football and urban regeneration.
What followed next went far wider than the stadium. Manchester City went global and the city surrounds adopted global ways. New York construction lawyer Marty Edelman, who was on the board of City, said he and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak understood that modern housing needed to go the US way, with the “build-to-rent” concept, featuring concierges and gyms at reasonable prices.
And City Football Group has already expanded to 12 other countries, from Brazil to Australia and the US, where Jon Stemp, chief infrastructure officer, is overseeing the construction of New York City FC's new home.
Gulf visit
Keir Starmer is to spend the next day or so visiting British troops in the Arabian Gulf as he demonstrates the UK's role in the region’s self defence.
In a statement this morning, Mr Starmer said he welcomed the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran. “Together with our partners we must do all we can to support and sustain this ceasefire, turn it into a lasting agreement and re-open the Strait of Hormuz,” he declared.
UK forces have intercepted more than 110 drone attacks in the region, and the RAF has conducted more than 1,600 hours of defensive air operations.
Mr Starmer will meet leaders of countries that have been in the front line, a Downing Street statement said on Wednesday.
He will set out his full support for the newly agreed ceasefire and press the need for a long-term diplomatic resolution to make sure the ceasefire leads to a lasting agreement.
He will also hold talks on ensuring the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz remains permanent, with London keen to lead international efforts to protect shipping.
A UK-hosted meeting on the operational details of that undertaking on Tuesday focused on the preliminary details.
Trustee
The milky-haired former UN fixer Martin Griffiths appears to be returning to public life. The news comes after a new vehicle was set up to distribute the £2.35 billion proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC, which have been frozen in a UK bank account since the sale in 2022. The British government imposed sanctions on owner Roman Abramovich after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The UK government insists the funds be spent only inside Ukraine.
One of the fund's trustees is Mr Griffiths, former UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, The Times reports.
Mr Griffiths, who retired from his UN post in July 2024, is currently the executive director of Mediation Group International.
The former diplomat was the UN special envoy to Yemen and during his three-year term oversaw peace talks held in Sweden to end the country's civil war. He was later the UN official in charge of humanitarian aid at the start of the conflict in Gaza.
He has long-running links with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, with whom he founded Inter Mediate, a negotiation and diplomacy charity.
The UK’s Charity Commission confirmed that an application has been received to register the Foundation for the Victims of Conflict “to receive funds from the sale of Chelsea FC”.
Treatment refuge
Ten-year-old Mariam has endured the horrific ordeal of losing an arm not once, but twice. She is the seventh child to be evacuated to the UK from Gaza for private healthcare treatment. She needs surgery for injuries sustained to her body and organs from a blast.
In pictures shared with The National before her arrival in the UK, she is holding up the bracelets she once wore on her arm while in recovery at Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Gaza. After being evacuated to Egypt, Mariam is pictured in Cairo enjoying walks in the park, outings to restaurants and a day out at an indoor snow centre.
Mariam was found unresponsive in the rubble of her Gaza home after a three-hour rescue operation. A staircase had collapsed under her feet while she was running to her parents' room on a night of intense Israeli bombardment.
Surgeons at the hospital had believed they could save her arm and reconnect it to her body in a five-hour operation. For 10 days, the arm held, with almost full function restored. But complications developed and the arm was lost permanently.
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