Andy Burnham’s ‘No10 within the North’ mannequin already exists – in £10 public corridor

Sweltering in unlikely Manchester temperatures at Stretford Public Hall last night, Bev Craig, the current leader of Manchester City Council and Labour’s candidate to succeed Andy Burnham, made her pitch to Greater Manchester’s voters.

“I actually got involved in politics because I didn’t see enough people in politics who looked like me,” she said. “And I didn’t see communities have enough agency and enough control. Where I’m from (in Northern Ireland)… we’re used to being seen as a negative problem, not as a positive and proud community. Community got me into politics.”

As nominations open today for the next leader of the Labour Party – and Britain’s Prime Minister – open today, Andy Burnham is heading for coronation. Meanwhile, in Greater Manchester, a different battle is just beginning to fill the vacancy he leaves behind. As all eyes turn to this Northern powerhouse, this week, Greater Manchester voters assembled for the first two hustings aimed at selecting a new mayor.

The first, hosted by our colleagues at the Manchester Evening News was at Chatham Hall’s School of Music – a venue where Marx and Engels once discussed how to overthrow capitalism. The second – a community hustings at Stretford Public Hall, in Trafford – also could not have been at a more fitting location.

The historic Hall, originally built for the community by Victorian philanthropists John and Enriqetta Rylands in 1879, was saved by local people from being sold off as flats 11 years ago. Now, it is at the forefront of a new kind of people-powered politics. And anyone trying to understand Andy Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ could do worse than start here.

Stretford Hall’s long history has included a public library, lecture halls and swimming pools, and hosted everyone from Enoch Powell to The Fall. But without the intervention of two local mums and a dad ten years ago, the grand venue would have been sold to private developers.

“I’d seen the Hall was for sale and I just went in with my friend to nose about really,” says Annoushka Deighton. “As soon as we saw the beautiful foyer we fell in love with it.” One massive public campaign and community buy-out later, and the council sold the building to the newly-formed Friends of Stretford Hall for the “princely sum of £10”.

What’s happened since is a model for real community power. The Hall doesn’t just offer friendship, yoga, welfare advice and choirs, although all these things are important – it works with the local council and NHS providers to deliver services in a different way. So, this week it was the perfect place to host a hustings with a difference, one which organisers said aimed to “put people, not politicians, at the heart of the conversation.”

The Green candidate Geraldine Coggins, a philosopher who is a Stretford local, knows the Hall well. “I’ve painted walls in this place,” she told the audience, as she pledged to set up a Citizens’ Assembly for Greater Manchester. “This is exactly the sort of place we need more of.”

The Conservative candidate, also local, Phil Eckersley spoke about setting up a social care business after his grandma didn’t get the care she deserved. While LibDem candidate Richard Kilpatrick admitted: “Our politics is a bit broken, isn’t it? We seem to find reasons to disagree with each other when we shouldn’t…. And I think people like me and you are really let down by that.”

Craig argued that Greater Manchester could be on the cusp of a “special moment” – with the former mayor in Downing Street, and a Number 10 North in the city. The Reform and Restore parties were invited but did not turn up. Organisers were delighted that a call for residents across the rest of Greater Manchester to get involved by hosting interactive watch-along parties was taken up by several other venues.

“This election isn’t just about who becomes Mayor – it’s about how they’ll share their power with the people who live here,” said event co-organiser Beth Powell. “Too often, people are asked for their vote and then shut out of the decision that shape their lives. We want to turn that on its head by putting residents at the centre of the conversation and asking candidates how they’ll share power with the communities they serve.”

Ideas generated by the event’s attendees and watch-along partygoers will feed into the Greater Manchester People’s Charter, which is being developed by community groups across all ten of the region’s boroughs, supported by Our House, in partnership with the GM Citizens Assembly Campaign and Creative City.

“I’m really hoping this hustings and the People’s Charter will start to open up some conversations about how power is shared,” Annoushka says. “At the moment, people feel they can only vent their frustrations through a vote every few years. Participatory democracy can sound a bit abstract, but it’s about how people make their voices heard in the times in-between voting. Without it, there’s a danger people don’t feel like they’re having any constructive say in how things are are decided locally.”

Stretford Public Hall “has always done things differently”, to coin a Manchester phrase. Built for the people, Annoushka says the Rylands offended Victorian etiquette by inviting the workers who had built it to the opening party in 1879.

“At the hall we’ve got a community covenant, which is a power-sharing agreement between the council and the community and the health board looking at how community health should be delivered,” she says. “Most people are reasonable once you start giving them a problem to help solve – and then they realise there aren’t black and white answers. It works for the council too. We are trusted by our by our local community in a way that the local authority never will be.”

Like many people in Manchester, Annoushka says she is still working out what ‘Manchesterism’ means. “The idea that we do things differently is definitely true,” she says. “I’m originally a Southerner with Polish heritage, but I’ve lived here 25 years and I absolutely am so proud of the way Manchester has bucked the trend on some of the divisive thinking that has happened elsewhere.

“I think we do just crack on. Of course, there are pockets of people stirring things up. But as a city we are proud of the way we have always been a welcoming place to incomers, and people are generally very celebratory of the diverse communities we have around.”

The likely future Prime Minister has been a guest of Stretford Public Hall several times. When Andy Burnham was Mayor, Annoushka – who is part of We’re Right Here, a group campaigning for more community power – even took him on a bus tour of other co-community groups across Greater Manchester. “Of course we hope Andy will carry that with him into Downing Street if he becomes Prime Minister,” Annoushka says.

In an interview this week, Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Peckham MP charged with translating the new PM’s ‘Manchesterism’ into government policy said “the ability to trust people in places that understand their patch, to think about what the solutions are for their patch, is what we need to be doing. And if we do it well, it is very, very powerful.”

The model for ‘‘No 10 in the North” already exists – in a Victorian public hall in Stretford.