Angela Epstein

Here in my office on a quiet Manchester morning, with the air surprisingly warm beneath a gunmetal sky, the conditions are ripe for making inroads into a pile of paperwork. Beyond my window, the city feels sluggish. With schools out for summer, the roads are quieter. Manchester’s legendary verve and vibrancy have clearly been mothballed for the holiday period. WFH – working from holiday, that is – is counterintuitive All of which, you might think, would create the perfect environment for our Prime Minister – just two weeks into the job – to make the most of long weekends up here and power through his formidable in-tray. (He has pledged to work in Manchester every Friday and has a family home on the outskirts of Wigan).

Andy Burnham, the man dubbed King of the North, chief evangelist of Manchesterism and pioneer of ‘No. 10 up ’ere’, has made clear where his geographical loyalties lie. In sweeping away the remnants of Starmer’s two years in office and putting together his own team, the Prime Minister has now assembled what could be the most northerly cabinet in modern British political history. The case for a predominantly northern cabinet would be far easier to swallow if those who had reached the top table represented an exceptional concentration of political talent.

As the country comes to terms with England’s World Cup drubbing, a familiar ritual is now playing out as a metaphor for the nation’s bruised psyche. Along with empty cans and mashed-up takeaway boxes, the St George’s flags are coming down – and, it seems, with almost indecent haste. My own neighbour, whose home had been festooned with bunting from the outset, had de-flagged his house before the pubs had even closed. The next morning, as I drove to work, what had been proud landmarks on my route to the office all but disappeared. Forget a considered lowering of the mast to mark a period of national mourning.

It may sound a little naff, but Manchester is a city I’m genuinely proud to call home. Not least because the city where I was born, and where I still live, has been the backdrop to so many game-changing moments in history. Manchester deserves better than becoming the fall guy because of one man’s misplaced determination to prove that government is not solely the preserve of Westminster Both the suffrage movement and the Vegetarian Society were founded here (our causes are nothing if not varied). The world’s first stored-program computer was built in the city, while Manchester also gave birth to modern chemistry, nuclear physics, and stood at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. Oh, and we gave the world Liam and Noel Gallagher too.

Northerners love to chat, especially with complete strangers. Often it takes little more than a tin of tomatoes at a supermarket checkout to spark a full-throated conversation. It’s what broadly sets us apart from the southern playbook of few words and definitely no eye contact. What the Manc-splainers fail to grasp is that residents of Manchester, Makerfield and everywhere in between have a front-row view of reality, and can see beyond the poster-boy politics of the so-called King of the North. Yet when it comes to the impending Makerfield by-election, there has clearly been a cultural shift. Andy Burnham’s arms-length supporters 200 miles away have suddenly become the ones keen on conversation.

There’s a compelling explanation as to why Israel soared above the din of geopolitical protest to power into second place at last night’s Eurovision Song Contest. In short, it was a bloody good song. Amid the habitual smorgasbord of dad dancing, gothic frightwigs and dud vocals – Moldova and Norway’s entries threatened tinnitus, and let’s not even plough the embarrassing depths of the UK’s ghastly contribution – Noam Bettan, Israel’s representative, was a colossus. At the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, the 28-year-old singer delivered a sweeping performance of his trilingual entry ‘Michelle’, reminding audiences that, in a festival of kitsch and musical dross, the contest can occasionally throw up a genuine belter.

What to do when you wake one morning in such severe pain that you feel as if you’ve been skewered in a magic act that went horribly wrong? When this happened to me a few years ago, all I could do was gasp to my startled husband that I needed to get to hospital. Yet his first instinct was to call Hatzola,a non-profit ambulance service, run by volunteers in the Jewish community but open to anyone in need, regardless of faith. That he did this should tell you all you need to know about the reach and reputation of this incredible service. Within minutes of making the call, two rapid responders were at our door, making initial assessments and preparing to take me to hospital. (It seemed I had a suspected appendicitis.) This was not an isolated incident.

Were I ever to share a cuppa with Angela Rayner, a certain spark of kinship might be expected. After all, we share the same first name, are both Mancunians and have an equal tendency to be 'gobby', as we say in the North. Heck, we've even got the same hair colour and understand the challenge of being a fading redhead (Though Rayner’s curly blow-dry, splashed across the front pages this week, was surely another style slip-up. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t go full Shirley Temple.) But this is where the affinity – or even empathy – ends. There are so many reasons why Rayner is the last person who should be handed the keys to No.

On October 7, 2023, more Jewish people were murdered in a single day than at any time since the Holocaust. It’s a grotesque irony then that the war in Gaza – triggered by the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people in Israel – should be the catalyst for a sharp fall in the number of schools taking part in Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). The Holocaust, even for those committed to its memory for religious, personal, or humanitarian reasons, demands grappling with the incomprehensible Yet the figures are unambiguous. In 2023, more than 2,000 secondary schools signed up for HMD events, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. By 2024, around 800 fewer schools took part and another 350 dropped out in 2025. The decline is brutal and unequivocal.

As we finally emerge from the food coma of the Christmas blowout, our attention turns to New Year’s resolutions – and how to keep them. Usually they’re the stuff of tea-towel slogans: eat less, exercise more, be kinder to your mother, be kinder to his mother. But increasingly, added to the list is a very zeitgeist-y acknowledgement of our addiction to technology: less absence, more presence. If you’re going to attempt a digital detox, it has to be set up for success, not failure On this point, even King Charles joined the chorus in his Christmas address, urging us to prise ourselves away from our phones and attempt a digital detox for the sake of our wellbeing. You don't have to love the monarchy to agree.

What exactly is the point of Eurovision? It can't be about the music. Britain, the nation that gifted the world the Beatles, David Bowie and the Spice Girls, has been scraping the bottom of the scoreboard for years – thanks to a string of forgettable, frankly embarrassing entries that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a boozy holiday camp open-mic night. The UK hasn't been alone in putting forward dire entries, but perhaps that then has always been the point. Much to the delight of the millions who watch and feast on Eurovision’s glorious banquet of kitsch and camp – a ding-a-dong smorgasbord where spectacle is compulsory and, for many countries, talent distinctly optional.

It was shortly after my fifteenth birthday that I discovered the music of The Beatles. A school friend and I stumbled upon the Fab Four while browsing in a record shop. We were hooked: we'd listen to their songs with almost religious devotion. One thrilling touchpoint for me was their manager, Brian Epstein. As a teenager, discovering we shared a surname – and that he too was a northerner – felt magical. With unreconstructed youthful aplomb I'd boast of the connection. Later, in the world of work, as people forever misspelled my name, I’d summon Brian – note the casual intimacy of first name allegiance – to clarify while enjoying the comforting hint of musical lineage.

Being born, shall we say, under a different star, there are no official Christmas celebrations in our house. Sure, it’s a welcome opportunity to gather the family and – being a Jewish mother – feed the assembled tribe until they can't speak. But there’s no tree, no stockings, no exchanging of gifts. That doesn’t stop me from being a keen and thrilled observer of the Christmas countdown. Above all, I love the palpable hum of excitement and anticipation that comes with the season; the feeling there is something uplifting to look forward to. This year, however, that hum has been tarnished by Marks & Spencer, thanks to their TV Christmas advert fronted by Dawn French.

Is it time for the wandering Jews to once again pack up and go? It’s a question that has been troubling communities of the Diaspora – especially in this country – ever since the atrocities of October 7th unleashed, in the words of the Chief Rabbi, unrelenting waves of hatred against our people. How much more of a warning did we need? Sometimes we muse in the abstract. Idling around the Friday night dinner table over a fragrant bowl of chicken soup and wondering if this is the time for 'the Exile'. At others, the tone hardens. Not least on strident Facebook feeds where the gathering storm clouds of prewar Germany are invoked to agitate us out of complacency.

Back in 2009, when the Labour government piloted a voluntary biometric identity card, I signed up immediately. In fact – claim to fame – since the scheme was actually launched in my hometown of Greater Manchester, I was one of the first in the country to acquire this pioneering piece of ID. Mine for just 30 quid. Why the enthusiasm? It simply seemed a pragmatic thing to do. No rooting around for dog-eared gas bills to prove I wasn’t a phoney. Or living in fear of losing my passport when travelling across Europe. I didn’t for a moment consider whether the card could compromise my privacy or expose my darkest secrets.

There was a palpable feeling of euphoria across my home city of Manchester when the Gallagher brothers finally buried years of ferocious feuding and reunited Oasis. After all, we Mancunians are nothing if not effusive in both pride and ownership when success blooms in our own back yard. We feel it personally. So, as Keir Starmer struggles through the gluey mess of the Mandelson/Epstein (no relation) scandal, are we locals cheerleading Andy Burnham's mooted leadership plans? Don't bet on it. Are we locals cheerleading Andy Burnham's mooted leadership plans? Don't bet on it Our Mayor of Greater Manchester is reportedly circling to challenge the Prime Minister.