The Mill

David Blake was walking along a marina in Barcelona when he noticed a crowd on the beach. It was about 9pm, and groups of Spaniards had gathered to watch some sort of racket sport, the onlookers drinking and chatting. “I’d always played racket sports,” Blake tells me over the phone. “I stood for like half an hour trying to figure out the rules. The courts were packed.” The sport, he eventually discovered, was padel.

Dear readers — there’s surely no denying now that Autumn is upon us. The leaves in their swathes might still be green but the sky is coloured round the edges. But don’t worry. Here to brighten your day is The Mill’s Monday newsletter. Today we dispatch from a landlocked oyster festival. We prophesy on Manchester’s growth. We’ve got a call-out about a specific episode of Peppa Pig. We bring good tidings about ice hockey. Read on for all of that.

Worth over £30bn, the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) is the biggest local government pension fund in the country by some way. West Midlands Pension Fund, the second largest, falls £10bn short of it. It pumps millions of pounds a year into, among other things: oil and gas, mining, arms.

Dear readers — Last night, the battle for who will take over from Bev Craig as leader of Manchester City Council came to a close; with Garry Bridges beating Tom Robinson for the title by a single vote. To this, investors, developers, Mill readers and general members of the public all across Manchester responded with a resounding: “who?” Garry Who?

Illustration: Jake Greenhalgh/The Mill Some say he’s ‘just a f*cking bully’. He says he’s Manchester’s ‘most pleasant man’ If you’ve ever walked down a street in Manchester and been smiled and waved at by a fundraiser in a dark blue jacket, collecting money for ‘Educate & Empower’, then you have Phillip Hanks to thank.

Three days into his premiership, newly incumbent PM Andy Burnham was standing behind the bar at the Hare Inn in Harlow, Essex, pulling a pint for his appointed chancellor John Healey. Later that day, the pair filmed a jovial video in which they ranked pub snacks (poorly, I must add – justice for Scampi Fries).

Dear readers — Two days ago, we published one of our biggest investigations to date. A comment on Instagram called it “proper journalism”. Someone on Bluesky also called it “proper journalism”. A reader in our own comment section admired our “commitment to journalism and investigation”. Praise like this we have not received even in our hitherto finest hours. We refer of course to Ophira and Ethan’s meticulous calculations of the height of Tony Wilson.

Dear readers — welcome to the most important Monday briefing The Mill has ever written, in which we answer the somehow as-yet-unanswered question: how tall really was Mr Manchester? This comes after the news on Saturday that Peter Hook, aka ‘Hooky’ – bassist for Joy Division and known flogger of Factory Records’ corpse – has suggested that what Manchester, nay, Greengate needs is a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Tony Wilson, looking out over the Irwell towards Victoria. Tony Wilson? Seven foot?

Oldham is in trouble. Take the last few years as an example. Since 2001 and as recently as January the town’s politicians have seen a well-documented spate of petrol bombings: of councillors’ houses, councillors’ cars, and the cars of wannabe councillors. Famous among them is the 2021 petrol bombing of council leader Arooj Shah’s Hyundai. For a more recent example, take two days ago. Arooj Shah front row at The Mill hustings.

Dear readers — forgive us, but we’re sending you this email from Leeds of all places, where we’ve gone to meet our colleagues over at our newest sister paper, The Exchange! By the time you’re reading this, we’ll hopefully be frolicking in the rain around Kirkstall Abbey. Speaking of new things, today’s article marks the first piece written for us by our joint-newest recruit, Ethan Penny, since he became a full time Mill reporter.