Keep up to date with all the big stories from across Greater Manchester in the daily Mancunian Way newsletter. You can receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by signing up right here.
Here's the Mancunian Way for today:
Y'alright?
We’re talking about a particular quirk of the Manchester accent in today’s newsletter. A researcher says the ‘north-force distinction’ is holding firm in the north of the city but disappearing elsewhere. But why?
We’ll also be delving deeper into that report into Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and picking up the interesting bits from an Angela Rayner and Dominic Raab-led PMQs. Let’s begin.
'Wore' or 'wahh'?
A major feature of the traditional Manc accent is still going strong in northern parts of the city, but is disappearing from people’s speech elsewhere.
It’s long been thought that the north and south Manchester accents sound different. Dr Maciej Baranowski spoke to 122 people from areas within the M60 to find out if there is any linguistic evidence of this.
Now, the linguistics expert says the ‘north-force distinction’ is disappearing in the south and centre of the city. This quirk of the accent means words like ‘four’ and ‘wore’ have a different vowel sound to ‘for’ and ‘war’.
University of Manchester researcher Dr Baranowski says the distinction has completely disappeared from the speech of middle-class Mancunians - which means the words in these pairs sound identical, as they do for most speakers of English.
You can watch the video below to see what he means.
It’s thought the vowel contrast began disappearing from middle-class speech in Manchester decades ago. It is still strong in north Manchester, though it is changing very slowly there as well. So what’s the reason for this very audible difference?
Dr Baranowski says it may be linked to major changes in Manchester in recent years. The BBC, Google, Amazon and Microsoft relocating jobs to the city and a population boom that has seen tens of thousands of highly-educated workers arriving may well have accelerated changes already happening to the accent.
Meanwhile, ‘dialect levelling’ has led to British English being much more uniform than it once was. Some long-standing aspects of local accents are disappearing, and other features are spreading across the country. For example the traditional working-class Cockney accent is said to be weakening, but Multicultural London English is becoming much more widespread.
Nevertheless, Dr Baranowski says the Manc accent will be around for a long time yet. “Features of the ‘Manc’ accent are still present across Manchester, though they are much stronger in the working classes,” he says.
“Interestingly, north Manchester is actually different from the rest of the city even if we take social class into account - that is, working-class Mancunians from north Manchester sound a little different from working-class Mancunians elsewhere in the city. That is something which has rarely been reported in linguistic studies.”
In his paper, Dr Baranowski explains that ‘working-class speakers who grew up in north Manchester have a clearer distinction in comparison with working-class Mancunians elsewhere’.
He says this is the first time a ‘significant neighbourhood effect that is independent of social class’ has been found outside the United States. And it’s thought to be most likely down to socioeconomic differences.
“North Manchester can be described as a largely working-class area, with a closer-knit, less mobile community in comparison with south Manchester and, as such, can be expected to preserve older dialect forms,” the report reads. “South Manchester, on the other hand, includes a mix of socioeconomic levels and has seen an increased influx of middle-class speakers from outside the city, including from the south of England, and of immigration from outside the UK.”
The report says middle-class Mancunians living centrally and in the south of the city use accent features ‘closer to those found in the south of England’. That’s thought to be due, in part, to ‘continued contact with relatives and with cultural and educational institutions in the south of England’.
“In consequence, a working-class child growing up in north Manchester is much less likely to be exposed to merged speakers than a working-class child from south Manchester, and is therefore more likely to preserve the phonemic distinction heard in their parents’ and grandparents’ speech.”
‘Wholly unacceptable’ attitude towards asylum seekers
A leaked email has revealed that staff at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing were reassured it is 'not a racist organisation' days after being called out by Awaab Ishak's family.
The disgraced housing association has come under fire in a new Housing Ombudsman report which exposes a culture of 'othering'. The report highlighted a 'disturbing picture of residents being judged entirely by staff members’ held prejudices, lazy assumptions and an attitude towards asylum seekers and refugees that is wholly unacceptable'. It described testimony from a former worker, who was told by a manager that refugees were 'lucky they have [a] roof over head'.
Awaab’s father Faisal Abdullah - an asylum seeker from Sudan - urged the social landlord to 'stop discriminating, stop being racist, stop providing unfair treatment to people coming from abroad who are refugees or asylum seekers' in the wake of his son’s inquest.
As reporter Stephen Topping reveals, the RBH leadership team sent an email to staff three days later with the subject heading 'Important update regarding accusations of racism'. It insisted RBH is 'not a racist organisation' and suggested senior staff 'know how hard we work to be inclusive and to tackle racism'.
The report also reveals that a RBH worker saw Awaab's pregnant mum, Aisha Amin, 'visibly distressed' a month before her son's death - but failed to escalate the issue. The worker instead believed the mould at her home was 'a standard repair', weeks before tragedy unfolded.
Speaking about RBH’s treatment of other tenants, the Ombudsman found the landlord threw away the ashes of a resident's parents after giving her the wrong end date for her tenancy.
Money for crumbling schools
Greater Manchester’s schools and colleges are set to receive around £3.6 million to upgrade buildings.
The share will come from a wider national pot of Government funding worth £1.8 billion for the 2023-24 financial year. A further £487 million will be invested to help councils across England provide additional school places needed for September 2026.
You can see the breakdown of that £1.8bn sum across the ten Greater Manchester boroughs here.
Faster response times
Greater Manchester Police say they are now the first placed force in England and Wales for the percentage of calls answered in less than 10 seconds - despite having the fourth highest call volume.
It took an average of four seconds for call handlers to answer a 999 call last month - down from one minute 22 seconds at the peak in July 2021. While 101 calls were answered in 51 seconds, down from six minutes 44 seconds.
It took officers an average of nine minutes and 46 seconds to attend a Grade 1 emergency call and one hour 45 seconds to attend a Grade 2 priority call - down from 28 hours 45 minutes and 59 seconds in August 2021.
Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods says it’s ‘tremendous progress’ and is ‘ultimately keeping people safe’.
Rayner vs Raab
Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer were absent from Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon. Instead they were attending the funeral of the former Speaker, Betty Boothroyd.
The leaders’ absence meant it was down to Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab to lead questions in the Commons - and he was pitted against Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner.
In a particularly fiery moment, the Ashton-under-Lyne MP pressed Mr Raab on the charge rate for rape under his watch as Justice Secretary. Mr Raab said referrals of cases and CPS charges have ‘doubled’ since 2019 and the volume of convictions in rape cases has ‘increased by two-thirds’.
But Ms Rayner quoted the 1.6 per cent charge rate nationally. “More than half-a-million cases of rape have been recorded by the police but the charge rate for those attacks have collapsed. He has served under five Tory prime ministers and had three years as Justice minister and on his watch, rapists are left to roam the streets. So will he apologise to those victims who will never get justice because of his failures?”
Mr Raab hit back saying the deputy Labour leader should ‘get her facts straight’ and quoted the 69 per cent conviction rate nationally. (Note he’s talking about the conviction rate, not charge rate).
Ms Rayner replied: “He won’t apologise for the government failures on charge rates and 69 per cent of 1.6 per cent - is that really something to boast about?”
If you’re wondering about the rates here in Greater Manchester - they’re actually at the higher end of the national scale but still very low - a point that has been acknowledged by local leaders and senior officers at Greater Manchester Police.
You can read more about the charge rates here and what GMP is doing to increase them here.
Eton will be a good neighbour
The deputy head of Eton College has promised its new selective sixth form in Oldham will be a ‘good neighbour’.
Tom Arbuthnott has also revealed to Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons a number of local schools have agreed to join a partnership with the famous boarding school. The private college is waiting to see if it can progress with its plans for three selective sixth-form free schools, one in Oldham and two others in Middlesbrough and Dudley.
The proposal is designed to open up Oxbridge and other elite universities to students in the towns, all of which are education 'cold spots' identified in the Government's Levelling Up paper.
The £44,000-a-year private school in Berkshire is bidding in the current wave of the Government's free school programme. Mr Arbuthnott says he is delighted that ‘a great number’ of secondary schools across Oldham and the north of Greater Manchester have agreed to join the partnership.
"Colleagues of mine at Eton have already told me enthusiastically of the many lessons they have learned from their new contacts in the North West – and how excited they are to build on these new relationships," he says.
Going underground
Manchester is known as a music city - but there’s a lesser known scene which is thriving. Manchester Punk Festival has its origins in the city’s underground punk scene and will host 140 bands across seven venues when it returns over the Easter weekend.
First started in 2015, MPF is a celebration of all-things punk, hardcore and ska. This year’s highlights include Off With Their Heads, The Flatliners, The Beltones, British punk icons Snuff, Discharge, and UK ska legends Lightyear. There will also be comedy, poetry, live podcasts and a DIY record store.
The three-day festival runs from Friday April 7 to Sunday April 9.
Sign up to The Mancunian Way
Has a friend forwarded you this edition of The Mancunian Way? You can sign up to receive the latest email newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by clicking on this link.
Weather etc
Thursday: Cloudy changing to light showers by lunchtime. 15C.
Road closures: M67 Eastbound entry slip road closed due to long-term roadworks at J2 A57 Hyde Road (Denton). Until 1st December 2025.
A662 Pollard Street Westbound closed due to roadworks from Pollard Street to A665 Great Ancoats Street. Until 13th April.
Trivia question: Which punk band famously played to about 40 people at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976.
Manchester headlines
The fashion: Tributes to Paul O’Grady have been flooding in following his sudden death. And this anecdote about his reaction to police raids on gay clubs in Manchester and London during the AIDS epidemic gives you a good idea of what he was like. Police clad in rubber gloves raided the Royal Vauxhall Tavern where Paul was performing as Lily Savage in 1987. “Well well, it looks like we’ve got help with the washing up,” he said. He was one of ten people arrested and then released without charge. A week later, while visiting a club in Manchester, there was another raid. “It seemed to be the fashion at the time,” he said.
System crash: Walk-in centres and GP practices have been brought to a standstill by massive NHS IT and phone system outages. A technical fault caused IT systems to crash and phone lines to go down at NHS facilities across Greater Manchester. The problems began this morning and were ongoing at the time of writing. Patients have had appointments cancelled and postponed, while staff have attempted to keep urgent appointments by working on their personal devices. It’s understood the IT and phone problems are limited to Greater Manchester. Hospitals, which operate on different systems, are not affected. More here.
Subway takeover: The Issa Brothers, who own Asda, are 'considering an £8bn takeover of sandwich giant Subway', according to reports. The self-made billionaires - who started their business empire with a single petrol station in Bury - are thought to be in line to buy the restaurant chain, which has around 44,000 stores nationwide. Mohsin, 51, and Zuber, 50, who both hail from Blackburn, operate more than 6,600 petrol stations globally under Euro Garages, one of the EU’s largest independent fuel retailers, with outlets across Europe, the United States and Australia. The business, which launched in 2001, exceeded €20bn in annual sales in 2021.
- Ignored: Campaigners say local people feel 'ignored once more' after fresh plans for the future of former retail park in Manchester city centre are approved. The former Central Retail Park off Great Ancoats Street is set to be turned into a huge office complex with a green space open to the public in the middle of it. But some have called for the whole site - which is located next to a primary school - to be turned into a park. It comes after local group Trees Not Cars quashed a council decision to temporarily use it as a car park in the courts. Since then, under new leadership, the town hall has published new plans for the site where the former Toys R Us and Argos stores have been flattened. Campaigners have praised council leader Bev Craig for her 'dedication' to improving green spaces in the city centre. But Trees Not Cars say they were not invited into discussions before the latest plan was published. More here.
Worth a read
Michelle Yeoh made history this month when she became the first Asian woman to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once. But did you know the actress studied at Manchester Metropolitan University?
The Malaysian film star graduated with a BA in creative arts in 1983. Her close friend at Crewe and Alsager College, Steve Barlow, has told CheshireLive he found an ‘ally’ in Michelle during their years there.
“She was very embracing, generous and warm-hearted,” he says. “We just got on from the moment we met and we became very close during that year. Allies weren't called allies back then, they were just people who affirmed you and connected with you. Michelle was one of those people and actually was the first person to be extraordinarily warm and welcoming to me.”
Steve says he would hunker down with Michelle in her halls of residence where they would watch ‘horror movie after horror movie’ and recalls trips to London's West End where she introduced him to pork buns.
Though Michelle moved back to Malaysia after college, she met with Steve another three times before they eventually lost touch. “The leap from Crewe and Alsager to doing all these extraordinary things was just incredible to see. She would never brag about having these skills. She never used to do martial arts at college. It was an amazing transformation.”
Asked what he would say to her if he saw her again, he said: “I think I'd hug her and say something like 'Isn't this crazy? Because the last time I saw you, you were doing my dance assessment and dancing to Call Me by Blondie in a studio in Alsager'.”
You can read the full piece here.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk.
If you have enjoyed this newsletter today, why not tell a friend how to sign up?
The answer to today's trivia question is: The Sex Pistols. And if you want to know who was there, click here.
