WHO says politics in Manchester is dead? Following the news that BBC1 New Labour drama The Project is being shot in the city's town hall, it seems there's a Mancunian connection to another major corridors of power-style series.

For Clocking Off and Linda Green writer Paul Abbott, I hear, is penning a new hard-hitting drama for the Beeb about government's dangerous liaisons with big business.

Filming begins this August on State Of Play, which centres on the suspicious deaths linking a political researcher and a drug dealer.

"The pitch is probably `political thriller' though that makes it sound sad and dusty when in fact it goes like a train, mainly around all the emotional relationships and hidden agendas," says Abbott, clearly not averse to giving his latest offering a bit of spin.

Meanwhile, the former Corrie writer has also been commissioned to pen another big budget confection for ITV1, a two-parter called Dead Romantic. Tweet