My final offer: Honest Bob checks his pockets for Covid loose change

Communities secretary fends off plea by Andy Burnham for extra cash for locking down Manchester You’d have thought that if anyone was capable of brokering a financial deal between central government and Greater Manchester it would have been the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick. After all, Honest Bob has a track record of magicking money out of thin air. Just weeks after sharing a table with the pornographer turned property developer, Richard Desmond, Honest Bob had unlawfully overturned a planning permission refusal on the Westferry development to save Dirty Des £45m with just a day to spare.But this time there was no deal to be had. Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, along with other local leaders, had calculated that £90m was the minimum the region needed to boost the lowest paid workers to 80% of their former salaries after being moved into tier 3 lockdown restrictions. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/20/my-final-offer-honest-bob-checks-his-pockets-for-covid-loose-change #andy_burnham #boris_johnson #robert_jenrick #coronavirus #manchester #greater_manchester #income_inequality #politics #uk_news