On a brutal General Election night for the Conservatives, there were a few bright spots where their MPs managed to defy the swing to Labour and hang onto their seats. In the North East of England - where Labour otherwise swept the board - just one Conservative MP now remains, Matt Vickers, who won in the new seat of Stockton West despite pre-election polling which suggested it would turn red. He speaks to Rob Parsons about how he managed to defy the odds, what it's been like as a Tory MP since returning to Parliament and what the near Tory wipeout means for Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen. Meanwhile, Rob hears from the journalists behind a brilliant new podcast called Everything But a Beach, telling the fascinating hidden stories of Manchester you won't have learned about at school. Find out about 'God's copper' James Anderton, Manchester's scuttling gangs with names like the Bengal Tigers and the Meadow Lads, and where local words like ‘ticklebutt’ and ‘arsewood’ came from. You can listen to Everything But a Beach at https://everythingbutabeach.podbean.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doesn't it seem a long time ago that a victorious Boris Johnson took in the applause from Conservatives in Tony Blair's old seat of Sedgefield after winning a host of North East seats in Labour strongholds like Darlington, Redcar and Bishop Auckland in the 2019 General Election? Five years later, the Tories have been all but wiped out in the North East, reduced to just one seat. How did things go so badly wrong and is there a way back for the party in time for the next election? And was Rishi Sunak the right person to lead the party into the 2024 election? Rob Parsons speaks to Miranda Jupp, who up until a few days ago was chief of staff to Sir Simon Clarke, former Levelling Up Secretary and Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who lost to Labour's Luke Myer by just 200 votes. And Rob takes a look under the bonnet of the North East of England, a region with so much going for it but with issues like poverty, economic inactivity and bad health continuing to plague it for decades. A new series of reports called Vital Signs single out the role civil society and the generosity of philanthropy can play in bridging the divide between the North East and the rest of the country. Rob Williamson, CEO of the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, tells us more about the work. And you can read them for yourself at https://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/vital-signs/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's there's an induction like no other going on in Westminster's corridors of power, as dozens of newly-elected MPs from across the North are introduced to the bewildering intricacies and traditions of life in the epicentre of British democracy. But what's it been like for someone who a week ago was battling to be elected and now finds themselves rubbing shoulders with the nation's political leaders, hundreds of miles from home? Rob Parsons finds out from Lewis Atkinson, who last week was elected as the new Labour MP for Sunderland Central. He tells us about the white envelope with secret instructions that all new MPs get and how one aspect of life at Westminster pleasantly surprised him. And with the General Election already feeling like a distant memory in a frenetic first week for the Labour government, Rob chats to Jo Timan from the Manchester Evening News about Andy Burnham and Ben Houchen's trip to Downing Street and why it matters that Keir Starmer's Cabinet is filled with Northern MPs. Plus: Is Reform UK now the main opposition to Labour in Greater Manchester and the North East? Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's General Election night and Rob Parsons has got himself a front row seat for one of the highest-profile counts in the North: Rishi Sunak's Richmond and Northallerton constituency in North Yorkshire. With Sunak's Conservatives facing near certain defeat to Labour in the polls, the media is waiting for the Prime Minister to show his face in the early hours of the morning - and that's if he can hold onto what used to be a safe seat. Hear Rob's dispatch from election night, where he speaks to some of the quirkier candidates including an intergalactic space traveller called Count Binface and the hopefuls from Labour and Reform UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week voters across the North will be going to the polls for the General Election with all the national polling pointing to a big Labour victory.  But Rob Parsons wants to hear what's happening at local level across the North of England and has reassembled a panel of top political journalists, Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfield from the Journal in the North East. They discuss why voters in the North are so disillusioned, what Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have been saying on their trips to our region...and perhaps most importantly their go-to snacks to keep them awake through a long election night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the run-up to the General Election, we've heard so much from the likes of Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey - wouldn't it be interesting to put the local candidates bidding for voters in the North in the spotlight for a change? This week on the Northern Agenda podcast, election rivals in the North East are taken to task over how they would combat soaring child poverty rates, the future of the NHS, pollution in our waterways, and more. Candidates from the five main parties contesting seats at the July 4 election took part in a special hustings hosted by ChronicleLive in Newcastle, two weeks before the UK goes to the polls. Clashing over issues including the two-child benefit cap and Tory plans for a new national service scheme were candidates Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Newcastle North), Nick Oliver (Conservative, Gateshead Central and Whickham), Natalie Younes (Liberal Democrat, North Northumberland), David Francis (Green, South Shields), and Lynn Murphy (Reform UK, Easington). As well as taking questions sent in by Chronicle readers during the debate, chaired by Journal editor Graeme Whitfield, a group of students from St Joseph’s Academy in Hebburn also challenged the candidates on key issues affecting young people. *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're 40 years on from the so-called Battle of Orgreave, when thousands of picketing miners were attacked by riot police in South Yorkshire in what has been described as one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history, with police using ‘paramilitary’ tactics. And to mark the occasion a new report, chronicling what campaigners say is decades of multi-agency cover up of state-orchestrated violence, has just been delivered to the leaders of the UK’s main political parties and the Home Office. With Labour promising a new investigation if they get into power on July 4, will we finally learn the truth about what happened on June 18,1984? Rob Parsons spoke to Chris Peace from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign. And after visiting Richmond in North Yorkshire last week, Rob goes about 100 miles south west to the seaside resort of Southport. It's the only area of Merseyside that doesn't have a Labour MP - but could that be about to change? And what, if anything, can politicians do to restore the fortunes of seaside resorts who are trying to reinvent themselves? *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

​W​e're three weeks into the General Election campaign and Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are staring down the barrel of an historic defeat that will see them reduced to just a handful of seats in the North of England and potentially scrapping with the Lib Dems and Reform UK to be the opposition to the next Labour government. It's been a torrid week for ​t​he Prime Minister - who's been hammered from all sides for skipping out of the D-Day 80th anniversary events early. So where better to get the view of voters than​ his own North Yorkshire constituency, home to the country's biggest Army base​? That's what​ Rob Parsons did - before the big D-Day row kicked off - to hear from voters in the market town of Richmond and find out about the hidden poverty in what most people consider a safe and leafy Tory seat. He also speaks to Jim Blagden, Associate Director for Research and Insights at More in Common, the think-tank founded after the murder of Yorkshire MP Jo Cox in 2016, about Labour's manifesto launch in Manchester, why the Tories lost the red wall and who exactly is 'Whitby Woman'. *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the next few weeks there's really only one story in town politics-wise and that's the 2024 General Election - the one that seems to have been on the horizon for months but in the end came quite unexpectedly with an announcement by Rishi Sunak in a rain-drenched Downing Street. Since then it's been a non-stop flurry of campaign stops, photo opportunities, social media blitzes and behind-closed-doors selections as political activists go hell-for-leather to boost their prospects ahead of the big day on July 4. There's no shortage of great analysis of the election but Rob Parsons wanted to get a really Northern perspective on what's happening and find out about some of the contests you might not be hearing about in the national media. He's joined by three of Reach Plc colleagues keeping an eye on politics across the North: Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfield, editor for the Journal in the North East. Find out why the ITV debate from Salford was massively frustrating, the seats to watch in Northern England and why there should be ice cream for hungry journalists on all campaign stops. And can we make some dad jokes about Taylor Swift? *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahead of the General Election on July 4th, we’re taking a look at one of the key policies from the 2019 Conservative manifesto.  Levelling up promised to boost Britain’s “left behind” areas, and helped Boris Johnson storm to victory as voters in former Labour heartlands turned to the Tories in droves.  You can find out more by listening to our episode from April 2022, titled “Levelling up: what it really means for the north” But have the Conservatives actually managed to deliver on their promise since then? The North in Numbers takes over the podcast this week, with Annie Gouk speaking to local leaders, policy experts and academics to find out how it’s going. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Rob Parsons joins 13,000 (mostly blue suit-wearing) delegates from the business and political worlds at a major property conference in Leeds - the UK's Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum. ​The likes of Angela Rayner and Alastair Campbell were among the speakers at the three-day event at Leeds' Royal Armouries - which saw hectic networking amid the torrential downpours as local leaders pitched for investment to get major projects off the ground. It was an event that showed how much the North's politicians need private investment to make their local areas thrive. And Rob talks over some of the highlights with Alistair Houghton, editor of the Business Live website, and Manchester Local Democracy Reporter Ethan Davies. Also listen out to hear about a fascinating new book about Manchester, a city whose recent economic growth and gleaming skyscrapers attract envious glances from many parts of the North, even if they wouldn't admit it publicly. Brian Groom, author of the best-selling 'Northerners', talks about his latest offering 'Made In Manchester: A People’s History of the City that Shaped the Modern World'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of us spend our days with a mobile phone practically glued to our hand - in fact you may well be listening to this podcast on it right now. And it's becoming more and more common for children to have a smart phone, some even before they start at secondary school. But there are more and more people who are terrified at what the ubiquity of smart phones and social media is doing to our children's minds, their mental health and their ability to learn. And one of the politicians articulating those fears most vocally is an MP in South Yorkshire, Miriam Cates, who this week led a debate at Westminster calling on the Government to take urgent action before it's too late. Rob Parsons speaks to her and also a former Yorkshire headteacher whose school introduced an effective ban on smart phones because of what it was doing to students' behaviour.  And he chats to Local Democracy Reporter Dan Holland about one of the more interesting developments in Northern politics this week, namely the relationship between civic and business leaders in the North East of England and the oil-rich Gulf state of Saudi Arabia. We know Manchester's booming economy has been achieved thanks in large part to massive private investment encouraged by city leaders, including the Abu Dhabi royal family who now own Manchester City Football Club. But is something similar on the verge of happening in the football-mad city of Newcastle - and why are many in the North opposed to it? The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're a week on from the local and mayoral elections and the dust is still settling on a set of results which dealt another major blow to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives. And it was the election of metro mayors - the political figureheads for big regions like the North East, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire - which made most of the headlines. But while most Westminster pundits - and Rishi Sunak himself, are preoccupied with what these results mean for the upcoming General Election, there's a lot less attention being paid to the mayors themselves. Who are they, what are their policies and why are people voting for them, if they bother to vote at all? And do they really know how to run their regions better than Westminster? This week as the new mayors got back to work after the elections Rob Parsons speaks to one of them, South Yorkshire's Oliver Coppard, about why he's prioritising transport in his second term.  And Rob gets the bigger picture with three brilliant guests: Jen Williams, Northern Correspondent for the Financial Times, who wrote a great piece last week about how the mayoral elections mark a milestone for English devolution and has taken a particular interest in the affairs of Tees Valley Ben Houchen.  Gill Morris, executive chair of Devo Inflect, the UK's leading devolution public affairs agency.  Professor Katy Shaw from Northumbria University is one of the experts who helped write Gordon Brown's commission on the UK's future, setting out plans for sweeping constitutional change, which Labour leader Keir Starmer has promised to implement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Parsons reports from a​ sports hall in the town of Thornaby-on-Tees - where he's witnessed perhaps the only bright spot for Rishi Sunak in what ​w​as a miserable local and mayoral election night for his Conservative Party. ​T​he Tories ​look to be on course to lose 500 local election seats in what could be their worst showing in 40 years.​ They were thrashed in the Blackpool South by-election and even managed to lose the mayoral race in Rishi Sunak's backyard in North Yorkshire. ​But there was a silver lining in the form of ​Ben Houchen, described by many as the poster-boy for Conservatism in the North of England, who was re-elected mayor of the Tees Valley region but saw his majority over Labour dramatically cut, ​securing almost 82,000 votes compared with the 63,000 votes received by Labour’s Chris McEwan.   Rob hears directly from Lord Houchen after his victory and watches a remarkable confrontation between the mayor and one of his main critics, journalist Richard Brooks of Private Eye. There's also voice notes from local journalists Joseph Timan in Greater Manchester and Susan Newton at the Blackpool South by-election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Rob Parsons focuses on the parts of the country where millions of us live - the so-called coalfield or ex-mining communities - and find out what the future holds for them. There's a new report out this week from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust setting out how the areas whose miners used to power industrial Britain are still lagging behind the big cities when it comes to jobs. But crucially they have a vision for how they can catch up, and Rob speaks to Andy Lock from the charity to hear what needs to happen. Also, there's a week to go until large parts of the North go to the polls on May 2 and there's plenty on the line - not just in places like the Tees Valley and North East which are electing metro mayors but also towns and cities where control of local councils is at stake. But where are the most interesting races in the North and how much do they matter? Rob is joined by Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive of the Local Government Information Unit - a not-for-profit organisation which produces an annual report on the local council elections to watch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which political story should we be paying more attention to: the saga of Angela Rayner's council house in Stockport or that of Lancashire MP Mark Menzies, who is accused of using political donations to cover medical expenses and pay off “bad people” who had locked him in a flat and demanded thousands of pounds for his release? This week Rob Parsons compares the merits of these two stories with the Liverpool Echo's Liam Thorp. Meanwhile Liam tells us why he believes it was right to identify two local politicians who failed to pay council tax and why 'XL Gullies' are proving a menace to hungry workers in Liverpool city centre. PLUS: Regular listeners to the podcast will have heard about lots of different examples of the North of England being on the wrong end of stark regional inequality. But it's still shocking to find out there are big differences in the numbers of vulnerable children going into care between our region and other parts of the country. A new report sets out how one in every 52 children in Blackpool is in care compared with one in 140 across England, while the North of England accounts for just over a quarter (28%) of the child population, but more than a third (36%) of the children in care. There's a human cost but an economic one too. Researchers for Health Equity North say if the North of England had experienced the same rates of children entering care as the South between 2019 and 2023, “it would have saved at least £25 billion”. To find out why this is happening Rob speaks to one of the authors of the report, Professor David Taylor-Robinson from the University of Liverpool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week​,​ Rob Parsons speaks to an author who's asked the question: How did the North become a place of lost potential and broken dreams? And what can be done to make it one of the most dynamic and forward-looking places in the world once again? Alex Niven is the man behind the book The North Will Rise Again, which covers the colourful adventures of its inhabitants, the expansiveness and optimism that defines Northern culture, A native Northerner himself, having returned to his home city of Newcastle with his family in the last few years, Alex explores issues like radical regionalism, Northern identity austerity, the impact of Brexit, the collapse of Labour's 'Red Wall', and calls for regional devolution. ​Meanwhile, with a General Election coming this year and Labour miles ahead in the polls, ​i​t's high time we scrutinised what a change of Government might mean for the North of England. It's been very easy for Keir Starmer's Labour Party to slam the failings of levelling up and the promises of the Boris Johnson Government that failed to materialise, but voters up here deserve to know exactly what the Opposition would do differently if they got into power. So how much do we know about Labour's policies which might affect the North? Someone who's been looking at just that subject is Joseph Timan, political writer for the Manchester Evening News​,​ he tells Rob what we've learned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week the Northern Agenda podcast comes from the headquarters of the North East's Chronicle and Journal newspapers in the centre of Newcastle for a special mayoral hustings edition. In a month's time one of the five people speaking to Rob Parsons over the conference room table will be the new elected mayor of the North East. They'll have powers and funding - some £4.2bn over 30 years - to impact the lives of millions of people in a huge patch stretching from Berwick to Barnard Castle. So the stakes will be high when voters across Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland pick their preferred candidate - meaning there is all the more reason to know who they are and what they'll do if they get into power. Joining Rob Parsons for the hustings is Jamie Driscoll, the independent candidate who is currently mayor of the North of Tyne, university archivist Andrew Gray standing for the Green Party and Dr Aidan King, who works at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary for the Liberal Democrats. Labour's candidate is Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness and for the Conservatives we have Northumberland County Councillor Guy Renner Thompson. Sunderland councillor Paul Donaghy, who is Reform UK's candidate, couldn't make it so has sent in a recorded message. Hear them set out how they'd approach the job and their position on the big issues that will likely matter to voters, including answers to questions sent in by Chronicle and Journal readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the next few months as the impending General Election dominates our politics, The Northern Agenda podcast is going on the road. Across the North of England voters will be going to the polls five years on from the dramatic 2019 election where large swathes of our region broke the habit of decades by switching their allegiance from Labour to the Tories, putting Boris Johnson into Downing Street in the process. If the polls are anything to go by, those so-called 'red wall' seats are now set to go back to Labour - plus a few more besides. But polling can only tell us so much about what’s happened in the North in the last 5 years. We want to hear from these Northern communities directly so between now and the election The Northern Agenda will be going to key seats around the North, we might even venture into the Midlands, to find out what’s making them tick. First stop for Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons is the seaside resort of Blackpool, where there will soon be an early electoral test for Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak. In just a few weeks there’s going to be a by-election in the Blackpool South constituency after its MP, Conservative Scott Benton, was caught by The Times newspaper offering to lobby ministers and table parliamentary questions on behalf of gambling investors. But there’s more reason to care about Blackpool than just political intrigue - it tells us a fascinating story about the decline of coastal towns and the challenges facing the so-called ‘levelling up’ agenda. So have a listen as The Northern Agenda takes the temperature at the country’s most popular seaside resort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is it that bright young people from the North are so much less likely to apply for our two most prestigious universities, Cambridge and Oxford, than their counterparts in the South East and London? It's a question that gets right to the heart of our North-South divide and this week on the podcast Rob Parsons tries to answer it with the help of a Cambridge University academic who got a place there as a working class daughter of a cleaner from Greater Manchester. Director of Admissions at Cambridge's Pembroke College, Dr Caroline Burt, is now trying to ensure more people like her follow the same path. She also has a book out, calle 'Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State' - find out more about it at this link. The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons​.​ This week's episode is produced by ​C​eleste Adams You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices