I’ve spent a bit of time the last couple of weeks at the Labour and Conservative party conferences, trying to influence their policy and ensure that regeneration is high on both parties’ agendas.
For those unfamiliar, party conferences are strange events; somewhere between a policy brainstorm and an evangelical meeting. They’re a chance for politicians to take the media stage with carefully managed announcements, and a piss up for the party faithful (although that didn’t include champagne for the Tories this year we’re told… I saw differently though!).
It was great to see my home city of Manchester used as a venue and whatever you might think of Conservative policy its great for the city and I believe Manchester proved a popular and successful venue.
Conferences are also a great opportunity to meet many other individuals who can be useful for business and the variety of pro-bono and charity work I do. As well as the cabinet and shadow cabinet it gave me an opportunity to meet key journalists, FTSE 100 chief execs and numerous policy advisors and thinktanks.
Most importantly however, the conferences help us understand better where the parties stand on their regeneration policy and to encourage them that the work of regeneration is by no means finished and despite, or indeed because of, the economic difficulties in the public sector - regeneration is even more important.
I was speaking at a fringe event with the Rt Hon John Gummer and was describing how I saw the pivotal event in Manchester’s regeneration not being the IRA bomb or the Commonwealth Games, but the city’s bid for the 2000 Olympics in 1992. For the first time, the City of Manchester was competing not with Barnsley, Bradford or Birmingham but with Barcelona, Sydney and LA.
John Gummer reminded the audience that he had played a central role in trying to secure the IOC votes, in his words ‘prostituting himself’; standing on street corners in Monaco pushing the City’s attractions to IOC members. He later added, ‘what I caught from that prostitution,’ (at which point I jumped in with ‘too much information!’), ‘was the Manchester vision, spirit and confidence…’
I’m sure that’s all John caught… and I hope that more cities can work like Manchester does, with successful partnerships between the public and private sector.
