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Backstabbing parents, extortionate private tutoring companies and a 'web of deceit'. This is the world of Trafford Grammar Schools, a highly selective group of schools where each year, desperate families put their children through extensive private tutoring to pass the rigorous 11+ exam. Are they living up to their original promise of delivering exceptional education to working-class children? And is there a sense of cruelty in how the system works? Ophira Gottlieb, staff writer at The Mill, takes you inside her reporting.

Read Ophira's first story: Backstabbing, crying, and a ‘web of deceit’: Inside the fight to get into Trafford’s grammar schools

Read her second story: Grexit: should Trafford keep its grammar schools?

To read more of these stories and support our mission to bring about a renaissance in high quality journalism in the North, sign up as a paying member for just £4.95 for your first three months.

With thanks to our sponsor, Newton Music Festival. If you fancy a summer weekend of DJs, bands and festival fun, Newton Music Festival is offering just that from Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd August. The lineup includes (former Mill contributor) Dave Haslam on Friday, The K’s on Saturday and Flash (a Queen tribute band) on Sunday, and is set to repeat the incredible success of last year’s festival. Hosted in the beautiful Mesnes Park, just a 20 minute train from Piccadilly, Newton Music Festival has something for everyone. Day tickets start at £15 and Mill readers can get an exclusive 10% discount using the code ‘1qjpad’ – click here to book.

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Late last year, when the Royal Exchange Theatre was forced to cancel its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the media fallout became one long nightmare. Stef O'Driscoll, the play’s director, accused the theatre of censorship, and its chief executive Stephen Freeman eventually stood down. But there are two sides to every story - over the last month, insiders at the Royal Exchange have been telling us they've been uncomfortable with the narrative that the play's director was censored for a rap about Palestine, and that they feel the theatre was the victim of a "witch hunt". In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack take you inside our reporting and reveal what really caused the theatre to cancel the entire run of its long-anticipated autumn production.

Recommendations:

A midsummer’s nightmare: What really caused the Royal Exchange’s cancelled show? The Mill

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On a cold day in January, our reporters stumbled upon a strange story about Joseph Wheeler, a car marketing executive from Milton Keynes who had been granted extraordinary power at the University of Greater Manchester (formerly the University of Bolton), whose company had received £8 million in the past six financial years for performing marketing and brand management services, and who was accused of making racist remarks and threatening to sack people if they didn't bend to his will.

Then, the story became stranger. We uncovered evidence that Joseph Wheeler and another senior university executive, Paul Starkey, tried to pressure ECN, one of the university's biggest commercial partners, into transferring 40% of its revenue into a private company that Wheeler owned. That deal looked like an arrangement for kickbacks – a form of illicit payment in return for something – to be paid to Wheeler’s firm, and the circumstances in which it was signed suggest bribery laws may have been broken.

Private Eye has picked up our story, and MPs Phil Brickell and Neil O'Brien have raised our reporting to the Department for Education and in parliament. In today's episode, Mollie and Joshi reflect on the last month of reporting, and where the university goes next.

The University of Greater Manchester saga in full

16/08/2024: Our first story about the university. The university was planning to let 82 members of staff go, and was battling to change its name from the University of Bolton to the University of Greater Manchester.

06/02/2025: Over a dozen staff members accuse Joseph Wheeler of making racist remarks, and Wheeler is caught on tape saying: “At the end of the day, somebody from Nigeria looks exactly the same as somebody from Ghana.” 

10/02/2025: The university announces that Joseph Wheeler had resigned.

15/02/2025: Our sources give us evidence that showed the university had misled us. Joseph Wheeler was still taking calls with staff members and his marketing agency, RSM, was still under contract with the university.

19/02/2025: Our latest exclusive. We uncover evidence that Joseph Wheeler and another senior university executive, Paul Starkey, tried to pressure a key university partner into diverting hundreds of thousands of pounds in tuition fees into a private company.

24/02/2025: The Office for Students, the university's audit committee and board of governors ignore our questions about the allegations. Phil Brickell MP writes to the Department for Education asking for an independent investigation into the university.

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In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack look back on the last two years of reporting on Sacha Lord.

With thanks to Manchester Building Society for sponsoring this week's episode. In 2025, Manchester Building Society will be offering a different way to manage your money. We believe in branches, where people can access savings, mortgages and in-person financial advice. We’ll be opening on King Street later this year, before setting up in high streets and towns across Greater Manchester. Now we need your help. Building societies exist to serve their members and communities — so we want to hear from Mill readers about what you would want from your building society. Find out more here.

16 months, 12 stories — the Sacha Lord Saga in full

15/07/2023: Part one of our profile of Sacha Lord, delving into the childhood, personal life and success of the nightlife impresario.

19/07/2023: Part two looked at the conflict of interest created by Lord being a nightlife boss as well as an advisor to the mayor.

16/05/2024: Mark Turnbull said he could prove Lord had cheated his way to over £400k by telling the Arts Council a regional security company was in fact the “backbone of the national creative events sector”.

18/05/2024: Lawyers representing Lord threatened legal action unless we took our story down.

20/05/2024: Lord continued to threaten legal action.

20/05/2024: We found further evidence that the application was misleading.

22/05/2024: The Arts Council announced a review of Primary Event Solution’s application, and the GMCA announced a fact-finding mission.

24/05/2024: Lord withdrew his legal threat.

14/06/2024: We found the assessor of the application was Karen Boardman, who sits on other nightlife committees with Andy Burnham.

28/09/2024: We requested the original assessment document of Primary’s application, and found that the Arts Council had taken the most easily falsifiable claims at face value. 

29/01/2025: The Arts Council withdrew the grant and began proceedings to recover the £401,928, and Lord resigned.

31/01/2025: We dug into the questions left behind.

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Tweets by the world's richest man have ignited a furious controversy about CSE. Joshi Herrmann, the founder of The Mill, has been reporting on this story for years now. He talks to the journalist Darryl Morris about the background to the story - and why official inquiries and police investigations have yet to support the theories of an online campaigner called Raja Miah.

To read the long read we discuss, click here.

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In this week's episode, the whole Mill team join the podcast to talk about the ever-divisive Christmas Markets. Are they a boon to the city's economy or eyesores tailored to tourists? Jack Walton and Ophira Gottlieb - who recently wrote opposing essays on the subject - expand on their points, with Jack Dulhanty and Mollie Simpson coming in with data and more neutral insight.

Thanks to this episode's sponsor, Manchester Baroque. For special two-for-one tickets to their performance at Manchester Cathedral on November 30, hit the link below:

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/949847347987/?discount=MillTwoForOne

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How did Afflecks go from a quirky indie bazaar filled with "vulgar tat" to a tourist destination owned by a big property firm? In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack explore the history of a Manchester institution, including the role it played in supporting generations of hopeful artists and entrepreneurs, the myth of two missing Banksys, and the "eccentric hippies" who dreamed it up in 1982.

With thanks to RHS Glow for sponsoring this week's podcast. If you find it a struggle every year to get into the Christmas spirit, we have the event for you. Glow is running at RHS Garden Bridgewater, from the 27th November all the way to the 30th December, with a series of awe-inspiring displays. There’s a brand-new illuminated trail that will enchant visitors of all ages with spectacular light shows every evening. Stroll through twinkling yew domes resembling hedgehogs, follow swirling snowflake lights and watch a thrilling light juggling show. Then kindle your inner glow with a glass of mulled wine and some roast marshmallows. Tickets are now available starting at just £12.95 for adults and £6.95 for children — click here for tickets and more details. 

Recommendations:

How Afflecks went from quirky indie to part of a retail portfolio, The Mill

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In this week's episode, the writer Jordon Francis tells us about Manchester’s African and Caribbean Over 50s clubs in Stretford and Moss Side, where dominoes allow members of the Windrush generation to relax, unwind, and share stories of the old days. It's a lovely story about community building, the importance of storytelling and why it's essential to preserve community spaces, filled with great insights about the game of dominoes itself (Did you know the game of dominoes originated in twelfth century China hundreds of years before it became a cultural phenomenon for the African Caribbean diaspora?) and some lovely details about a show at the Royal Exchange set at a dominoes tournament, centered around its cast telling personal stories about their experiences as black people living in the UK. Thanks to Jordon for joining us on this week's podcast.

Recommendations:

At Manchester’s African and Caribbean social clubs, dominoes are both leisure and lifeline, The Mill

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The Carlton Club, a beautiful social club in Whalley Range, is a phenomenal south Manchester success story, drawing in hundreds of attendees at its wellness, foodie and clubbing events every week. So why has an eviction notice been served to the Carlton Club? And how come some of the social club's own members are behind the eviction notice? Mollie and Jack discuss some of the key points from our two-part investigation into this topic, which you can read in more depth via the links below.

With thanks to Bruntwood SciTech for sponsoring this week's episode. Big ambitions for your business? You need much more than just a place to work. Bruntwood SciTech offers spaces tailored for your team, while connecting you to a 1,100-strong national community of science, tech and innovation-led businesses including the likes of Roku, AO and Deliveroo. Whether you’re growing your team, or looking to make stronger connections within a tight knit community, we can find the perfect space for your business to flourish. See workspaces in Manchester and enquire today.

Recommendations:

What went wrong at the Carlton Club?, The Mill

The Carlton Club saga: The Building Company speaks, The Mill

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In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack talk about his recent long-read about Didsbury - "Village people" takes a look at how residents of Didsbury village are handling their area's changing character, as independent shops fall away and a local pub crawl explodes in popularity.

From today's sponsor: Big ambitions for your business? You need much more than just a place to work. Bruntwood SciTech offers spaces tailored for your team, while connecting you to a 1,100-strong national community of science, tech and innovation-led businesses including the likes of Roku, AO and Deliveroo. Whether you’re growing your team, or looking to make stronger connections within a tight-knit community, we can find the perfect space for your business to flourish.

See workspaces in Manchester and enquire today.

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Manchester Pride, a large-scale music event with huge headliners and a packed schedule filled with music, dance and drag performances, returned last weekend. The city was filled with colour and thousands of people turned up to celebrate in Gay Village. But this year, Manchester Pride also faced fresh criticism over its relationship with Booking.com, a key sponsor of the festival who have faced criticism for listing rooms in the occupied West Bank, and many, including performers, withdrew from attending the festival. The involvement of big corporate sponsors like Booking.com, and the direction that Pride has taken more broadly, becoming more like a festival than anything resembling its revolutionary roots, has raised a crucial question: should Pride be a party or a protest? Mollie sits down with our new editor, Shannon Keating, to discuss.

Recommendations:

Alt Pride Festival 2024, Platt Fields Market Garden, 7th and 8th September - tickets here

Should Manchester Pride be a party or a protest? The Mill

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The White Hotel, a world-famous nightclub in Salford that has hosted some of biggest DJs in the world and has been described as a "nurturing influence" on new artists, is every Mancunian's favourite nightclub. But the iconic venue could be facing some complications due to a dispute involving planning permissions, as well as the development of its once-derelict but evolving neighbourhood. What does this all mean for the future of the legendary nightclub? Mollie and Joshi discuss.

With thanks to the Davis Cup for sponsoring this week's episode. Great Britain’s best tennis stars will go head-to-head against Canada, Argentina and Finland at The Davis Cup from Tuesday 10th - Sunday 15th September. Being hosted at the AO arena in Manchester, big names including Cameron Norrie and Milos Raonic will be taking to the court. Tickets are selling for as little as £10, with premium options and hospitality packages available. To find out more about the packages, and book your business in for the best VIP tennis experience, click here.

Recommendations:

He complained about late night noise. Then a city-wide row erupted, The Mill

Exclusive: Salford Council is investigating the White Hotel, The Mill

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It’s mid-August, and the students who buy so many of the tickets for local club nights are away. They aren’t coming back any time soon, and when they do, they’re less likely than their forbears to even go to clubs in the first place (and drinks aren’t cheap anymore).

So how do we keep the city partying hard, and what’s it like to be a DJ right now? Mollie sits down with Finn McCorry, NTS resident, club promoter, and DJ best known for his critically-acclaimed EP Everything is alright. He plays Soup and White Hotel regularly, and he has been described as a music producer who “knows the transformative power of a lean groove and a catchy sample”, whose music feels “alive and eternal” (you can read the full review of this EP in Pitchfork by clicking here). In this episode, Finn takes us inside the city's club scene, and asks: What would it take to safeguard nightlife's future?

Recommendations:

Greatest Hits, Finn

Everything is alright, Finn

Summertime sadness: can Manchester’s nightlife survive the student exodus?, The Mill

Clubland UK: The state of the nation, The Guardian

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Last weekend saw the continuation of violent far-right riots that have erupted across the country in the wake of a devastating attack in Southport that left three children dead and eight injured. A man was pictured raising a Nazi salute in Piccadilly Gardens, where a black man was chased and attacked by a gang of white men and women, protesters in Bolton set off missiles and threw bricks at police, and rioters gathered outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Bredbury and Newton Heath. Greater Manchester Police made 19 arrests in connection with the violence over the weekend, and Andy Burnham has promised that the force will “pursue every legal means to prevent a repeat” of what happened. Some politicians have cast blame on the supposedly-defunct English Defence League, but is there truly one single organiser of the riots?

Recommendations:

Southport mourns. Then burns, The Post

I thought we’d die in Southport Mosque. I almost jumped, The Sunday Times

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