A new survey has revealed that Manchesteris the top rated city to replace London as the capital of the UK.
Manchester has got a few new titles to its name in recent weeks, having been crowned the best UK city for retail and leisure in 2022, and just last week being named by The Economist as the 28th most liveable city in the world in the ‘Global Liveability Index 2022’ – being the highest-rated UK city on the list, and beating out big hitters like Barcelona, New York city, and our own country’s capital in the process.
But it looks like the titles just won’t stop coming for our city.
According to a YouGov poll conducted for Times Radio this week, one in six people – around 16% – are in support of moving the UK capital away from London, and among those who wanted a new capital city, more than half backed Manchester to take over.
From all the respondents who voted in the poll, even those who did not support changing the capital, Manchester beat out all the competition to take the top spot overall on the new rankings – with 25% of those polled picking the city, followed by 19% for Birmingham, and 17% for Edinburgh.
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Out of those people polled who supported the idea of a new UK capital, an impressive 55% of respondents voted for Manchester.
Nandy was talking to me about levelling-up for a discussion about moving the capital out of London.@YouGov poll for @TimesRadio shows 16% support changing the UK’s capital city. 20% Labour 2019 voters. 21% in North.
Trailing behind Manchester, 42% picked fellow North West city Liverpool, 39% went for Birmingham, and 37% chose to go for Leeds, while other major UK cities Newcastle, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Cardiff, Cambridge, Portsmouth, and Belfast all also received votes.
The survey comes after a think-tank just yesterday said Greater Manchester would need “tens of billions of pounds of investment”, as well as more graduates working in the region and significantly more employment opportunities in order to level it up.
It also comes as Lisa Nandy, Labour MP for Wigan, discussed this ongoing levelling up debate with The Times.
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When asked about moving the prospect of moving the capital city away from London, Nandy comically said: “Just not Wigan is my plea. I don’t want a load of lords in ermine and a load of MPs sitting in my local pub.”
She also discussed the idea that reopening popular nightclubs may help struggling towns, adding that Wigan particularly misses its old northern soul past.
Manchester is the top rated city to replace London as the capital of the UK / Credit: Mangopear Creative (via Unsplash)
Nandy continued: “Every single town has lost a nightclub that they feel very strongly about, that was part of our history and our heritage.
“Live music venues that used to sustain bands like the Verve who come from Wigan, who could gig and play around Wigan, not just have to travel into Manchester to do it, those things have disappeared in the last couple of decades.
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“So there is a serious point behind this.
“Because as well as providing those opportunities for young people from every part of the country and the culture and the history and the identity that goes with it, it means that we’re reflected in the national story.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
28th June 2022 
