‘Manchester’ has been a metonym at least twice in the last two hundred years, escaping the orbit of a more generalised ‘North’. Between 2015 and 2024, nearly a billion pounds of public money was lent on favourable terms to developers who built almost no affordable housing – almost two-thirds of it to one company. Private sector rents have increased by about two-thirds in the last decade, and by around half in the last five years. Craig has also said she’ll establish a ‘special commission on affordable rents’ and call for national powers to impose rent controls. The economic growth will mostly continue to take care of itself, so far as national and international conditions allow.