Eyes & Ears Extra was delayed this week because of the Great North Run. Old habits die hard, you see.
I was editor of The Journal for 11 Great North Runs. And I was well aware of the part the newspaper and one of my predecessors, Phillip Crawley, played in helping Brendan Foster realise his vision for what has become the world’s biggest and best half marathon.
In the early days, the only way you could take part was by filling in a form in the newspaper, cutting it out, and posting it to one of Brendan’s staff. A genius proposition from a newspaper sales point of view.
How times have changed.
Images of the Red Arrows flying over the Tyne Bridge have become iconic. The one above from Simon Williams is brilliant.
Brendan, you won’t be surprised to hear, was behind bringing in the Red Arrows. And he was always thinking of a different ‘angle’. I took a call from him one year asking that if he could arrange for a photograph to be taken from ABOVE the Red Arrows as they flew over the Tyne Bridge would I guarantee to put it on the front page of The Journal.
“Yes”
The easiest question I have ever had to answer.
Dodgy knees meant I sat at home this year and watched the Great North Run on the telly. What a spectacle. So many great stories. And what a brilliant advert for the North East.
Caught off guard
Middlesbrough is to get it’s own mini police force to tackle retail crime and anti-social behaviour. The plan was revealed by Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen during his monthly phone-in on Radio Tees - although it sounds as if there was more than a touch of thunder-stealing about it.
Middlesbrough mayor Chris Cooke said: “Crime and anti-social behaviour in our town centre harms businesses and does damage to our reputation. That’s why I’ve been leading detailed discussions for some time on the scheme that Ben Houchen has now prematurely announced.”
It is hoped that recruitment for eight ‘town guards’ will begin in the next few months. They will be formally trained and accredited with police-approved powers - not just observe and report.
Middlesbrough Development Corporation (MDC) will recruit the guards with £1.3m funding from the Tees Valley Combined Authority. Cooke said: “If this comes to pass, it will finally be something the MDC has delivered for our town – over three years since it was launched to much fanfare.”
Stepping down
Leading Labour councillor Dan Greenhough, who stood against Nick Kemp for leadership of Newcastle’s Labour group in May 2024, has stepped down from the city council’s cabinet.
His decision is understood to have been made for personal reasons rather than being linked to the infighting that has engulfed the city’s Labour ranks in the past few years.
Kemp, who won the leadership contest, resigned a year ago after an allegation of bullying was made by the director of investment and growth Michelle Percy - who recently left the council following a mutual agreement.
The council commissioned an external law firm to investigate the bullying allegation in November last year. Their report has only been submitted to the council in the past few days and the findings will be reported to the council’s audit and standards committee on September 30.
A year!
Sarah’s on board
NewcastleGateshead chief executive Sarah Green has been appointed to the board of VisitEngland for a five-year term.
Under her leadership NGI was awarded England’s first Local Visitor Economy Partnership accreditation in 2022 and secured a £2.8 million boost from UK Government to lead England’s first Destination Development Partnership pilot.
She said: “To be part of VisitEngland’s board is an incredible opportunity to work alongside industry leaders and forward-thinkers to support the growth, competitiveness, and reputation of our visitor economy.”
She has been appointed alongside Helen Bonser-Wilton who has been chief executive of Leeds Castle Foundation since 2021.
Talking of tourism
The think tank True North is holding a conference on the visitor economy at Raby Castle this Friday, September 12, when speakers will include Beamish CEO Rhiannon Hiles, North East Screen chief executive Alison Gwynn and former True Potential CEO Daniel Harrison, family owner of Matfen Hall.
True North steering group member Amanda Hopgood, the opposition leader at Durham County Council, said: “I look forward to welcoming people from across the North East, Teesside and Cumbria to our focus on tourism and our theme of how we grow the tourism sector and offer in the North.”
Sam’s helping hand
Funds raised from Sam Fender’s arena tour have been distributed to support 38 independent music venues across the country.
The Music Venue Trust (MVT) said £100,000 had been distributed, via its Liveline Fund, with 19 venues receiving urgent emergency assistance to prevent closure and another 19 receiving direct improvement grants.
Sam is one of several artists to adopt a £1 ticket levy to support grassroots venues. Other early adopters include Mumford & Sons, Katy Perry and Coldplay.
Sam said: “The grassroots circuit has been decimated over the last 10 years or so and the idea that money from shows in big venues supports the smaller venues, where it all starts for musicians like me, is just common sense. These places are legendary.”
North East venues to benefit include NE Volume Music Bar & Venue in Stockton and Newcastle venues Little Buildings and The Globe.
Life changer
Changing Lives chief executive Stephen Bell has chalked up 30 years with the North East-based charity. They were a small homeless charity called the Tyneside Cyrenians and had 25 staff when he took over in 1995.
The name Changing Lives was adopted in 2013 to reflect its expanded services and national reach. Today they have around 600 staff supporting vulnerable people from Northumberland to London.
Confession: I have first-hand knowledge of the fantastic work they do because I was their media and PR consultant for several years - and I know how brilliant Stephen is.
Cap fits
North East mayor Kim McGuinness says she wants to extend the £2.50 cap on a single bus fare beyond the end of the year until “at least” March 2026. The national cap is £3.
News matters
Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in US history, but in so-called “news deserts” - counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche, with Trump winning 91% of them.
That’s a staggering statistic, and one that was highlighted in an article in The Conversation this week headlined ‘Reform v the Nottingham Post: why local media is crucial to democracy’.
The Reform leader of Nottinghamshire council took exception to a story about potential changes to council boundaries. As a result, Reform councillors will no longer talk to Post or Nottinghamshire Live journalists, send them press releases or invite them to media events - with these measures extended to include BBC-funded local democracy reporters who are often shared across regional newsrooms.
Editor Natalie Fahy pointed out the ban goes against Reform’s stated support of free speech and transparency.
Richard Jones from Salford University said: “This gets us to why it matters. Reporting local politics is a classic function of journalism. The fact that our politicians regularly meet, consider business and debate issues in public has long been part of democracy.
“But hardly anyone actually goes to council meetings. It is journalists who can keep a close eye and tell us all what’s happening.”
Jones, the university’s director of journalism, politics and contemporary history, said Reform’s attitude to reporters in Nottinghamshire is a concern, but a far bigger threat is the finances of regional media companies.
“In 2007, the local sector employed about 9,000 journalists and had revenue of £2.4 billion. By 2022, those figures had declined below 3,000 and £600m. Consigned to regional hubs and home offices, local journalists are no longer working for grand civic institutions.
“In the US these trends have moved faster, so we can see where we might be heading.”
Digging the dirt
There’s been a lot said and written about Angela Rayner in the past two weeks. I don’t really want to add to it. I will point out, however, that former Sun editor David Yelland took to social media on August 24 to say that a couple of national newspapers had put ‘teams’ on her, a clear reference that they were digging for dirt.
Talk of Rayner’s ‘property empire’ soon quietened down when it became clear that one house had been put into a trust for her disabled son and a second was a grace and favour property which every deputy leader can use while in position.
If those newspapers were keen to take a closer look at MPs with a potential property empire, they could have started with the MPs register of interests which show that 83 are landlords - the number was 93 before last July’s election.
The Telegraph, however, scented blood with the amount of stamp duty paid by Rayner on her new home in Brighton, and later said that her resignation was “courtesy of a Telegraph tax investigation”.
That will be the same Telegraph that 10 days ago had this advice for readers…
Musical chairs
Angela Rayner’s resignation prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer into a Cabinet reshuffle.
Tynemouth MP Sir Alan Campbell was appointed leader of the House of Commons, replacing Lucy Powell. An MP since 1997, Campbell has vast experience in the whips office, having been Labour’s deputy chief whip and then chief whip since 2010.
Slightly surprised that business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds has been moved from that position to become Chief Whip. And sorry to see the departure of Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell, who has served in the Department for Education ministerial team since last July’s election victory.
She said: “Whilst grateful to be offered a role, I’ve made the decision to resign. I’m looking forward to spending more time in Newcastle and in Parliament fighting for the city I’m proud to call home.”
Redcar MP Anna Turley has been promoted to the key party management and campaigning role of Labour Party Chair.
Hypocratic oaf
Want to know what kind of person is putting up the St George’s Cross and Union Flags on lampposts around the country? The Mill has the answer, thanks to a piece of investigative journalism that is all too rare in regional media these days.
Step forward Salford T-Bone, aka Lee Twamley, and his 16-strong collective called Churchill’s Lions who have been hanging flags across Manchester as part of an online movement called Operation Raise The Colours.
It turns out though that T-Bone (is that meant to be a step up from being a Gammon?) is a convicted people smuggler and was jailed in 2016 for trying to bring migrants to the UK.
T-Bone was rather reluctant to engage with The Mill’s reporter but he shrugged off the hypocrisy of his actions as “old news” and later took to social media to say that the people he was trying to bring to the country illegally were destined to work on cannabis farms and that they wouldn’t be claiming benefits or abusing women and girls.
So, that’s all right then.