Welcome to Navarra Live.

Coming up tonight, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been confirmed as the Labour candidate in the Makerfield by-election,

and he's allegedly promised Josh Simons a place in Down Downing Street as reward for standing inside.

We speak to Commonwealth's Matt Lawrence about what defines Manchesterism.

We hear that word a lot right now.

What does it even mean?

And HS2 has been delayed yet again.

Is it time to call China?

I'm Aram Bustani, and I'm joined tonight by Michael Walker.

Michael, how are we?

Very well. Very wide-ranging show. I've been enjoying researching the development of Manchester

over the past 30 years looking forward to talking about it. Manchesterism. It's going to be very fun.

Lots of wide things, but not too much. Stick with us for the next hour and a bit. Before we start

the show tonight, we have some remarkable news to share with all of you. Last week, we launched a

fundraiser to get 2,000 new regular supporters backing our work, and we're absolutely blown

away that within just a week, 2,700 of you have signed up, actually slightly more than that even.

You really did show up, so thank you. As you've heard us say, a lot ahead of the next general election

is a crucial time for us to grow and expand our coverage here at Navarra Media. We're moving

into a new studio in a few months and essentially launching Navarra 3.0. As my colleagues here,

including Alex, have put it, and that will allow us to triple our impact. It's going to be

a very big jump. And the more of you, we have backing our work here at Navarra Media,

the bigger we can get, the better our reporting can be. So that's why we're trying to get to 3,000 new regular supporters by the end of the week.

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