The government promised councils money for covid at the start of the crisis. It told councils to spend what they needed and it would fund covid spending. Then the government changed its mind and gave a fraction of what it promised, leaving councils which had already spent the money up shit creek.
Manchester is particularly hard hit by this and the fact its councils own Manchester Airport and get a lot of their income from the running of the airport.
So there was a big black covid hole in finances in July.
Before you start adding in lost revenue for council tax and business rates.
And then the local lockdown happened.
And some councils had to fund local track and trace because central government fucked the national one. They got no funding for this.
And thats where we were at before this row blew up.
The government will seek to paint Manchester as being financially mismanaged. There may not be enough money to get through the year yet. However its an extraordinary crisis and the government has already fucked over councils once before this year, and in cases where theyve had to fund local track and trace without government support to this point that's even more the case.
That is not taking into account the actual impact of having prolonged restrictions unlike the rest of the country and other parts of the north.
Its utterly appalling how this has been handled. When Burnham says they need the money in this context i do think its genuine and i dont think its opportunism. At all.
I might also add that there clearly history here and Johnson sees Burnham as a threat to him.
When Johnson launched his manifesto for the north and launched it in Manchester, it went down brilliantly and it was well recieved. People went 'at last someone who is listening to us in the north'. Except it was plagiarised. It was a carbon copy of Burnham's plans for the city to the point it ruffled feathers and this was noted and reported on by the Manchester Evening News.
It strikes me that Johnson is being opportunistic and the aim is to bankrupt the city region and council and rid it of Burnham in order to get rid devolved powers which Johnson hates and the voice of local areas. This is why grinding down communities is probably a fair assessment.
We shall see how this pans out but there are lots of councils in lots of financial trouble and we shall see this pan out in due course.
The way i see it, Johnson has tried to fuck Manchester multiple times and this is just the most public and latest in a series. The trouble is most people arent paying attention to whats going on and has been happening for some time.