“It’s almost like Oliver Twist begging for crumbs from the big table. We feel like we are treated like a poor relation, we really do.”
Peter Shore, a 69-year-old project manager, is explaining why he has co-founded the new Middleton Independents Party to contest the next Rochdale council elections in May.
He is sat in a room above a coffee shop in Middleton town centre where the fledgling group has just held a meeting to discuss everything from policies to publicity. Peter says he is ‘fed-up’ of his home town playing second fiddle to Rochdale - the borough’s largest town - and wants to do something to redress the balance.
