Sian Astley, Reform UK

04/11/2026

Reform UK Manchester and myself are aware that a story is likely to break today about Manchester City Council Officers blocking emails from being delivered to Members/Councillors.

I know that emails were blocked from being delivered to me without my knowledge and that is unacceptable. Have they also been blocked from reaching other Councillors of other Parties?

As far as I am aware, they contained information which did not compromise any legal cases and there was no reason for the emails to be blocked. I am still awaiting the emails to be forwarded, despite formally asking for them.

I was not informed by Manchester City Council Officers that the emails existed, that they’d been intercepted or that a decision had been made by Officers to do this. I found this out by chance.

I do not at the moment know if senior Labour Executive Members were aware of this decision, but I have asked.

Members of the public MUST have the confidence that their emails will be delivered to their elected Councillors without interference.
They may be communicating sensitive personal or financial information, they may be whistle-blowers, they may be only contacting their Councillor with that query or information.
These electronic communications should never be intercepted by unelected Council Officers without a thorough, documented and transparent process having been gone through, and that process being communicated to all Members / Councillors.

03/11/2026

No. Labour is not giving 3 million NW homes £100. All the taxpayers are giving some of the taxpayers £100. That’s how it works. I’m so bored of being told things are free or that the Government is giving us stuff. Just sort the bloody bills out. Stop shafting bill payers with Net Zero and subsidies and sneaky taxes.

03/11/2026

One to pop into as and when out and about at Civic .

03/11/2026

Today I wrote to the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council asking what the consequences would be for me personally if I chose to release the Cultural Insight Programme 2026, commissioned by MCC to carry out a “comprehensive review of the council’s culture and staff’s experience of working here”.

The Council's leadership have chosen to make this report confidential and restricted, because it is critical and not the positive image they want to put out. But if you don't want the truth, don't commission a report.

This report has been paid for by the taxpayer and comprehensively investigates the culture within Manchester City Council. They, we, I, all of us, work for the public and we're paid for by the public. It should be open to the public to read, and the press, should they so choose.

In my opinion anyway.

https://www.lgcplus.com/politics/workforce/chief-pledges-no-excuses-after-deeply-concerning-culture-report-09-10-2026/

03/11/2026

I remember having a ‘discussion’ in 2016 with a South Manchester Remainer who was furious at my Leave stance.

He had a Scandinavian live-in nanny for his kids, employed Polish builders, a Romanian gardener and talked me through how the NHS couldn’t survive without South Asian staff.

The middle classes have loved their cheap labour since Blair opened up the borders in the early noughties. It’s a hard habit to break, especially since we’ve deliberately put more and more of the British ‘working class’ on benefits to keep them quiet whilst the deliberate mass importations powered on.

It’s been unsustainable since Day 1 and still Labour won’t admit that it’s bankrupting us.

Go on Nigel, tell it how it is!

03/11/2026

It’s only surprises me that people are surprised by this pathetically soggy response on mass immigration. When a person shows you who and what they are, believe them.

02/11/2026

The more I hear and read about the IOPC, the more I think my goodness, is it fit for purpose?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DfOqvXgh9gB/?mdxt=MWMzMjRweTg2dXZ4cA==

02/11/2026

I was asked a few weeks ago if I'd seen sight of a Manchester City Council response / report on the Sheffield University Management School study "Off-shored". I was told a response existed.

We've been going round and round in circles but finally a definitive reply from MCC Assurance and Risk this morning - no report or internal audit was ever formulated by MCC in answer to the final overall Centripetal Cities study.

In 2022 the researchers stated their aim to create a new public interest report on the Manchester Life partnership between Manchester City Council and the Abu Dhabi United Group.
The £450k, three year study explored the transparency, accountability and ethics of Manchester Life, which was even then under criticism for only delivering, since it's inception in 2014 up to 2022, 1,468 of the 6,000 homes it had promised; 73% for private rent, the rest for private sale and zero social or affordable. Most of the profits "off-shored", hence the title.

The researchers were looking at the model - does this type of city council relationship with a globally mobile investment firm deliver for a city and all it's residents - not just the few, not just the wealthy.
Did the council sell the city short?
Was it right to allow ADUG to hold all land leaseholds, property assets and income rights through subsidiaries registered in the secrecy jurisdiction of Jersey?
Given the scale of public resources used and signed away, was the lack of openness about the deals done acceptable?
Did the council pay enough heed to the morality questions involved, of partnering with what is absolutely accepted to be an authoritarian regime.

The final report was published in 2025.
You can read it in this link. It's highly critical.

It would seem thus surprising that MCC never 'fought back', defended its position, publicly challenged the narrative. Stated for the record how brilliant the Manchester Life, Man City and surrounding partnerships had been.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe there's more to find and rather than poke the bear, they just let him roar and then let that roar fade away.

Interesting isn't it, either way.

https://sheffield.ac.uk/management/news/manchester-offshored-new-report-sheffield-university-management-school-and-university-sheffield

02/11/2026

I’m booked on to one of these and I’m very much looking forward to it 😁

Our tour of Baguley Hall on Sunday 8 November is now SOLD-OUT.

There are places left on the tour on Thursday 19 November at 1.30pm. BOOK here: https://bit.ly/BaguleyToursNovember

We hope to add more dates in the near future.

AND - news of special December event coming soon...