Two hundred years on, have things really changed that much? Has the lot of working class people, working class women, really changed that much, once we’ve got those people into parliament and gave people the vote? I don’t think so actually, as someone who knows that world well, because we send people into a world that is still London-centric and male-dominated and, actually, that hasn’t really changed I don’t think in those years.
So where’s the new radicalism – the new Manchester radicalism? As we go forward, I don’t think it’s in putting people in parliament, it’s in taking power out of parliament and letting people here decide much more for themselves, and I think we’re beginning to see appetite now for real English devolution. Great cities like this [Manchester] being in charge of our own destiny, deciding what we think is right for the people here.
