“I hope also that this will end the tiresome media line of talking about Manchester City Council as if it was representative of the whole Greater Manchester region. Perhaps they might like to focus on Salford instead, another inner-city authority where we have a 30% share of the vote and ever increasing numbers of Councillors!

Personally, I hope to see an end to the lazy media complacency in not rebutting Tory claims that it wins seats in the urban areas. The only seats you win wholly contained inside the M60 are a couple in the Heatons (Stockport).