They discuss how the Green Party won their first ever by-election, the anger felt toward Keir Starmer and the Labour government, and whether it would have made a difference if Andy Burham would have been allowed to run for the Greater Manchester seat.

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The hopefuls were quizzed on issues like British values, child poverty, immigration, Andy Burnham and even their favourite Oasis song during an hour long debate at the office of the Manchester Evening News.

What were the big talking points for the candidates: Conservative Charlotte Cadden, Matt Goodwin of Reform UK, Jackie Pearcey of the Liberal Democrats, Green Hannah Spencer and Labour's Angeliki Stogia?

Rob and Beth - a constituent in Gorton and Denton - discuss what they learned from the hustings and how the three-horse race is so hard to predict ahead of the vote on February 26.

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

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The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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Plus: as the national debate on immigration becomes ever more toxic, Liam tells us about his conversations with asylum seekers in Liverpool who've risk their lives to come to this country.

The Northern Agenda is presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin, and the episode artwork is by Graeme Bandeira.

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This week on the podcast ​R​ob asked ​M​r McMahon, one of Angela Rayner's team of Ministers in charge of Local Government and Devolution, as well as being an MP in Oldham. He's a former leader of Oldham council too so knows all too well the challenges local politicians face.
​Mr McMahon talks about how these changes are fundamental to Labour's mission in government, what he says about worries they will allow power to be hoarded away from communities, and whether he'd force areas like Lancashire to have a metro mayor.

PLUS: Why he's forcing councils like Sheffield to abandon their committee system of government and what he thinks of Reform UK's decision in Nottinghamshire to ban any communications with their local paper.

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Since 2021, she has helped journalists across the country who are receiving online abuse, helping them to develop measures for social media to try and prevent further harassment.

The Yorkshire-based journalist launched a new podcast 'Go Doxx Yourself' in July, which unpicks the human stories behind cyber nightmares.

Rebecca tells Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons the stories she has heard so far on the podcast, and tips on how to improve your online safety.

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But the ambitions of health bosses in Yorkshire's biggest city go ​f​urther still. A few days ago its hospital trust set out a new strategy to cement its position as the UK's largest research powerhouse outside the traditional so-called Golden Triangle of life sciences in London, Oxford and Cambridge.

Targeting a 40% increase in research activity by 2030, it's hoped the five-year research and innovation strategy will achieve a host of other goals, namely improving health outcomes, tackling health inequalities and driving economic growth.

On the Northern Agenda podcast this week, Dr Chris Herbert, Director of Operations for Research and Innovation at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, tells Rob Parsons​ about the pioneering work its researchers are already doing, the North-South divide on research funding and how he wants underserved communities in Yorkshire to feel the benefit from the new strategy.

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In the coming days the Hull-based firm Vivergo Fuels will find out whether it has a viable future, or whether it will have to start the process of laying off its 160 employees because of the impact of this year's trade deal signed between the UK and Donald Trump's USA.

But there's a huge amount at stake not just for the company and its staff, but thousands more workers in the supply chain, and also the future of the growing biofuels industry - essentially turning living matter into fuel - which has the potential to bring lots of jobs and investment into many areas of the North.

Rob speaks to Vivergo's managing director Ben Hackett, who says the decision made by the Government over whether to support his company will have huge implications for our farmers and even our ability to fill up our cars at petrol stations.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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Sheffield Wednesday and Morecambe don't have much in common in terms of their football histories, but are both in dire financial trouble and face sanctions from football authorities. 

Rob and Liam talk to Liverpool academic and football accounting expert Kieran Maguire about how two Northern clubs were left teetering on the brink and what it tells us about modern football.

Plus Rob has an awkward encounter with an AI version of a Northern MP. And Liam tells us about the rather rude email he had from a BBC Newsnight viewer after he appeared on the show this week to talk immigration.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. The image is by Northern Agenda resident cartoonist Graeme Bandeira.

You can read all of the latest newsletters from The Northern Agenda here.

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Until very recently however, we had precious little evidence of how and what Reform would actually do in power, since they had very little experience of actually running anything.

All that changed in May though, as the party swept to victory in a host of local and mayoral elections across the North and nationwide, putting them in charge of local councils and metro mayoral authorities.

How have they been doing since - and what lessons can we draw from Reform UK locally about what they would do if put in charge of the country?

To find, Rob Parsons speaks to journalists from the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme:

• Paul Faulkner, covering Lancashire County Council
  
• Bill Edgar, covering Durham County Council
  
• Andrew Spence, covering Hull and East Yorkshire's mayoral Luke Campbell

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

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Plus Liam tells us about his trip on the new form of transport that's been gliding about the streets of Liverpool​. ​

And there are some worrying new stats that show for all of Labour's warm words about tackling child poverty, things in many parts of the North are still going in the wrong direction.

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But with the five Heaton Park concerts generating tens of millions of pounds, how can we ensure the wider community benefits? And Liam tells us about his Oasis experience standing in front of Boltonian icon Vernon Kay.

Elsewhere, after the tragic death of a child in Liverpool from measles, why are fewer and fewer families in some parts of the North getting vaccinated against this potentially deadly illness?

And we'll be having a look at what Reform UK are up to in County Durham, where having taken over the local council a few weeks ago Nigel Farage's party has now cancelled the 'climate emergency' declared by a previous administration six years ago.  

Rob and Liam are joined this week by Sarah Longlands, who's based in Manchester and is Chief Executive of The Centre for Local Economic Strategies.

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Rob Parsons looks into why university leaders are trying to persuade the Government about the vital economic impact international students have on towns and cities in the North of England - and why there could be a lot at stake if they don't succeed.

And as Liam heads off to watch Oasis at Heaton Park, Rob ponders whether he should adopt a new nickname inspired by rap sensation Pitbull.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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That's what ​Rob and Liam are discussing on this week's episode, as they reflect on the good and bad of Starmer's first year (including some policies they definitely won't be talking around down the Dog and Duck in Beverley).

Plus: How much is Andy Burnham's bus network in Greater Manchester actually costing? And how did one Yorkshire spa owner turn a mortifying social media faux pas into an opportunity?

And Liam tells us how his Liverpool Echo colleagues covered the tragic breaking story about the death of Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota.

The Northern Agenda is Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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They're a big issue for voters - and the new Labour government has told local councils they must publicly report on what they're doing to keep our roads fit for driving by June 30 or risk losing their share of an additional £500 million of funding.

In this episode of The Northern Agenda Podcast, we’ll explore what this means for councils, the road maintenance industry, and the communities that depend on well-maintained local roads for driving, cycling and catching the bus across the North.

Rob talks to Future of Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood about the thinking behind the new policy and gets the industry perspective from Newcastle-based David Jobling-Purser, vice-chair of the Road Emulsion Association.

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Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp have a Northern take on this week's big report into child sexual exploitation in this week's Northern Agenda podcast as they take a look at the big political stories across the region.

There's also the fascinating case of the Merseyside man who successfully won a court battle to avoid paying his licence fee because he doesn't watch any live TV. Is this a sign of how our viewing habits are changing?

And Rob has a very niche suggestion for what Sunderland council ought to have called the city's new footbridge after getting residents to help come up with a name.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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But which of the Chancellor's announcements will have the biggest impact on the North? Which Northern town got more mentions than anywhere else? Which Labour MP produced a cringeworthy display of sycophancy and which Labour mayor gave the Government both barrels?

This week Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp are joined by Henri Murison of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership to answer these questions and more. And you can hear a bit about Rob's memorable award acceptance that may have prompted a public health warning...

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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And ​R​ob has an interview with ​Wes Streeting ​w​here he quizzed the Health Secretary on his controversial shake-up of the NHS, whether he wants to hand control of health services to mayors like Andy Burnham, and what he thinks of the local councillor in Wakefield who says Keir Starmer is the worst Prime Minister he's ever seen.

Plus​ hear all about the Burnley Banksy and his mysterious minions artwork and Liam explain​s why he's been talking to librarians​...

The Northern Agenda is a Reach produced, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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The concept is also called social mobility, and in 2010 a body called the Social Mobility Commission was set up to hold the country and the Government of the day to account on whether things are actually improving in this respect.

Its chair Alun Francis has years of experience on the ground trying to make the lives of young people better in the North. Currently, the Principal and Chief Executive of Blackpool and The Fylde College, he previously had the top job at Oldham College.

It's the 15th anniversary of the Child Poverty Act this year, the legislation that brought the social mobility commission into being. So what better time to talk to Alun about why young people in the North are still being held back by where they're from, and importantly what we can do about it.

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

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Rob reports back from a big-money property and development conference in Leeds where Northern politicians are desperate to make connections with investors, but it turns out so are the people running our big football clubs.

​With Radio 1's Big Weekend and a trophy parade for Liverpool Football Club, Liam tells us why it's going to be one of busiest weekends on Merseyside for years.

​And why do all the quirkiest stories from across the North seem to come from Blackpool?

The Northern Agenda is Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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This time, Rob Parsons is joined by new co-host Liam Thorp, political editor of the Liverpool Echo, to talk about the biggest politics stories in the North from a Northern perspective.

Rob and Liam look at how Nigel Farage's Reform UK have been getting on now they have their first Northern MP and run several councils and local authorities in our region.

Plus Liam explains why the Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News have been putting their old rivalries aside for a joint front page and they ask why on earth people have to keep parking on the pavement on Merseyside.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach production, presented by Rob Parsons and Liam Thorp, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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We are just a few days away from finding out who is going to be chosen by voters for a job that's never existed before, but could have a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people north of the River Humber. 

After May 1's elections, the seven metro mayors across the North - the likes of Andy Burnham and Ben Houchen - will be joined by one representing Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire, a patch representing 600,000 people.

Whoever gets in next week will have a £400m long-term investment fund and powers over education, housing and transport to help make life better for the region's 600,000 population.

With the help of questions from Hull Daily Mail readers, Rob Parsons quizzes five of the six candidates to be mayor: Reform UK's Luke Campbell, Liberal Democrat Mike Ross, Conservative Anne Handley, Labour's Margaret Pinder and the Yorkshire Party's Rowan Halstead.

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That’s the age when they no longer have to stay in school but they do have to stay in some form of education or training until the age of 18, so that opens up options like starting an apprenticeship, taking a vocational course like a T Level or pursuing further education with A Levels with a view to going to university.

The aim of all that is to end up with a good job, or at least putting yourself on the path towards getting one. And that’s why their success is something political leaders in the North are taking a keen interest in as they know the young people coming out of schools today will be the ones who in years to come will be helping to grow our region’s economy.

We hear from the further education college in Hartlepool whose principal describes it as “overlooked, undervalued, underfunded, yet marvellous” - how is it helping young people to better futures in the face of funding cuts and widespread poverty?

Students in the buzzing centre of Manchester talk to Rob about how young people in the city are struggling with bad landlords and poor mental health.

The Vice-Chancellor at the University of York talks about the broken funding system for higher education - and how he hopes to use technology to reach students across the world.

And Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham describes how we have "an education system built for the third who are going to university and not the two thirds who are not" - and what he's doing to change that.

The Northern Agenda: Our Kids in the North is a Reach Studio production, presented by Rob Parsons with contributions from Annie Gouk. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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This week on The Northern Agenda's series Our Kids In The North, Rob Parsons and Annie Gouk look at​ what it's like to go to a school in Northern England, where absence and exclusion rates are higher than the rest of the country.

​Jim Lauder, whose trust runs schools in several Northern cities, tells of the challenges he and his colleagues face working with children from deprived communities in places like Bradford.

There's exclusive data from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership about the areas of the North where pupils are most likely to miss school. And leaders in one area of our region tell Rob how they're using robots to give emotional support to young people struggling to attend.

And at a time when the Labour government is making big changes to our education system, Rob speaks to Yorkshireman Neil O'Brien, the Conservative MP who's leading the attack on Bridget Phillipson's school reforms.

And we hear from Jonathan Brash, who has a unique perspective as a Labour MP in Hartlepool who used to work in leading private schools in the North. Does he agree with the move to add 20% VAT to private school fees?

The Northern Agenda: Our Kids in the North is a Reach Studio production, presented by Rob Parsons with contributions from Annie Gouk. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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But for tens of thousands of children in the North, that is not the case. For a host of reasons, whether it’s a risk of harm, their parents being too unwell to look after them or just the absence of any one to take parental responsibility, they have been put into the care of the state.

And the North has way more looked after children than it should do. And that’s bad news not just for the children themselves - because children in care tend to have worse health and educational outcomes - but for the local authorities who are responsible for looking after them.

In the fourth episode of The Northern Agenda's Our Kids In The North series, Rob Parsons and Annie Gouk look into why there are so many children in care in the North and what this tells us about the failings of society.

We hear from a Northern mayor who grew up in care, an MP from our region wrote an influential report into how to fix our broken care system and a young care leaver from Blackpool, the seaside town with the highest rate of children in care of anywhere in the country.

And listen out to hear about a pioneering scheme in Greater Manchester that could finally put an end to the profiteering of private care homes.

If you want to read more on this subject, please check out this report by Health Equity North that we leaned on heavily when putting together this episode: https://www.healthequitynorth.co.uk/app/uploads/Children-in-Care-Report-2024-FINAL-2.pdf

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But this week on the podcast Rob Parsons sheds a light on a sickening crime that’s had a lot less publicity.

Child sex abuse by family members is far more common than most people think. But in one part of the North of England, West Yorkshire, the region’s mayor, a children’s charity and even a leading broadcaster want to help victims talk about their experience to stop other people going through the same ordeal they’ve had to endure.

On a visit to the Leeds headquarters of Channel 4, which just hosted a powerful discussion about the need protect children from sexual abusers, Rob speaks to Emily Victoria, a businesswoman who confronted the abuse she suffered at her father's hands for a TV documentary.

And Debra Radford of the NSPCC charity and West Yorkshire deputy mayor Alison Lowe talk about the region is aiming to lead the way on keeping girls safe.

This episode might make you think a little differently about the recent grooming gangs coverage, particularly whether the media focus on a certain type of offending might be putting off the victims of other types of abuse from reporting what’s happened to them.

For help and support on preventing and dealing with child sexual abuse and exploitation, you can visit www.nspcc.org.uk or www.channel4.com/4viewers/help/child-abuse-or-harm.

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Annie Gouk, Data Investigations Editor at Reach and host of our sister podcast, explores the data on the rising cost and lack of availability of childcare, and what this means both for working parents, and for kids when it comes to being ready for school. 

She speaks to:

⬆️ Steve Rotheram, the Mayor of Liverpool City Region, on the masterplan to tackle staff shortages in Early Years education and childcare in the area.

⬆️ Lydia Hodges. head of Coram Family and Childcare, on the charity's survey charting the cost of a part time nursery place for a child under the age of two in the North

⬆️ Fiona Spellman, the CEO of SHINE, a charity covering the north of England that was set up to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform better in their education, on the growing number of children starting reception not “school ready”

⬆️ Mothers Tui Benjamin Thorp and Katie Jones on trying to juggle work with childcare, especially with the soaring costs

The Northern Agenda: Our Kids in the North is a Reach Studio production, presented by Rob Parsons with contributions from Annie Gouk. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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In the second episode of our podcast, Rob Parsons talks about a part of the country that has so much going for it, but where the high rates of poverty are holding back the potential of tens of thousands of young people.

Nearly one in three child are living in poverty in the North East - but local leaders are now taking action themselves to give the region’s children a better chance.

Speaking to child poverty campaigners, entrepreneurs, top politicians, and charities who are helping reduce the effects of poverty, The Northern Agenda paints a concerning picture of the scale of the problem in the North East, but also highlights the determination of local leaders and communities to find innovative solutions to this pressing social issue.

Rob Parsons speaks to:

⬆️ Kim McGuinness, the new mayor of the North East, about how she plans to tackle the root causes of poverty as well as helping families deal with the short term impacts.

⬆️ Paul Lindley, the Yorkshire-born founder of Ella’s Kitchen, about why as a society we need to be switching our attention to our young people and take a much more entrepreneurial approach to finding the solutions that work.

⬆️ Sophie Balmer, a 21-year-old child poverty campaigner from Newcastle, about when she first realised she wanted to speak up on behalf of young people like her.

⬆️ Beth Major, chief executive of local charity The Junction, about the "multi-bank" that provides people struggling in the Tees Valley with surplus goods from companies and businesses, including clothes and hygiene products

The Northern Agenda: Our Kids in the North is a Reach Studio production, presented by Rob Parsons with contributions from Annie Gouk. The podcast is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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Over six episodes Rob Parsons and data journalist Annie Gouk will be exploring topics like the state of Northern schools, the early years of children in our region, why there are so many young people in care in the North and the options available to pupils after they leave school.

There are 3.3 million people under the age of 18 in Northern England - and in this series we talk to articulate young people from places like Liverpool, Newcastle and Blackpool as well as the experts and political leaders who've made it their mission to improve their lives.

But with one in three children in the North living below the poverty line - and the rate much higher in some areas - you can't talk about young people without first looking at the impact child poverty is having on our region.

Rob speaks to two young people about how poverty is ruining the potential of countless lives across the region as well as a leading expert and medic at a Northern hospital which sees the effects of poverty every day.

You can see Save The Children's Potential Not Poverty video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5YXVenQAc

Child of the North is a joint project between Health Equity North and the N8 Research Partnership offering a research and policy-based programme fighting for a fairer future for children wherever they grow up. Read more about it here: https://www.healthequitynorth.co.uk/child-of-the-north/

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Thousands of people have piled into venues around the city, from party members and MPs to business leaders, metro mayors and of course senior Cabinet members - many of whom are from the North - and their teams.

Rob Parsons spent two days ducking in and out of fringe events and drinks receptions, as did Jo Timan of the Manchester Evening News and Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter for Manchester.

They chat about the rain-soaked conference vibes, Keir Starmer's personal speech, money worries for the Manchester to Liverpool train line and Lisa Nandy's love of Britney Spears.

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​A​nd anyone who's interested in the future direction of the Labour party will want to ​R​ob Parsons' interview with one of its most interesting new MPs, Josh Simons, MP for Makerfield in Greater Manchester​. ​H​e's a former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn and used to run ​t​he influential think-tank Labour Together, which has extremely close links to the current Keir Starmer government. 

​T​he loyal 'Starmtrooper' been earmarked by a lot of observers as one to watch in the new intake of MPs​.​ And on the podcast he talks about a fundamental shift in the way politics is done under the new government and his thoughts on the levelling up agenda and what Labour does to replace it. 

And I​isteners will certainly have a view on his defence of Rachel Reeves over the first big controversy of the new Labour government, the cutting of the winter fuel allowance so it only goes to the poorest pensioners.

​A year on from Rishi Sunak's decision to axe the Northern leg of HS2 to Manchester, while giving a conference speech in Manchester, Rob speaks to a transport expert who's helped put together a report on what we can learn from the cancellation of the high speed rail project in the North. 

Jonathan Spruce of the Institution of Civil Engineers talks about how we need to take the politics out of these huge infrastructure projects if they're ever going to succeed.

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We saw violence break out across the country but it seemed like much of it was in the North, places like Sunderland and Darlington, Blackpool, Hull, Preston and Liverpool.

Since then we've seen a steady stream of the perpetrators hauled before the courts and in some instances handed hefty prison sentences. But with the dust now settled, how much do we understand about why the rioting spread so easily and why so many people - often with no previous history of criminal activity - decided to get involved?

Rob Parsons speaks to Chris Read - council leader in Rotherham, where a hotel housing asylum seekers came under attack - and Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner Matt Storey about how the violence unfolded in their patch, what they think caused it and whether we can stop it happening again.

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It's back to school for the North's politicians too, and with Westminster resuming after the summer break this week a new Labour MP, Hexham's Joe Morris, is leading not one but two debates in the Commons and has been telling his fellow MPs about the banking deserts that are worrying locals in his huge Northumberland constituency.​ He explains to Rob Parsons how he's been trying to fight for voters in an area that voted Tory for 100 years.

Up in York this week, the North's political leaders have their own big event, launching the so-called manifesto for the North, a document setting out how the likes of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and other elected leaders can work together to help our region thrive.

And with perfect timing, a new report put together by Northern academics and experts sets out all too clearly just how badly half of our population is being let down by just how unequal our country is, from the moment they're born to the day they die.

Rob speaks to ​Professor Kate Pickett, one of the authors of a new very hard-hitting report ‘Woman of the North: Inequality, health and work’, which finds that women in the North of England live shorter lives, work more hours for less pay, are more likely to be an unpaid carer, and more likely to live in poverty than women in other regions of England.

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With an average median annual full-time wage of nearly £42,000, Ribble Valley in Lancashire is the highest-paid local authority area in Northern England. Its residents earn an average of £14,000 a year more than those in Tameside, not too far away in Greater Manchester.

The Ribble Valley is a beautiful district to the east of Preston, described as boasting "picturesque villages, soul-soothing countryside and warm-hearted inhabitants". And for foodies, it boasts several gastro pubs that are officially rated the very best the UK has to offer.

Rob Parsons has never been and wants to put that right in this special episode. He heads to its main town Clitheroe to chat to locals about why the area's doing so well, the one thing that's worrying locals and intriguingly, why, if everything's so great, the area has just booted out its two Conservative MPs in favour of Labour politicians at the last General Election.

The Northern Agenda is a Reach Studio production, produced and edited by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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But if our decision-makers stuck about after the cameras disappeared and observed the conversations ordinary pub-goers were having, would they be better informed about their lives and what makes them tick?

That's what Ed Shackle and Bertie Wnek, two researchers from policy, research, opinion and strategy consultancy Public First, have done, spending five days in pubs in Bolton to hear what kind of things punters talk about.

​They tell Rob Parsons why this kind of research brought them insights they'd never get from an opinion poll - and the surprising activity they found in virtually every Bolton pub no matter what time of day it was.

Rob also speaks to David Skaith, the first elected metro mayor of York and North Yorkshire, about his 'whirlwind' first 100 days in the job. Find out what he's doing on buses and transport, housing and whether he'll challenge his own Labour government.

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Installed not long after as managing director was Chris Jackson, faced with some formidable hurdles to overcome if TransPennine was to get back on track, not least the refusal of unions to allow their staff to work on their days off and large number of their staff lacking the training for all its routes and trains.

It's been a challenging year - and last autumn the company had to cut the number of trains it runs on its core Leeds-Manchester service and take part of its fleet out of service to ensure there were enough trained drivers to go round.

But since then, it looks like TransPennine is on the road to recovery. But what does the future hold at a time when political leaders are keener than ever to get us out of our cars and onto public transport?

On the Northern Agenda this week, Chris tells Rob Parsons how work is going on giving the North's rail passengers the service they need and deserve, plus exciting news on the UK’s first intercity battery train.

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Five years later, the Tories have been all but wiped out in the North East, reduced to just one seat. How did things go so badly wrong and is there a way back for the party in time for the next election? And was Rishi Sunak the right person to lead the party into the 2024 election?

Rob Parsons speaks to Miranda Jupp, who up until a few days ago was chief of staff to Sir Simon Clarke, former Levelling Up Secretary and Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who lost to Labour's Luke Myer by just 200 votes.

And Rob takes a look under the bonnet of the North East of England, a region with so much going for it but with issues like poverty, economic inactivity and bad health continuing to plague it for decades.

A new series of reports called Vital Signs single out the role civil society and the generosity of philanthropy can play in bridging the divide between the North East and the rest of the country.

Rob Williamson, CEO of the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, tells us more about the work. And you can read them for yourself at https://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/vital-signs/

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But what's it been like for someone who a week ago was battling to be elected and now finds themselves rubbing shoulders with the nation's political leaders, hundreds of miles from home?

Rob Parsons finds out from Lewis Atkinson, who last week was elected as the new Labour MP for Sunderland Central. He tells us about the white envelope with secret instructions that all new MPs get and how one aspect of life at Westminster pleasantly surprised him.

And with the General Election already feeling like a distant memory in a frenetic first week for the Labour government, Rob chats to Jo Timan from the Manchester Evening News about Andy Burnham and Ben Houchen's trip to Downing Street and why it matters that Keir Starmer's Cabinet is filled with Northern MPs.

Plus: Is Reform UK now the main opposition to Labour in Greater Manchester and the North East?

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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With Sunak's Conservatives facing near certain defeat to Labour in the polls, the media is waiting for the Prime Minister to show his face in the early hours of the morning - and that's if he can hold onto what used to be a safe seat.

Hear Rob's dispatch from election night, where he speaks to some of the quirkier candidates including an intergalactic space traveller called Count Binface and the hopefuls from Labour and Reform UK.

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But Rob Parsons wants to hear what's happening at local level across the North of England and has reassembled a panel of top political journalists, Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfield from the Journal in the North East.

They discuss why voters in the North are so disillusioned, what Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have been saying on their trips to our region...and perhaps most importantly their go-to snacks to keep them awake through a long election night.

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This week on the Northern Agenda podcast, election rivals in the North East are taken to task over how they would combat soaring child poverty rates, the future of the NHS, pollution in our waterways, and more.

Candidates from the five main parties contesting seats at the July 4 election took part in a special hustings hosted by ChronicleLive in Newcastle, two weeks before the UK goes to the polls.

Clashing over issues including the two-child benefit cap and Tory plans for a new national service scheme were candidates Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Newcastle North), Nick Oliver (Conservative, Gateshead Central and Whickham), Natalie Younes (Liberal Democrat, North Northumberland), David Francis (Green, South Shields), and Lynn Murphy (Reform UK, Easington).

As well as taking questions sent in by Chronicle readers during the debate, chaired by Journal editor Graeme Whitfield, a group of students from St Joseph’s Academy in Hebburn also challenged the candidates on key issues affecting young people.

***

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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And to mark the occasion a new report, chronicling what campaigners say is decades of multi-agency cover up of state-orchestrated violence, has just been delivered to the leaders of the UK’s main political parties and the Home Office.

With Labour promising a new investigation if they get into power on July 4, will we finally learn the truth about what happened on June 18,1984? Rob Parsons spoke to Chris Peace from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

And after visiting Richmond in North Yorkshire last week, Rob goes about 100 miles south west to the seaside resort of Southport.

It's the only area of Merseyside that doesn't have a Labour MP - but could that be about to change? And what, if anything, can politicians do to restore the fortunes of seaside resorts who are trying to reinvent themselves?

***

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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It's been a torrid week for ​t​he Prime Minister - who's been hammered from all sides for skipping out of the D-Day 80th anniversary events early. So where better to get the view of voters than​ his own North Yorkshire constituency, home to the country's biggest Army base​?

That's what​ Rob Parsons did - before the big D-Day row kicked off - to hear from voters in the market town of Richmond and find out about the hidden poverty in what most people consider a safe and leafy Tory seat.

He also speaks to Jim Blagden, Associate Director for Research and Insights at More in Common, the think-tank founded after the murder of Yorkshire MP Jo Cox in 2016, about Labour's manifesto launch in Manchester, why the Tories lost the red wall and who exactly is 'Whitby Woman'.

***

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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Since then it's been a non-stop flurry of campaign stops, photo opportunities, social media blitzes and behind-closed-doors selections as political activists go hell-for-leather to boost their prospects ahead of the big day on July 4.

There's no shortage of great analysis of the election but Rob Parsons wanted to get a really Northern perspective on what's happening and find out about some of the contests you might not be hearing about in the national media.

He's joined by three of Reach Plc colleagues keeping an eye on politics across the North: Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfield, editor for the Journal in the North East.

Find out why the ITV debate from Salford was massively frustrating, the seats to watch in Northern England and why there should be ice cream for hungry journalists on all campaign stops. And can we make some dad jokes about Taylor Swift?

***

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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Levelling up promised to boost Britain’s “left behind” areas, and helped Boris Johnson storm to victory as voters in former Labour heartlands turned to the Tories in droves. 

You can find out more by listening to our episode from April 2022, titled “Levelling up: what it really means for the north”

But have the Conservatives actually managed to deliver on their promise since then? The North in Numbers takes over the podcast this week, with Annie Gouk speaking to local leaders, policy experts and academics to find out how it’s going.

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​The likes of Angela Rayner and Alastair Campbell were among the speakers at the three-day event at Leeds' Royal Armouries - which saw hectic networking amid the torrential downpours as local leaders pitched for investment to get major projects off the ground.

It was an event that showed how much the North's politicians need private investment to make their local areas thrive. And Rob talks over some of the highlights with Alistair Houghton, editor of the Business Live website, and Manchester Local Democracy Reporter Ethan Davies.

Also listen out to hear about a fascinating new book about Manchester, a city whose recent economic growth and gleaming skyscrapers attract envious glances from many parts of the North, even if they wouldn't admit it publicly.

Brian Groom, author of the best-selling 'Northerners', talks about his latest offering 'Made In Manchester: A People’s History of the City that Shaped the Modern World'.

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But there are more and more people who are terrified at what the ubiquity of smart phones and social media is doing to our children's minds, their mental health and their ability to learn.

And one of the politicians articulating those fears most vocally is an MP in South Yorkshire, Miriam Cates, who this week led a debate at Westminster calling on the Government to take urgent action before it's too late.

Rob Parsons speaks to her and also a former Yorkshire headteacher whose school introduced an effective ban on smart phones because of what it was doing to students' behaviour. 

And he chats to Local Democracy Reporter Dan Holland about one of the more interesting developments in Northern politics this week, namely the relationship between civic and business leaders in the North East of England and the oil-rich Gulf state of Saudi Arabia.

We know Manchester's booming economy has been achieved thanks in large part to massive private investment encouraged by city leaders, including the Abu Dhabi royal family who now own Manchester City Football Club. But is something similar on the verge of happening in the football-mad city of Newcastle - and why are many in the North opposed to it?

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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​T​he Tories ​look to be on course to lose 500 local election seats in what could be their worst showing in 40 years.​ They were thrashed in the Blackpool South by-election and even managed to lose the mayoral race in Rishi Sunak's backyard in North Yorkshire.

​But there was a silver lining in the form of ​Ben Houchen, described by many as the poster-boy for Conservatism in the North of England, who was re-elected mayor of the Tees Valley region but saw his majority over Labour dramatically cut, ​securing almost 82,000 votes compared with the 63,000 votes received by Labour’s Chris McEwan.  

Rob hears directly from Lord Houchen after his victory and watches a remarkable confrontation between the mayor and one of his main critics, journalist Richard Brooks of Private Eye.

There's also voice notes from local journalists Joseph Timan in Greater Manchester and Susan Newton at the Blackpool South by-election.

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There's a new report out this week from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust setting out how the areas whose miners used to power industrial Britain are still lagging behind the big cities when it comes to jobs. But crucially they have a vision for how they can catch up, and Rob speaks to Andy Lock from the charity to hear what needs to happen.

Also, there's a week to go until large parts of the North go to the polls on May 2 and there's plenty on the line - not just in places like the Tees Valley and North East which are electing metro mayors but also towns and cities where control of local councils is at stake.

But where are the most interesting races in the North and how much do they matter? Rob is joined by Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive of the Local Government Information Unit - a not-for-profit organisation which produces an annual report on the local council elections to watch.

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This week Rob Parsons compares the merits of these two stories with the Liverpool Echo's Liam Thorp. Meanwhile Liam tells us why he believes it was right to identify two local politicians who failed to pay council tax and why 'XL Gullies' are proving a menace to hungry workers in Liverpool city centre.

PLUS: Regular listeners to the podcast will have heard about lots of different examples of the North of England being on the wrong end of stark regional inequality. But it's still shocking to find out there are big differences in the numbers of vulnerable children going into care between our region and other parts of the country.

A new report sets out how one in every 52 children in Blackpool is in care compared with one in 140 across England, while the North of England accounts for just over a quarter (28%) of the child population, but more than a third (36%) of the children in care.

There's a human cost but an economic one too. Researchers for Health Equity North say if the North of England had experienced the same rates of children entering care as the South between 2019 and 2023, “it would have saved at least £25 billion”.

To find out why this is happening Rob speaks to one of the authors of the report, Professor David Taylor-Robinson from the University of Liverpool.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner will be making their pitch about what their parties can do for the North at the two-day Convention of the North conference.

But a report out today from the IPPR North think-tank sets out how far there still is to go and says it will be 2080 - a full five decades away - before the gap in healthy life expectancy between the North and the South East really changes.

The question is, what do we do about it? And this week on the podcast Rob Parsons speaks to Richards Stubbs, CEO of Health Innovation Yorkshire and the Humber, one of the organisations behind a new report that says focusing our attention on creating high-skilled jobs is the best way to get the North off its collective sick bed.

The research prompts the intriguing question, if we want to save the NHS in the North of England do we need better hospitals, or better train links?

But in terms of the national media, the only story in town as far as the North is concerned is the absolute chaos of the Rochdale by-election, where, as you might remember from our episode two weeks ago, what started out as a safe Labour seat has now seen the party without a candidate and voters subjected to one of the most divisive election campaigns in recent years.

Joseph Timan of the Manchester Evening News sends in a dispatch about who won as firebrand former Labour MP George Galloway bids to pull off a shock upset to return him to Parliament.

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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Reform UK, founded by Nigel Farage as the Brexit Party back in 2018 and renamed in 2020 to campaign against lockdown measures during the Covid pandemic, came third in two Parliamentary by-elections last week and has promised to field a candidate in every single constituency at the next General Election.

We know Reform is anti-lockdown, pro-Brexit, in favour of slashing taxes and leans into a number of divisive culture war issues. But does it have any policies to improve the lives of people in the North of England?

This weekend it's holding a big spring conference in Doncaster and ahead of the event Rob Parsons talks to one of the main speakers, the Talk TV host Alex Phillips who is now one of the party's most high profile members.

Rob asks her about the involvement of Nigel Farage in the party, how Reform plans to hurt the Tories at the ballot box and why the party would support an end to the ban on fracking, the highly controversial technique for extracting shale gas in places like North Yorkshire and Lancashire that caused huge protest before being ruled out by the Conservative government in 2019.

Plus, Yorkshire Conservative councillor Tom Jones explains why Reform may not have the impact they're hoping for - and what his party can do to stop them taking votes off them at the next election.

***

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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But what about our region's larger satellite towns and smaller cities, many with a proud tradition and history that stretches back to before the Industrial Revolution? With town centres that went into decline in recent years, thanks in part to the rise of retail parks and online shopping - isn't it about time they were brought up to date to meet our changing demands?

St Helens, with a population of about 180,000 people between Liverpool and Manchester, is in many ways a typical Northern market town. It's in the next wave of areas bringing forward large-scale regeneration plans with town centre markets at the heart of it.

But our habits have changed rapidly in recent years so how will they make this new project fit for 2024 and beyond? Rob Parsons speaks to leading officials behind the plans.

Also, with the Rochdale by-election making headlines this week, Rob chats to Jo Timan of the Manchester Evening News about what locals make of it - and would firebrand George Galloway make a good MP?

***

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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There have been some crackers in the last year - Environment Secretary Therese Coffey dancing down Redcar beach surrounded by dead crabs, Nadine Dorries throwing her toys out of the pram after not getting a peerage and Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak stripping down to the bare essentials as they re-enacted the Full Monty in Sheffield.

This week on the podcast you can go behind the scenes as we record the weekly cartoon conference Graeme holds with Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons. 

And as a special guest to help come up with this week's cartoon, we've got none other than Matt Chorley, one of the country's very top political journalists, a presenter on Times Radio - including a podcast called Politics Without the Boring Bits - and a comedian whose show Poll Dancer about politics is touring next month and includes some dates up North.

You can check out the finished product they come up with on Friday lunchtime in the newsletter - sign up at www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk.

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The headline news - at least if you're a Conservative supporter of the scheme - is that it cleared those involved of corruption and illegality.

But the 97-page document was not a clean bill of health and in fact had a shopping list as long as your arm of failings in the way the project is being run. It came out two days ago and the slanging match over the report's findings is still going on as we record this podcast.

Rob Parsons looks at the question, what next for Teesworks, with Jen Williams from the Financial Times, whose reporting brought some of these issues into the open, Graeme Whitfield, North East Editor of Business Live, and Jack Shaw, a local government expert who specialises in examining the inner workings of our local authorities.

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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Jen Bowden, a journalist and writer from a small pit village called Wingate in County Durham, hosts the Northern Voices podcast but is also working on her PhD looking at the use of Northern dialect in contemporary UK fiction and biases against the North in the UK book industry.

And poet, author and comedian Kate Fox, who was born in Bradford and grew up in Yorkshire and Cumbria, has a book out called Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras: True Stories of the Amazing Women of the North. Her PhD looked at a similar subject, namely why it’s harder for Northern comedians to be heard due to age old biases.

In conversation with The Northern Agenda's Daniel J. McLaughlin, himself a stand-up poet in Manchester, they discuss the unconscious biases standing in the way of people from the North trying to tell their stories on a national stage. 

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On May 2 the North East will go to the polls to choose the region's first ever metro mayor, with a host of new powers devolved from Westminster and a multi-billion pound war chest to spend.

Unlike many of the elections for the North's metro mayors it's going to be a closely-fought dramatic battle and one with high stakes - as the winner will have the chance to transform a region that for so many decades has felt left behind and ignored by decision-makers in government.

But whoever is elected will also lead a new mayoral authority with a big budget whose arrival will shake up the political landscape in the North East. 

Rob speaks to the man in charge of setting up that new body - Dr Henry Kippin - for a rare interview about how the North East devolution deal will work and practice, what it will mean for people locally and how the new mayor will be held to account.

And one of the North East's most knowledgeable political journalists, Dan Holland, the Local Democracy Reporter for Newcastle and the North East, sets the scene with a summary of the protracted and tortuous process that finally saw local leaders agree a deal with government.

If you like the Northern Agenda podcast, why not leave a written review wherever you get your podcasts as it helps us get Northern politics in front of more people. And don’t forget, you can subscribe to our daily newsletter at www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk.

The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons - and this week's episode was edited and produced by Celeste Adams.

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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was out and about in the North West as he leaves Westminster behind and tries to connect with the voters he hopes will hand him the keys to 10 Downing Street.

After visiting Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool he popped into the M.E.N. office a few miles from the city centre and sat down for a one-to-one interview with the paper's political writer Joseph Timan about HS2, his relationship with Andy Burnham and how Labour can win back the 'red wall'.

But before that he had a very different challenge, a question and answer session with voters of the future, a selection of students from Greater Manchester colleges who wanted to know about issues like knife crime, school funding and work-life balance.

Have a listen to the highlights of both on this week's episode of The Northern Agenda podcast.

***

Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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The impending General Election will surely loom large over political debate in our region. But there are a host of fascinating sub-plots across the North that will make headlines of their own - and potentially play a part in deciding who gets the keys to Number 10.

And Rob Parsons dissects some of them with two fantastic guests. Professor Andy Westwood from Manchester University and Jen Williams, Northern Correspondent for the Financial Times.

Does Rishi Sunak have any chance of keeping hold of the Tories' seats in the North? What are the big mayoral and local elections to watch? And 10 years on from George Osborne's big Northern Powerhouse speech in 2014, are we any closer to seeing his vision become reality? Find out as we take a look ahead at what will surely be a frenetic and dramatic year.

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But just a few hundred metres away from the village is a facility that is already putting the name Daresbury on the map, at least in science and business circles, as the home of Sci-Tech Daresbury, a pioneering science and innovation campus which boasts dozens of 150 high-tech companies.

And the work being done at Daresbury is not so much like one of Carroll's fantasy novels but more the stuff of science fiction. Just a few weeks ago the ribbon was cut on advanced quantum computer research and development site, run by PsiQuantum in what is the Silicon Valley start-ups first such facility outside the US.

This week on The Northern Agenda podcast, Rob Parsons speaks to two senior officials at the site - Dr Katherine Royse, director of the Hartree Centre and Dr Peter Waggett, UK director of research at IBM Research Europe - to find out why a science campus in the Liverpool City Region is now a hotbed of one of the world's key new technologies.

Also, Rob chats over the last week and the most memorable moments of 2023 with Jo Timan and Ethan Davies from the Manchester Evening News.

We ponder the question, is Manchester the new London? And is Andy Burnham on a collision course with the Government over his clean air plans?

***

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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Rob Parsons reports from the This Is The North Convention 2023, organised by the People's Powerhouse, a movement that aims to bring people of the North together to discuss, explore, share and celebrate all the amazing grassroots organisations in the North.

The venue for the two-day conference is the Masonic Hall in Preston, a building which dates back to the 1830s and where visitors can see wood-panelled rooms and leather-bound chairs. It's easy to imagine the great and good of Lancashire society over the years debating the big topics of the day.

But the members of the local freemasons may not have been totally onboard with some of the topics on the agenda this week, as the theme is 'A Radical North – The People Powered future Starts Here'.

And even the location in Preston is a contrast to the venue for the conference last year, central Manchester, where skyscrapers are leaping up in all directions and the city's leaders have enthusiastically embraced big business. The political leadership here in Preston is plotting a very different course.

We'll hear from

- Edna Robinson, chair of the People's Powerhouse

- Matthew Brown, Labour leader of Preston council

- Adrian Murrell and Dan Bryant from Windrush Initiatives, an organisation devoted to tackling the disparities Black people face in Preston and further afield

- Debbie Abrahams, Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, on her new short film 'The Unequal Pandemic'

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For most people, what won't come to mind is the smartest city in the UK, powered by the fastest 5G connections and with passengers travelling in driverless vehicles around the city. Or a place where you can see not only the prestigious BBC Reith Lecture being recorded but also gigs by Bruce Springsteen and even the acclaimed musical Hamilton.

You'd be even less likely to imagine a proposed Hollywood-style film studio, the only one in the North of England, where thousands of people are hard at work producing the next blockbuster film or Netflix series.

But in fact all these things are going on (or hopefully will be in the future) in Sunderland - a city that away from the limelight is in the process of quietly transforming itself in a way that could offer a valuable lesson to places elsewhere in the North of England looking to reverse their post-industrial decline and forge a new future for themselves.

In a special episode of The Northern Agenda podcast, Rob Parsons has spent time in Sunderland speaking to the people behind its ongoing transformation, as well as locals in the city itself.

***

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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In the national media all the talk is about tax cuts - how big are they, when do they start, will they be swallowed up by so-called 'fiscal drag' where millions of people every year lose out by virtue of being moved into a higher tax bracket.

But in the podcast this week Rob Parsons looks at what the speech on Wednesday will mean for the North.

He talks to one of Jeremy Hunt's Treasury Ministers, Leeds-born Gareth Davies, about the new investment zone in West Yorkshire that's seeing £160 million of public investment to help boost the region's thriving health and life sciences sector. How will it actually work and will it just move investment from other nearby areas?

And to dissect the Autumn Statement and how it will play out in this part of the world we've got two leading Northern voices - Clare Hayward, interim chair of the NP11 group of Northern Local Enterprise Partnerships, and 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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Conservative MP Dehenna Davison has packed a huge amount into her short career so far since being elected in Bishop Auckland in County Durham in 2019 while still in her 20s.

Until recently a Levelling Up Minister, this summer she stepped back because of her battle with migraines, but she's got a lot to say about the challenges she faced in government and what levelling up can and can't do for communities like hers.

She's also trying to get tougher sentences for people who kill with one punch - something she knows all about as someone who lost her father in just this way when she was a teenager growing up in Sheffield.

Rob also quizzes a senior official at the North's biggest bus operator about why West Yorkshire should not go down the route of Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester and take local bus services under public control. 

Private bus firms are advocating an alternative approach called the Enhanced Partnership+ which they say will deliver the same benefits as franchising but faster and cheaper. So listen out to hear Kayleigh Ingham, commercial director of First Bus, talk about how it would work.

***

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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Annie Gouk, a journalist who writes local news stories based on statistics for regional papers up and down the country, looks at the data on dog attacks, speaking to experts to try and unpick what’s behind the increase, as well as what needs to be done to tackle the problem.

Official NHS figures show that in the year to March, there were 9,277 hospital admissions where the patient had been bitten or struck by a dog. That was a record high, with the number increasing steadily since at least 1998, when figures began.

Behind those numbers are people like Kayleigh, whom Annie speaks to, who have been left with life-changing injuries.

The North in Numbers, in collaboration with The Northern Agenda, is a Laudable production for Reach. It is written and hosted by Annie Gouk, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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Budding writers and journalists from underrepresented backgrounds could be in with a chance of getting their big break as part of a scheme backed by national treasure Michael Sheen and the Daily Mirror.

The ‘A Writing Chance’ project aims to give wannabe writers from minority backgrounds a leg-up into the industry, and is co-founded by award-winning actor Michael, the York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation and New Writing North.

Claire Malcolm, the chief executive of New Writing North, and Katy Shaw, Professor of 21st Century Writing and Publishing at Northumbria University, tell Rob why the scheme is so important.

***

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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That's what Rob Parsons has been talking about this week with the broadcaster Michael Crick, who followers of politics over the last 40 years will know is the esteemed broadcaster and journalist who was a founding member of the Channel 4 News Team in 1982 and has served as political editor of Newsnight.

He's also a former pupil of Manchester Grammar School and a Manchester United fan for his sins. But the main reason he's on the podcast is that Michael is the man behind the fantastic Tomorrow's MPs Twitter account which sheds a light on the often secretive and murky way the main parties choose the candidates for winnable seats in Parliament.

You won't want to miss this interview if you want to know how politics really works from a journalist who really has seen it all.

***

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 on The Northern Agenda podcast Rob Parsons is joined by the Liverpool Echo's Liam Thorp and Manchester Evening News' Joseph Timan to talk about a year of Sunak, Keir Starmer's challenging week dealing with unrest from Labour's Muslim MPs, and how shutting hotels for asylum seekers might cause more problems in the long term in Greater Manchester.

Plus, was hosting the Eurovision Song Contest worth it for Liverpool?

***

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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We all know technology and digital is going to be a bigger and bigger focus for our political leaders in the coming years, but are we doing enough to make sure people from the North's council estates can get the kind of jobs that are cropping up in the shiny sky-scrapers of Manchester city centre?

Find out why Amy says the working poor and specifically the children of alcoholics have the skills that could make them a valuable asset to any tech company. Plus: How do you play cat bingo and why will visitors to the Manchester Tech festival get a chance to have a go at it.

And Rob has a proper look at a subject that's found itself not before time at the forefront of the political agenda in the last few days: the question of how we solve the housing crisis and specifically why aren't we building enough homes?

He's joined by Arlen Pettitt is a Policy and Comms Consultant who writes the North East 'Wor Room' policy newsletter, and Tom Jones, a Tory councillor in North Yorkshire and author of the Potemkin Village Idiot Substack.

Among the questions they try and answer is why does Rishi Sunak's patch of Richmondshire have one of the lowest house-building rates in the country, and is there a crisis in the North East where prices are lower than any other region?

***

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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Rob Parsons speaks to Liverpool City Region metro mayor Steve Rotheram about what a Labour government could mean for his patch PLUS his plans to take local buses under public control and why he thinks Rishi Sunak's 'Network North' plan is just smoke and mirrors.

And Rob catches up with the Manchester Evening News' Joseph Timan for a considered view on conference season in Liverpool and Manchester, Starmer's housing vision and just how a protestor could have got his hands on the possible future PM for several seconds before anyone intervened.

***

The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. This week's episode is edited by Celeste Adams.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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Why won't people stop asking him about HS2 coming to Manchester? Why are Conservative members more excited by Liz Truss than by his policies? And how does he persuade the North that he still cares about levelling up?

In a special edition of the Northern Agenda podcast recorded at Manchester Central Library, Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons dissects the Tory conference so far with the help of Jennifer Williams from the Financial Times and Joseph Timan and Ethan Davies from the Manchester Evening News.

***

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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On the podcast this week, Rob Parsons asks what is happening in the Steel City of Sheffield with its new council leader Tom Hunt, who's plotting a bright future after a turbulent few years but has a few big issues on his plate, such as keeping his Labour colleagues in order and dealing with a massive pay equality claim from the unions.

And Rob speaks to Northumbria academic Katy Shaw about an innovative initiative led from the North which could mark a turning point in how the country goes about its vital research projects. 

***

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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The launch of the Bee Network this Sunday will see buses in Greater Manchester come under public control for the first time since the 1980s. It's a move many hope will reverse years of decline for local services (though not everyone thinks it a good idea).

But how will the new system work, what difference will passengers notice and why could it be a game-changing moment for areas like West Yorkshire and Merseyside too? 

Rob Parsons talks to Joseph Timan, Local Democracy Reporter for Greater Manchester, about how we got to this point and the politics behind bus franchising. 

***

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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And our two guests today will give us an idea about we can expect from the two main parties as we get closer and closer to choosing our next Government, and what it might mean for us in the North.

Rob Parsons speaks to Paula Barker, MP for Liverpool Wavertree and part of Angela Rayner's shadow levelling up team, about what her party has in store on big topics like devolution, and whether she's concerned about left-wing candidates being blocked from Labour shortlists in places like Wirral West and Bolton North East.

The Northern Agenda editor also gets the Tory perspective on what lies ahead, hearing from the Northern Caucus, a new organisation hoping to come up with the bold policy ideas which could persuade voters in the North of England to back the Conservatives at the next election. Its founder Callum Newton speaks to Rob about why Rishi Sunak needs aspirational policies, not culture wars, if it's going to win over the red wall again this time round. 

***

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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It’s that time of year again - kids are back in the classroom, and applications for next year’s school places are opening. It can be a fraught time for many parents, with the quality of education, location of the school and a child’s friendship group all needing to be taken into consideration - and competition for secondary school places has become particularly fierce. 

The latest figures from the Department for Education reveal that the problem of oversubscription - where more people put a school down as their first choice than are offered a place - is getting worse.

Nearly two in three secondary schools across the north were oversubscribed this year - the highest proportion since these figures began in 2014/15, and up from closer to half at that time. In one school in the region, fewer than one in every five first-choice applicants were offered a place.  

Many of these parents will have ended up sending their child to their second or third choice of secondary. However, nearly 7,000 kids across the north didn’t get into any of their preferred schools last year - the highest number on record.

Annie Gouk, a data journalist who writes local news stories based on statistics for regional papers up and down the country, investigates how this impacting families and schools across the North.

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In the next few weeks a series of public events will be held to address just this issue, featuring speakers who've dedicated themselves to the issue of unlocking prosperity and closing regional divides. 'UP North: Innovative thinking from the North to unlock a more prosperous future for all', will be hosted by members of the N8 group of universities this autumn and winter.

So what are they hoping to achieve? Rob Parsons speaks to two of the senior figures behind this initiative, one is Dr Annette Bramley of the N8 Research Partnership, a collaboration between the eight most research intensive Universities in the North of England. 

The other is Andy Haldane, Chief Executive Officer, a former chief economist at the Bank of England who's been at the heart of the Levelling Up agenda after being appointed in 2021 by Michael Gove to head up the taskforce dedicated to the issue. Born in Sunderland and educated in West Yorkshire, he's now chief executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a think-tank committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges.

For more about the UP North events visit www.n8research.org.uk/upnorth.

***

Plus, Rob gives some sleep tips from Erling Haaland to father-to-be and Liverpool Echo political editor Liam Thorp, as they talk about Rishi Sunak forcing violent criminals to face their victims in the dock, and how the Conservatives are playing fast and loose with the facts on fly-tipping.

***

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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It is perhaps easy to understand, then, why Britain has lost 6,000 storefronts in just five years after the combined pressures of Covid, the cost of living crisis, and the rise in business rates. Local leaders have described these factors on our high streets as "devastating".

But at the same time, it is clear that the state of our high streets, whether it's in a big city centre or a small market town, really matters to voters who consistently put it at the top of their priorities.

If we are no longer going to our towns to shop, our urban centres need to offer something different in order to survive - whether that's leisure, green space, or even somewhere to live.

On this week's episode, Rob Parsons investigates how this agenda is progressing across the North, speaking to those in the know in Wakefield, a city in West Yorkshire, and Ormskirk, a smaller market town in Lancashire. The Northern Agenda editor also speaks to a national leading expert on town centre management on what these places need to do to succeed.

Rob chats to:

⬆️ Michael Graham, the Labour councillor for Wakefield West

⬆️ Ojay McDonald, Chief Executive of the Association of Town & City Management

⬆️ Jamie Lopez, senior reporter for Lancs Live

***

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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But for many firms, access to finance can be hard to come by - and that's where the British Business Bank and its chief executive Louis Taylor comes in. The agency, founded in 2014 and with its headquarters in Sheffield, underpins debt and equity provision to small and medium-sized companies and aims to make the business finance market fairer, more efficient and more diverse. 

It's also recently launched a new £200m investment fund in the South West and Louis, who grew up in the North East tells Rob Parsons about his commitment to helping unlock the potential that exists in our region, address regional imbalances and make sure finance markets work better for entrepreneurs, no matter where they are in the country.

And Rob also chats about the big stories of the week - including A-Levels and the glorious Lionesses - with Ruth Hannan, director of the People's Powerhouse movement.

***

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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She's failed to speak in the Commons for more than a year and hasn't voted in Parliament since April, but as her constituents are finding out, it's very difficult to get rid of an absentee MP outside election season.

But at local level in our town halls the rules are very different, as Hull councillor Sarah Harper-Riches found out to her cost. Councillors cease to be a member of their authority if they fail to attend any meeting for six consecutive months.

But her recall has sparked fury as her absence was triggered first by the birth of her first daughter but then because she suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, delaying her return to local politics. She spoke to Rob Parsons about the shock of being kicked off Hull council and why her story matters for the diversity of who represents us at local level. 

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

But as high-skilled workers from across the world descend on Barrow, can it overcome the dire reputation of its town centre and its poor transport links, with just one major road going in and out? Rob Parsons looks at what the future holds for the place Bill Bryson described as 'just about the most out-on-a-limb, end-of-the-line place in England' with local Conservative MP Simon Fell.

This week the podcast also explores a vital issue for any economy in the year 2023. As developing technology and digital industries - from AI to cyber-security - grow in importance, do people in the North have the skills and opportunities to take the jobs they create? And furthermore, why is that tens of thousands of people are simply too poor to even be able to connect to the internet.

Rob speaks to an expert guest in the form of Mo Isap, the Salford-based founder of the technology firm In4Group who is responsible for the UK's largest technology skills bootcamp programme.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Northern Agenda editor speaks to Jennifer Owen, a dentist in the North East, who's administering the fillings and tooth extractions for one of the worst affected areas; Eddie Crouch, a leading figure in the body that represents dentists about why it is some areas have more teeth decay than others; and Mary Foy, an MP who has raised the issue in Parliament, and who is demanding urgent action from the government.

Rob also looks at the numbers behind the story with The North in Numbers podcast host and ace data reporter, Annie Gouk.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It means that in the interests of economic stability a Labour government wouldn't end the cap on benefits for families with more than two children, something a number of prominent Labour politicians have previously expressed their outrage about.

So who better to ask about Labour's much more prudent approach to its spending than Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor who could be in charge of the public purse strings in just a few months time?

She was speaking at a meeting in her home city of Leeds of Northern Gritstone, an organisation which invests in innovative ideas from Northern universities and aims to turn them into big, impactful businesses.

Rob Parsons asks her about innovation in the North, what the new economic reality means for Labour's promises on green jobs and HS2, and what she makes of North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll quitting the party.

We also hear from Leeds academic Professor Piers Forster, an expert in climate physics who's helped write some of the most globally significant reports on climate change.

He's the director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures and as of last month he's the interim chair of the Climate Change Committee, the independent body that advises the UK government on how to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

With greenhouse gas emissions at record levels, heatwaves sweeping the globe and Rishi Sunak facing criticism for not taking the issue seriously, it feels like a critical time for this most pressing of issues. But what can we do to help in the North?  

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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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So it says something about how the fortunes of the main parties have changed since then that when locals go to the polls in next week's by-election - caused by Nigel Adams quitting after failing to get a peerage - there's every chance that Labour could cause a huge upset and take the seat.

After a fair amount of cajoling and WhatsApp messages Rob Parsons managed to secure interviews with the candidates for both the main parties. 

For Labour there's Keir Mather, a 25-year-old who was born in Hull and grew up near Selby, who's most recent job was at the Confederation of British Industry. 

And the Conservatives' candidate, chosen at the second attempt, is Claire Holmes, a barrister and a local councillor in the East Riding of Yorkshire. 

How's the campaign going, what are the big issues for voters, and what do they make of each other? Have a listen and find out.

Rob also catches up on this week's Northern news - including hydrogen in our homes, a possible U-turn on the North's railways and a new investment zone for South Yorkshire - with Henri Murison of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The latest emerged this week in the form of the New Conservatives, mostly made up of recently-elected Tory MPs including quite a few in the North, and they're calling for what they describe as "a new era in which Westminster respects the views, values and interests of the British people".

And their controversial plan to lower migration levels - and help solve the country's social care crisis into the bargain - involves ending temporary visa schemes for care workers coming in from abroad.

Rob Parsons speaks to one of the group's members, Bolton West MP Chris Green, about how the policy would work and whether Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is likely to listen.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Northern Agenda editor grabbed a quick chat with education secretary Gillian Keegan, hearing her reaction to Andy Burnham's proposal for a “Greater Manchester Baccalaureate” - or MBacc.

The Tory minister, who is originally from Lancashire, disagrees with the Greater Manchester mayor, believing that there should be a national plan for vocational education - like the T Levels that are already in place - for young people.

And Rob speaks to Kim McGuinness, the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, about her campaign to run for the newly-created position of Mayor of the North East next summer. The Labour politician answers questions about her manifesto, including pledges on child poverty and a tourist tax, as well as her feelings on the North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll being denied a place on her party's longlist.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Could it be a sign that the concept which was on everyone's lips when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister needs some fresh impetus to get it back on the political agenda?

This week on the podcast Rob Parsons speaks to Katherine Fletcher, Tory MP for South Ribble in Lancashire, who wrote a chapter in the book.

She talks about why we should be focusing on more than just big boys' trains sets when talking about transport links, and why a mayor like Andy Burnham might not be the answer for her home county of Lancashire.

And Rob has a look at some of this week's more interesting politics stories - like sewage in the water and the impact of soaring interest rates - with a brilliant Northern journalist who's made his name in London, Kevin Maguire, associate editor at the Daily Mirror.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sky-high inflation rates mean our money's not going as far as it used to as wage increases are outstripped by rising prices and we're all having to cut back, with many families in the North now really struggling.

But is there an end in sight now for the UK's economic pain - and will people living in the North see the same kind of recovery as those in London and the South East? As a wider point, are the efforts by the Government to level up and tackle regional inequalities having any impact on the economic prospects of towns, cities and villages in our region?

We've got a great expert guest to answer those questions and more in the shape of Simon French, the chief economist of Panmure Gordon, an investment bank with a big office in Leeds.

And Rob Parsons speaks to Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington South, about her tumultuous time in Parliament so far, battling post-traumatic stress disorder and why being a politician at Westminster is like no other job.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And there's been a huge backlash to the Government's plans to house hundreds of asylum seekers in barges, with Merseyside and Teesside the reported sites the Government are looking at.

Rob Parsons looks at both these stories with Ruth Hannan, who's based in Manchester and is a director of the People's Powerhouse, a movement that aims to bring Northerners together to have a say on what the future of the North should be.

And she explains why she's picked a fight with Northern Powerhouse Partnership chairman Lord Jim O'Neill after he set out how growth, investment and high wages should be the cornerstone of the North's future.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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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The Northern Agenda has been crunching the numbers and it turns out that across the region nearly 33,000 pupils have taxis to school paid for by their local authorities, who have a legal duty to help children who cannot walk or use public transport to get there.

Why is the total so high and why are some councils paying so much more than others? Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons talks about the story with Una Summerson, head of policy and public affairs at Contact, a national charity for families with disabled children. 

And with the political machinations in Tory mayor Ben Houchen's Teesside patch now involving key Ministers like Michael Gove and even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Rob's been speaking to one of the region's Conservative MPs to find out what he makes of it.

Matt Vickers is MP for Stockton South tells us about the unexpected resurgence of the Conservatives in his borough, what the Government's doing to bring down record high migration levels and of course that big Teesworks row that's been making all the headlines.

***

Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

***

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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On the week of a new report being published about the 'Northern brain drain', Rob Parsons speaks to young people and political leaders about what we need to offer to stop them leaving.

And it's been a busy week for our two best-known metro mayors, Tees Valley's Ben Houchen and Greater Manchester's Andy Burnham, who've been hitting the headlines for very different reasons.

Rob discussed their fortunes with Henri Murison of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and asks whether Alastair Campbell was right to say there's no such thing as the North-South divide.

***

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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Now a journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist, he's behind one of the country's leading politics podcasts and has just released a new book about how normal people can get involved in politics. 

But this week he's on The Northern Agenda podcast talking to Rob Parsons about his childhood in Keighley, West Yorkshire, the success of levelling up, what Tony Blair did for the North and how the 'red wall' deserted Labour. Oh and the success of his beloved Burnley FC.

And Rob chats with the Liverpool Echo's Liam Thorp about the big stories of the week. As Eurovision fever takes over Liverpool, do the local election results mean Rishi Sunak has met his Waterloo? And will nationalising TransPennine Express make rail services in the North Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit better (sorry)?

***

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

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But what does it all mean for the balance of power in our region - and were people even able to vote at all due to the new ID rules brought in by the Government.

Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons digests what we know so far with Zoe Billingham, director of the IPPR North think-tank.

***

And Rob interviews journalist and author Bernard Ginns about his new book detailing one of the most vicious corporate battles in recent years involving a maverick Northern industrialist, Andrew Cook, as he tried to find off the powerful financial institutions that wanted to take over his company.

***

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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And of course the best person to celebrate the occasion with is the person who was there from the beginning - and still keeps the newsletter and podcast strong - two years later: Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons.

Rob speaks to producer Dan McLaughlin about the past two years in Northern politics - and whether levelling up is still a priority for Rishi Sunak and the government.

***

And it wasn't that long ago that the big story on all of our minds was vaccines: who's making them, who's getting them, do they work and how often we need them?

But despite the worst of the pandemic now being thankfully in the rear view mirror, in large part thanks to the incredible roll-out of coronavirus vaccines across the country, the need to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases.

And in fact a major issue concerning health professionals is the host of other diseases that vaccines can help prevent and the fact that for many of these we're a long way behind where we should be, with millions of children missing out on vaccines during the pandemic.

It's an issue medics are hoping to raise as this week is the World Health Organisation's World Immunization Week. But actually there's lots of fantastic work going on in our region on just this subject which could have a major impact on global health.

So let's find out more about it Dr Marie O'Brien, co-founder of University of Liverpool spinout company called ReNewVax

***

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

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May's local elections are generally described from a national media standpoint as a litmus test of the popularity of our main party leaders - which is understandable given that we could be just a year out from the next General Election.

But actually these kinds of sweeping generalisations overlook the fact that at a local level the elections on May 4 could make a massive difference to the political scene in towns, villages and cities across the North of England.

On The Northern Agenda podcast this week Rob Parsons speaks with Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit think tank about the races to watch in the North and why we really all ought to be voting.

And Rob's joined by friend of the podcast Edna Robinson of the People's Powerhouse movement to talk about the North-South health divide, protests at the snooker and why Rishi Sunak's 'maths for all' plan doesn't add up.

***

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

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First, there's carbon capture and storage - where the harmful emissions from our polluting industries in the North aren't simply released into the atmosphere but stored in enormous under-sea caverns instead. 

The Government is backing this technology to the tune of £20bn but how does it all work and will it make any difference to levelling up or net zero in places like Teesside, the Humber and the North West?

Rob's been talking to a leading expert, Jonathan Briggs, Director of Humber Zero with VPI Power, a firm based in Immingham south of the River Humber, to find out more.

PLUS: We all need a fast, reliable internet connection but there are still a few pockets of the country that can't get the fast broadband speeds the rest of us have come to expect - and many of them are in rural or remote towns and villages in the North.

That's a big problem for anyone trying to start a business in these areas and often means, ultimately, that families move out to find areas with better connections.

So the stakes are very high - and the man put in charge of the effort to roll out faster broadband is Simon Blagden, who chairs the government's Building Digital UK agency. He talks to Rob about his work on Project Gigabit and how broadband is even an issue in his village in North Yorkshire.

***

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

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There were lots of winners who got £20m here or £10m there for regeneration schemes but also many more losers who put time and money into their bids and got nowhere. But it turns out there was one big winner from the whole process and that's the consultancy firms who helped our cash-strapped local councils write their bids.

There's a huge change to local democracy arriving on April Fool's Day in the rural heartlands of the North. From April 1, in Cumbria and North Yorkshire the old system of district and county councils are being ditched and replaced by brand new unitary authorities. 

Rob Parsons has been speaking to two politicians from those patches, Keane Duncan a senior councillor on the new North Yorkshire council talking about the hot potato of active travel schemes that prioritise cyclists and walkers over cars, and the A64, the road that's holding back North Yorkshire's economy.

And in Cumbria we're hearing from John Stevenson, the MP for Carlisle who also leads the influential Northern Research Group of backbench Tory MPs. Rob asked him how Levelling Up is faring under Rishi Sunak and why quite so many Conservatives are leaving politics ahead of the next election.

***

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

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Rishi Sunak has made his plan to 'stop the boats' one of his priorities as Prime Minister, and has unveiled legislation which aims to stop people claiming asylum in the UK if they arrive through unauthorised means. 

But as new government figures show that towns and cities in the North take a far greater share of asylum seekers than other parts of the country, what does it mean for the communities affected?

Rob Parsons reports from a conference in Newcastle where experts from a host of different fields put forward their view on how we can fix the country's broken asylum system.

***

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

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In a special live edition of The Northern Agenda podcast - Rob Parsons delves into Jeremy Hunt's first Budget as Chancellor and looks at what it means for the North.

There were some big national news lines: we saw a major expansion in state-funded childcare and tax breaks for businesses in Budget measures aimed at boosting economic growth.

But will levelling up efforts be helped by some of the other key policies - like big devolution deals for Greater Manchester, new low-tax investment zones and a massive boost for funding for carbon capture and storage?

We've got a fantastic panel full of expertise about Northern politics to dissect what it all means for people in our region.

- Zoë Billingham - Director of the IPPR North think-tank

- Nicola Headlam - the Chief Economist at Red Flag Alert and former Head of Northern Powerhouse at the Government's Cities and Local Growth Unit

- Tom Lees, the Managing Director at the Manchester-based economics consultancy firm Bradshaw Advisory

- And 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.

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It has more independent restaurants per capita than anywhere else outside London, local bosses say, and is bucking the national trend on footfall thanks to its thriving night time economy.

But with our relationship with our town and city centres shifting in recent years - and very rapidly since the pandemic - will places like Newcastle need to adapt if they're to stay vibrant for decades to come?

One man who probably knows the answer to that question is Stephen Patterson, the CEO of the business improvement district Newcastle NE1. He tells Rob Parsons about the challenges and opportunities facing our cities - and whether Newcastle United's footballing success has rubbed off on local businesses.

Elsewhere, Rob talks to Jack Shaw from the IPPR North think-tank about whether Jeremy Hunt's Budget will be a big moment for Levelling Up, and the cultural credit plus economic impact Eurovision could have on Liverpool this May.

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And this week Rob Parsons spoke to Roads Minister Richard Holden about the new zero emission buses coming to Yorkshire as well as Greater Manchester's plan to take services under public control and even his view of the controversial 15-minute cities idea.

Rob also takes a look at some of the important Northern politics stories that might have gone under the radar with Tom Lees, the managing director of Manchester consultancy firm Bradshaw Advisory.

We talk food banks, mayoral development rows and why a poem Rob wrote as a teenager might come back to haunt him.

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The conference provides a high-profile opportunity for political and business leaders to unite on what the North needs to go further and faster - though maybe we could start by getting the trains to turn up on time.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper wasn't on Merseyside for the event, he was due to speak but pulled out at the last minute - which is not the first time he's had to cancel an appearance in front of Northern leaders. 

But his Labour counterpart, Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, did speak and Rob Parsons caught up with her to find out what she'd do about our struggling bus and rail services.

And Rob picked over some of the North's biggest political stories - from asylum seekers to buses and Parmos - with Edna Robinson, chair of the People's Powerhouse movement.

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The urban planning concept of 15-minute cities is gaining traction around the world and in the UK, with leaders in Sheffield and Newcastle among those embracing the idea of self-sufficient neighbourhoods with less need for cars.

But the philosophy has many vocal opponents on the right of politics - and last week in the Commons Conservative Don Valley MP Nick Fletcher joined their ranks as he described 15-minute cities as an "international socialist concept" that "will cost us our personal freedom".

This week on The Northern Agenda podcast, the South Yorkshire 'red wall' MP tells Rob exactly why he's concerned - and a local councillor in Sheffield explains why the changes will make it easier to access services on your doorstep.

Also, Rob chats with Luke Myer from the IPPR North think-tank about some of the big events of the week in Northern politics.

***

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

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But what would Labour do about it if they got into government? We might get the answer at the Labour Party Northern Skills Conference, held in Heckmondwike in West Yorkshire and chaired by Kim Leadbeater, the MP for Batley and Spen. 

This week on the podcast Rob Parsons speaks to Kim about how we can get talented young people from the North into the jobs that will get our region's economy moving.

Rob also chews over some of the other big politics stories in the North with someone who's probably covered every inch of rail and road in our great region over the years, Henri Murison from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, described as the leading voice of business and civic leaders across the North. 

We'll be asking, do we need a Minister for the North? And does it matter that Michael Gove's Levelling Up Department can't spend any money without approval from the Treasury?

***

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

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The Northern Agenda editor speaks to two experts from Teesside University so that hopefully when you hear politicians talking about hydrogen and net zero on the news in the coming weeks, you'll know what they're talking about.

Dr Venkatesan Venkata Krishnan, a senior lecturer in chemical engineering, and Professor Nashwan Dawood from the Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre, explain just why hydrogen could be so important for the region.  

***

And a new report by the Onward think tank and Northern Research Group of Tory MPs says Northern football clubs are under threat with areas set to lose the “lifeblood” of their communities without Government intervention.

It's a particularly timely report as this week the first details have emerged of what's being described as the biggest shake-up in football ownership in years.

The Football White Paper, expected to be published as early as next week, follows a fan-led review into the beautiful game in November 2021.

But will it be enough to save more clubs from following the grim fate of clubs like Bury, who were expelled from the league in 2019 and have still yet to return, or Bolton and Wigan, whose very future was thrown into doubt after being placed into administration?

Alex Luke, Senior Researcher at Onward, joins Rob on the podcast to discuss the new report.

***

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

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Transport, skills, clean energy and manufacturing were all on the agenda as the North aimed to offer a united and ambitious voice setting out its hopes for the future. 

And there were some big name speakers - including Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and his Labour shadow Lisa Nandy.

Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons was granted an exclusive interview with Mr Gove as he was whisked by car to the station after the conference - find out what he has to say about the Levelling Up Fund winners and losers, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the tragic death of Rochdale boy Awaab Ishak.

And Rob is joined by Liam Thorp, Political Editor of the Liverpool Echo, to dissect the events of the day.

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There's a particularly stark example of the situation facing our local leaders in the town of Middlesbrough. One of the most deprived places in the country, its ability to turn things around is being hampered by the spiralling costs to the taxpayer of looking after vulnerable children.

It's not a Labour politician making this claim, but Mieka Smiles, the Conservative deputy mayor of Middlesbrough. Rob Parsons spoke to her about how town halls face effectively going bust because of the cost of children's services.

And as efforts continue to find clean ways to produce energy and create jobs into the bargain, Sam Richards from the pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade tells us how in one region of the North there's overwhelming support for onshore wind turbines.

***

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

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And this week on The Northern Agenda podcast, Rob Parsons speaks to John Stevenson, the new chair of the Northern Research Group which represents the region's Conservative MPs.

The Carlisle MP tells us how he hopes the levelling up agenda can be reconciled with Liz Truss's enthusiasm for tax cuts, and what he needs to hear if his fellow 'red wall' Conservatives have any chance of getting re-elected in the next election.

Rob also speaks to Steve Rotheram, the Labour metro mayor of the Liverpool City Region, after a conference where Sir Keir Starmer promised a clean energy revolution. What will his plans mean for existing schemes on Merseyside?

And we get the thoughts of Jon Walker, deputy political editor at the Sunday Express, on how the two main parties are faring during conference season.

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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The mayor describes his first few weeks in the job where he's had to wrestle with the impact of devastating bus cuts which will see only four services running after 10pm across his whole patch from October.

And Rob also speaks to Tris Brown, one of two passionate Northerners behind the '100 ideas for the North' project.

When we talk about political ideas which might impact on our lives in the North, generally the conversation turns to big projects or concepts, like HS2 or Levelling Up.

But could it be that smaller ideas, if they're good enough and can be replicated across our region, could help change a local community or even be felt further afield?

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

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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Westminster Editor Dan O'Donoghue is joined by Liverpool Echo Political Editor Liam Thorp, Newcastle Journal Editor Graeme Whitfield and Rosie Lockwood to pick over what today's results - from Cumberland to Stockport and Hull - mean for our region.

Elsewhere, Dan speaks to York Central MP Racheal Maskell about the future of the North's railways and why she believes the Government's £96bn Integrated Rail Plan has left people frustrated.

And Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons speaks to Naomi Timperley, co-founder of the Manchester Tech Festival, about getting more people into digital jobs and how Northern cities are starting to become tech hotspots.

The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons and Daniel O'Donoghue. This week's episode is produced by Carly Holds.

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Brian Groom, who wrote 'Northerners: A History, From the Ice Age to the Present Day', tells us about how the North-South divide goes back further than we might think and identifies three lesser-known Northern historical figures we all ought to be familiar with.

Rob also speaks to George Morgan, Local Democracy Reporter for Wirral council on Merseyside, about what we can expect in his patch ahead of the local elections. Will the Greens make inroads into Labour territory on this hung council?

The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons and Daniel O'Donoghue, and it is produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. This week's episode was edited by Carly Holds.

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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Meanwhile new polling from the Country Land & Business Association has revealed a major shift in the political allegiances of rural voters in the North. Dan speaks to CLA President Mark Tufnell about what the big parties need to do to win over the countryside.

And as we continue our look ahead to the May 5 local elections, Rob Parsons speaks to South Yorkshire Local Democracy Reporter George Torr about the race to succeed Dan Jarvis as the region's metro mayor.

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

You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/

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