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Opinion: Why I signed up for Devo Manc and a mayor for Greater Manchester

On Monday morning I was very pleased to be able to sign up to Devo Manc. I was deputising for Stockport’s Lib Dem leader Sue Derbyshire, joined in Manchester Town Hall by the leaders of the other nine Greater Manchester authorities along with George Osborne.

The Greater Manchester devolution deal came out of months of negotiation with the government, and it gives the city region more devolved powers than anywhere else in England, London included. I was surprised at how much we got. To give one example, I was assured just weeks ago that a regulated bus network for Greater Manchester was quite impossible: the DfT would never allow it. Yet there it is, in the deal.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 55 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • David Blake
    I agree with much of what Richard Cripps says - and I've been a member for 54 years. If I wasn't already a member I'm not sure that what the party has become w...
  • Richard Dickson
    Thanks for this. Kindness - to people, businesses, whole communities, our environment and to nature, to our past, present and future - requires us also to be br...
  • Richard Cripps
    I've been a Lib/Lib Dem voter for 50 years. However, I'm finding it more and more difficult to justify this to friends and family (snd sometimes even myself) as...
  • Steve Trevethan
    P. S. Here is an article from the current edition of "Counterpunch" which may be of relevance and/or interest. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/23/france...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for a most incisive article which, so precisely, presents the cruelty and greed of Neolibealim. Would that the L.D Party renounced and denounced Ne...