We’re not all heathens in Manchester, Andy Burnham tells ENO

‘If they don’t want to come willingly, we don’t want them,’ Andy Burnham told a meeting of business and political leaders on Wednesday. Photograph: James Speakman/PA

Andy Burnham has told the English National Opera (ENO) that the company is not welcome in Manchester if it does not want to relocate there from London.

“If they think we are all heathens here, that nobody would go, I’m afraid it doesn’t understand us and therefore it doesn’t deserve to come here. If they want to come, come willingly. If you can’t come willingly, don’t come at all,” the mayor of Greater Manchester said on Wednesday.