Johnson didn’t mark the 200th anniversary of Peterloo as PM. His contempt for Manchester continues
The Conservative Party Conference met at Manchester Central for its 2019 Conference which stands on an area that was part of where the Peterloo Massacre took place. The new monument to the Massacre by Jeremy Deller is immediately adjacent.
The Massacre in which 18 died and hundreds were injured in a protest to demand the vote took place two hundred years ago on 16th August 1819. Boris Johnson was silent on the anniversary itself.
There is no question that the Conservatives have baggage when it comes to Peterloo as the man who sent the Yeomanry in on horseback to disperse the crowd, William Hulton (1787-1864) was a lifelong Tory and after the 1832 Reform Act a founder of the South Lancashire Conservative Association.
It would be odd even so if the leader of a democratic political party meeting on the site of Peterloo in the 200th anniversary year had not acknowledged both the dreadful events of that day and the important role they played in the history of British Parliamentary Democracy.
Johnson did not.
A little over a year later he provoked a row with the Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham over Government financial aid to cover the impact of increased COVID-19 restrictions for the area. In the end it appears an amount £5m short of the minimum amount the Mayor thought essential is being paid, £60M.
The £5m difference to Burnham’s £65m is neither here nor there to Johnson financially, the man who wasted millions on a non-existent garden bridge,
Ideologically it is key though. The shortfall means those who cant work as a result of the restrictions wont get anything like a full wage and will struggle to pay costs.
Just as in ignoring the anniversary of Peterloo Johnson is still putting two fingers up to Manchester.
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