November 2017

p Andy Burnham (right) addresses the event, watched by Gavin Shuker MP and Party general secretary Claire McCarthy
POLITICS
Manchester mayor pledges to ‘put co-op ideas into practice’ at Party exhibition
p Gavin Shuker MP
The Co-operative Party hosted a private
viewing of its centenary exhibition at the
People’s History Museum in Manchester
on Friday, to celebrate “values that are
worth fighting for”.
The event saw a speech by Andy
Burnham, the Labour/Co-op mayor for the
devolved strategic government of Greater
Manchester, who said it was his “duty” to
put the movement’s values into practice,
in areas such as housing and social care.
Mr Burnham’s remarks followed a
welcome from Gavin Shuker, Labour/
Co-op MP for Luton South, who said: “To
be here and to be associated with the
stories being told, of ordinary working
people and their families, is incredible.”
Mr Shuker thanked the guests, the
museum, and the co-op societies
sponsoring the exhibition, Pioneering
the Future: The Politics of Co-operation,
which looks back over the Party’s
“first 100 years”.
He said the Party is now “the third largest
in Parliament, making contributions in
all areas of policy. We have the highest
membership ever in our history. It shows
there is a thirst for our values, our way of
doing things, a new way of thinking.”
Mr Burnham also spoke of the desire
to see co-op principles put into action,
describing his involvement since 1999 in
the Supporters Direct campaign for fanownership
in football. “If ever co-op values
were needed in football, it is now,” he said.
He said he was “humbled and
honoured” to be Manchester’s Labour/
Co-op mayor, and said the city was the
ideal site for the exhibition.
Describing a heritage including the
Rochdale Pioneers, Suffragettes and
Peterloo massacre, he said the area was
“the home of radical thinking”.
He added: “It’s my job to make
sure it continues to be the home of
radical thinking. People are ready for
something different.”
Repeating his pledge to end rough
sleeping in the city by 2020, he said: “In
2017 everybody should sleep with a roof
over their head.”
He added there was room to put co-op
values into areas such as housing and
social care, and criticised a privatised
p Trustee Russell Gill from the Co-op Group
care system “where profits are being made
from a social care system where people are
being looked after with 15-minute visits”.
He said devolved powers offered
a chance to put co-operative ideas to work,
adding: “As the Labour/Co-op mayor, it is
my duty to put those ideas into practice.”
Russell Gill, a trustee of the People’s
History Museum and head of co-operative
relations at the Co-op Group, said the
exhibition was another example of
the museum’s celebration of the co-op
movement, which also displays Women’s
Guild banners and houses the CWS
packaging archive.
He added that an exhibition on death
and the working class had been sponsored
by Co-op Funeralcare. The museum and
the Co-op Party display showed that
“co-op ideas are worth fighting for”,
added Mr Gill.
NOVEMBER 2017 | 9