THEY say the Beetham Tower is visible from 10 counties.

You can see it from Liverpool. You can see it from Marple. And you can certainly see it from the inner-city estates of Harpurhey, Miles Platting and Beswick.

But what do people there think when they look up at this great glass monument to modern Manchester, then look around at their own lives?

The Bishop of Hulme, Stephen Lowe, re-opened the debate this week when he claimed the regeneration of the city centre masked a failure to improve the circumstances, and life chances, of those living in estates nearby.

"The levels of poverty and deprivation in north Manchester remain a shameful open wound on our city's life," he said.

Now you can question whether the church has any business commenting on public affairs. On the facts of the matter, though, the bishop is indisputably right.

Despite all the regeneration going on in the city centre, Manchester's status as one of the most deprived places in Britain has barely changed over the past two decades.

In 1991, the city was 13th. By 1998, it was up to third. In 2000 it dropped back to seventh, before moving back to second - behind only Liverpool - in 2004.

By 2007, Manchester was officially the fourth most deprived place in the country. One in ten Mancunians were among the one per cent of the most deprived Britons - the majority living in a vast swathe of estates to the east and north of the gleaming city centre.

What does this mean for the residents of these areas? It means they are more likely to be victims of crime, more likely to suffer ill health, less likely to have jobs and less likely to see their children succeed. It means they are more likely to live in substandard housing, and less likely to have the skills they need to break the cycle.

Let's look at a couple of examples. Around 14 per cent of children in Miles Platting and Newton Heath achieved no GCSE qualifications - not even a single `G' grade - in 2007. The national average is around one per cent.

Mancunian men live on average four years less than those in other parts of the country and around one in four adults is either unemployed or on long-term benefits.

But the differences are not just between Manchester and the rest of Britain. Rates of lung cancer are four times higher in Beswick and Clayton than in Didsbury. You are twice as likely to be a victim of crime if you live in Harpurhey than if you live in Chorlton.

It is not that the local authorities are unaware of these issues. It is not that they have done nothing about them, or that all their efforts have been fruitless. `Sharing the wealth' is one of the council's guiding policies; until the credit crunch struck, unemployment had been falling and rates of educational achievement creeping up. But their powers to transform inner-city estates simply don't match the scale of the problem.

It was only at the last Budget, for example, that Greater Manchester's 10 councils were finally told they would be allowed to take control of providing adults with work-related skills. Until then decisions were taken by quangos and the government - distant bodies less able to understand what needed to be done, and how.

For local government, opportunities for large-scale, one-off interventions are few and far between. That is why the council - and, indeed, the M.E.N - took the morally difficult decision to back plans for Britain's first supercasino, in east Manchester.

It wasn't that they, and we, were unaware of the possibility of creating `problem gambling' in areas that could least afford it. It was that the need for 3,000 low-skilled jobs in Beswick was such that the risk was one worth taking. Then Gordon Brown decided he knew better, and took those jobs away.

It has become fashionable, as the government moves towards likely election defeat, to discuss the demise of `new Labour'. But the more pressing issue is this: what, exactly, has the party achieved in its 12 years in power? What has it done for the people who put it there, and who needed it most?

Certainly, there have been measures making life better in Beswick and Harpurhey. The minimum wage for example, the SureStart scheme, heavy investment in schools and hospitals. But the fact remains that for people in those wards - and many like them - equality of opportunity remains a distant prospect.

The fact remains that, more likely than not, their children will die sooner, having earned less money and achieved fewer qualifications than others just a mile or so down the road.

Perhaps the problems run too deep for any government to solve. Perhaps the lesson is not that ministers should have done more, but that it should have let Manchester do more for itself.

Either way, there will be plenty of people looking up at the Beetham Tower today not feeling pride, not even resentment, but that it is the symbol of something that has nothing to do with them at all.

MPs should Tweet about what's important

WILLIAM Hague used it to review Lady Gaga's performance at the Glastonbury festival.

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd used it to tell the world about the mood of his dog (`happy') and cat (`grumpy').

Now Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, has been using it to reveal his battle with suspected swine flu.

Yes, politicians can't get enough of Twitter, the website where users simply write a sentence or two about what they think, or what they have been doing, for the whole of cyberspace to see.

Perhaps it is the thrill of the new, and the dozens of MPs `tweeting' every day will soon dry up. I hope not, though.

One of the big problems with modern politics is the lack of direct, elected-to-elector communication.

If that has to be over the internet, then fine: only I do wish politicians would write a bit more about matters of concern to their constituents, and a bit less about what they have had for dinner.

Follow David on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/davidottewell 

Discuss politics with him at: blogs.manchesterevening news.co.uk/politics