The MPs in our area Frank are complete imbeciles ! They are voted in by local people and therefore issues which effect the local area and in this case benefit a much wider are ie The North should be at the forefront of their thinking. I have no idea why but it NEVER is.
Can you imagine MPs in Surrey, Sussex suggesting events in Manchester are more important than their region ? That said BBC business editors are no better. Unless you were on here Frank I suspect you would not have seen any coverage of this at all. Our local patch MEN, Look NWest , Key103 and the (Wigan Observer), did of course immerse itself in the subject but quite frankly UK wide national coverage was appalling, nay almost non-existent. Two national papers carried it on their websites for about 4 hours.
Even 5 Live whose HQ is 8 miles away managed to swerve us completely. An accident of timing meant of course we were swept down the pecking order, thoroughly understandable, but not to the extent that we are totally transparent ! When the Airport Commissions report comes out "regardless of what is happening in the wider world" I guarantee LHR/LGW expansion will be lead item, it is a seen as being in the "national interest", so why is an airport located 200 miles North , but capable of handling (55m, cough) and seemingly having a massive footprint in terms of catchment be any less significant ?
In recent months the
PR Ex MAN has changed they are now suggesting that ; "MAN covers a massive catchment from The Midlands to Scotland", and "it's a national asset LIKE HEATHROW"
These comments have appeared multiple times but there is little point saying that locally within a "regional bubble". One quote I saw suggested "This is great for Greater Manchester", They should of course have said this is great for the North, no wonder civic pride is understandably irked in Merseyside and Yorkshire ! How about sensitive reporting with a diplomatic slant re Northerpowerhouse ?
And what of the Look NWest business editor, in his online piece he suggested "Manchester cannot of course compete with LHR or LGW" Not even LGW , really ?
Some of are "locals" have no nous when it comes to media delivery ! There is abject failure to engage at a national level, whether that is the fault of London Centric BBC Editors OR a strategic failure by MAN in the way it engages with the media , don't know !
Thank goodness Bloomberg and Rueters got hold of the story, people in Gtr Manchester and Vietnam are at least well informed !
Using the Jim ONeill contacts would have been tactical genius .....!
Bagso, you won't get an argument from me about inadequacies and mentality of the smug London-centric metroplitan elite, whether politicians, civil servants, functionaries, big business, or the media (all of it, not just the BBC)!
The sad thing is that many of those people are from the north and other parts of the UK outside London "zone 1" yet have gone completely "native". It's that old "
north of Watford Gap" nonsense. They are sucked into the system in a similar way to those who go to work for the great EU bureaucracy.
Unfortunately for the BBC, part of it was moved to Manchester (Salford Quays) to redress the balance, ahem, to sell off prime London properties, but it's made no difference.
But it's not all bad aviation news for you Bagso: it isn't reported but Ringway is quietly getting on with reorganising and rebuilding its terminals, it will be the first (or only) UK airport to have USA pre-clearance, and it's got a second parallel rwy which puts it ahead of LGW, BHX, GLA, EDI, etc..
The station has been massively expanded with rail links all over the north, the trams have arrived, and the airport city is going ahead. New routes and carriers will follow.
All this despite
imbecile MPs (your words Bagso, couldn't possibly comment!).
The glass is half FULL.
BTW, beware of HS2, whether it has a station at Ringway, whether it has a station a mile from Ringway, or avoids Ringway altogether, HS2 is likely to suck even more economic activity towards London rather than diffuse it. That has been the experience with HS rail in France and Japan, countries with equally dominant capital cities, so why would it be any different in the UK?
HS3 on the other hand makes good sense and is urgently needed.