Sir Richard Leese, who stood down yesterday after being cautioned for assaulting his stepdaughter, has led Manchester city council for 14 tumultuous years, through the devastation of the IRA bombing and the triumphant staging of the Commonwealth Games; overseeing a dramatic regeneration of Britain’s second city.
Ray King charts a career at the pinnacle of local politics:
UNLIKE his predecessor Graham Stringer, who stepped down as leader of Manchester City council in 1996 to stand for Parliament in Tony Blair’s landslide General Election the following year, Sir Richard Leese had held a number of key town hall roles before taking the helm.
A loyal member of Stringer’s hard left Labour faction that seized power in 1984, Sir Richard served as chairman of both education and finance committees and became deputy leader in 1990.
Born and brought up in Mansfield, Notts, and having worked as a teacher in Coventry after graduating at Warwick University, he arrived in Manchester as a youth worker and became a councillor in 1984.
Yet Leese, taciturn and far less likely to court the media than Stringer or his long-time sidekick Pat Karney, remained a relatively unknown quantity with voters when he successfully bid for the leadership. So much so that one Saturday morning in June 1996, just six weeks after Leese took office, the Labour group convened a meeting in the town hall’s Banqueting Room to discuss ways of raising his profile.
They didn’t have to wait long. In the middle of the meeting, a few seconds after 11.17am, the town hall was rocked to its foundations as the biggest bomb ever detonated on the British mainland in peacetime destroyed the commercial heart of the city centre.
The shock was profound and called for resolute leadership. Leese and his immediate colleagues delivered, though his assertion, as much of the city centre lay in ruins, that “Manchester will be back on its feet to fight another day” seemed more in hope than immediate expectation.
For apart from the appalling damage, estimated at more than half a billion pounds, two key events seemed to loom even closer: the opening of the Trafford Centre within two years while the city centre’s retail heart was crippled, and the Commonwealth Games which would demand heavy investment in infrastructure.
The temptation to patch up and mend the devastated city centre was extraordinarily strong, but it is to Leese’s lasting credit that the city council decided to take a longer view – to seize opportunity out of tragedy and rebuild according to a radical masterplan that would see Manchester fit for the 21st Century. The gamble paid off handsomely.
As a close lieutenant of Stringer during the turbulent 1980s, when he and colleagues really believed that an alliance of like-minded leftist local authorities and the National Union of Mineworkers could bring down Margaret Thatcher, Leese too made the profound political U-turn during Labour’s post defeat dog days of 1987-8 and embraced the private sector as the only credible method of boosting jobs and the local economy. It could be said that in doing so, Leese was one of the founding fathers of New Labour long before Tony Blair’s famous “project”.
Once the leap had been made, and Liverpool’s Militants were self-destructing, Manchester’s Labour leaders sought new horizons, bidding twice to stage the Olympic Games and working in close co-operation with Tory minister Michael Heseltine to implement City Challenge and transform inner-city Hulme, where Leese had been a prime mover.
Leese and his colleagues were able to adapt the formula that proved so successful in turning round Hulme’s fortunes to facilitate the regeneration of the devastated city centre. The late 1990s and early years of the 21st Century provided Manchester with a new dawn, celebrated by the stunningly successful staging of the Commonwealth Games in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year of 2002. Securing the budget had been a very scary ride, but the mission was well and truly accomplished and received worldwide tribute. It’s success boosted London’s Olympic bid.
The town hall’s “can do” attitude was also successful in kick-starting one of the biggest regeneration programmes in Europe – the on-going strategy in east Manchester, a vast area left desolate by the collapse of traditional industries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Leese’s most notable setback was the overwhelming rejection by Greater Manchester voters of proposals to impose a Congestion Charge on drivers in return for the promise of major investment in public transport including the completion of Metrolink’s “Big Bang”. The controversy had been sparked by the Labour government’s refusal to meet the massively escalating cost of extending the tram system. Leese’s that there was “no Plan B”, subsequently proved inaccurate.
But the increasingly skilled and experienced political operator had been astute enough to detach the C-Charge from mainstream politics by, late in the day, approving a referendum on the issue, thus removing it as a local election issue that could have done Labour real damage.
As chairman of the North West Leaders’ Board, Leese has been at the centre of the drive towards creating a city-region “super council” aimed at garnering more clout for his dream of Manchester being at the hub of a “knowledge economy” capable of taking forward devolved powers from London.
His knightood in 2006, for services to local government, recognised a long and winding road from wanting to abolish the office of Lord Mayor of Manchester to pragmatic achiever of many cherished goals. But it now remains to be seen how much the current personal controversy may damage his future ambition.
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Is this an obituary ?
personally, i hate what manchester has become. someone said "overpriced wine bars" on a comment before, sums it up nicely in my opinion.
Absolute rubbish. Do these guys ever walk the streets of Manchester?
Mark Radcliffe, brilliant post if I may say so! LOL
I was thinking the same thing, has King emailed the wrong Word Doc from his Blackberry to his Editor.
I have to take issue with Vote Green.
I have lived abroad for the last 23 years but come home frequently to see family, friends and watch City.
Sometimes I bring friends with me who have never visited the city before. Almost all are impressed with what they find. Having witnessed at first hand the depredations of the 70s and 80s, I am equally impressed.
Manchester, due to a few visionaries and the mass of talented, energetic and abidingly friendly local people, has managed to gear up its act without losing its heart.
In 2010 I'm still proud to call myself a Mancunian.
I don't ever remember the people of Manchester voting for Richard Leese to be their leader??
And go to places like Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham & Glasgow etc - and you'll see just as much regeneration there, if not more. (Much of it of a far higher quality than is allowed by Manchester Planning Department too.) Then there's London! What you'll also see in those cities are better performing schools, police forces, hospitals and citizens with longer life expectancy levels & better health - than here in Manchester also.
I've never understood why the "awestruck" MEN have always been so "uncritical" of Leese, Bernstein, Stringer and our Labour council???
14 years as leader of the council had given Sir Richard "feet under the table" syndrome. He came over on TV as arrogant and codescending to those that had a different view on things. He had that awfull trait of "I know best so dont argue" attitude. He may not have been like hat, it was how he appeared.
He was in power through a period of unknown economic boom that has affected and benefited the whole country. It doesnt prove that he was responsible for the regeneration of the city, it may well have happened anyway. It may possibly have had a better outcome with someone else at the helm, we will never know.
It is time to give someone else a turn.
Vote Green, Salford 15/04/2010 at 13:50
A blunt, short and simple comment that is completely true, but once upon a time, the overpriced bars were not for the thugs. These days, the more expensive, the more trouble, and the very vast majority does not get reported in the media.
What a piece of unmitigated trash this story is.
Leese got his Knighthood after doing a backflip on the congestion charge (First it was bad then he was knighted then it was good!) he tried to sell out the people of this city for a title and a few quid (Which we had to pay back anyway).
Add to that the debacle of the inviting the Rangers fans to booze and loot their way round Manchester and his completely inappropriate remarks about schools closing due to the snow and ice (Whilst again letting us down with regards to gritting) and what you have is a self serving man who is well past his sell by date.
Anyone who expects the public to rally round him on the back of this article is simply delusional.
@Mick, "blah blah some words from a guy who only comes around once in a blue moon blah"
no one said its not a nice place to visit, its just not a nice place to live.
@schgittor, "These days, the more expensive, the more trouble, and the very vast majority does not get reported in the media. "
this is true, and thats why im glad to say im gone. i just got my visa through, come next month im outta here for at least the next year. :D
Mark, South Manchester...........are you on drugs man, if you have visted any of the places you have mentioned you seriuosly cannot say that these places are better than Manchester.Take a look at national statistics and each one of the cities you mention have higher crime rates,drug users and crime stats through drug abuse, higher murder rates in relation to populous,unemployment per populous and you must be walking about with your eyes closed every day as this city is full of the most beautiful architecture both old and new in the country. I say you are a bafoon and if you think these lower rate cities are better than Manchester why don't you go and live there?
What a load of Tommy Rot. The comments on the stories relating to Leese prove without a shadow of a doubt he is not liked and no one is sorry to see the back of him which says it all really.
If leaving Manchester with a plethora of bars and restaurants that few can afford and who fewer can smoke at defines his tenure as leader then thank god he's gone. Manchester is great because of it's people not because of a load of pen-pushing, self-serving, scroungers like him. Surely the leader of our council should be Mancunian too, why would someone from Notts care about us or am I being parochial?
Just look at Piccadilly Gardens, a total disgrace, he destroyed that part of the city and robbed the people of Manchester of a great public space. The Shambles is now a real shambles, and this is supposed to be his great legacy. These are just two examples. What a pillock.
No doubt we will hear more about the incident that led up to this, but the fact is that Richard Leese is one of the very few local politicans who has the ear of national government. He has delivered tremendously for Manchester over many years, and this has brought huge benefits for the rest of the region - the fact is that businesses have invested in Bolton, Salford, Trafford and the rest because they are next to Manchester. Leese and co. whatever problems people may have with their political approach were the first to understand that investment and real jobs come from the private sector - that means attracting (and retaining) people with money. While lots of other places have voted out Labour councils in recent years, the people of Manchester have continued to vote in a Labour council because they have seen the benefits - most of the commenters on this story across the MEN website seem to have a problem with the people not voting the way they would prefer. From the comments that have been posted so far, I'm glad the majority has won out, although perhaps the MEN might want to consider whether giving such prominence to the howlings of the lunatic fringe devalues its editorial coverage.
John Farrell,Mr Leese may have had the ear of the Government,but he also had the ear of his 16 year old step-daughter.Everything else pails into insignificance.
So what----he won't be missed
Leese has proved to be out of step withthe people of Manchester - probably because he isn't a mancunian. Perhaps we no longer want a 'hard left' puppet running the show. Good bye. Good riddance. Fingers crossed Chaos Karney disappears too.
Over the past 14 years whilst leading the council he has overseen a vast transformation of our fantastic city centre following the devastation of the IRA bomb in 1986.
Not only was the day and night time economy badly affected by that atrocity, but businesses then suffered from lawlessness and a severe gang culture sweeping the pubs and clubs in and around the city centre in the early 1990's, resulting in that people were reluctant to come into the city at night.
Thanks to Richard, he tackled the problem head on and with the help of Greater Manchester Police he arranged rolling road blocks to stop search and deter potential trouble makers from coming into the city centre venues causing problems, and with Richards help the Pub and club network was able to approach the council to raise their concerns and problems and help eradicate the climate of fear that existed.
Now Manchester has a vibrant Night time Economy which is well known and respected around the world , the amount of calls the Pub and Club Network receives from around the country and the world is unbelievable and extremely positive thanks to Richards passion and love of the fantastic city he has help build and sustain as leader of our city council.
And because of his ongoing passion for the city centre we have seen vast investment from both corporate and private sectors investing into the local economy bringing in thousands of Jobs and needed business to our city centre. He supported calls and worked closely with Pat Karney to allow Manchester to become a 24/7 city.
There have been many excellent and worthwhile initiatives spear headed by Sir Richard and the Manchester Pub and Club Network , we are proud to work closely with Richard and hope to continue to give him our full support as leader of the council.
Regards
Phi Burke
Press & Publicity Spokesperson
Manchester Pub & Club Network