The Northern Agenda

The Northern Agenda is back and this time, Rob Parsons is joined by Liverpool Echo political editor Liam Thorp for your weekly fix of the political stories that really matter to the North! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rob Parsons hosts a special mayoral hustings edition of The Northern Agenda podcast, brought to you from the home of the Hull Daily Mail and Hull Live. We are just a few days away from finding out who is going to be chosen by voters for a job that's never existed before, but could have a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people north of the River Humber.  After May 1's elections...

In the final episode of The Northern Agenda's Our Kids In The North podcast, Rob Parsons and Annie Gouk look at the choices facing young people in our region when they reach 16. That’s the age when they no longer have to stay in school but they do have to stay in some form of education or training until the age of 18, so that opens up options like starting an apprenticeship, taking a vocational co...

​"It's really difficult being a kid at the moment. And that's for a whole host of reasons. You see that with the increased mental health problems our children are facing. You see that with the issue of attendance at school. You see that with issues of family breakdown, issues of poverty. And those issues have been worsened by the pandemic." Jim Lauder,​ Assistant Vice Principal, Dixons Trinity Aca...

Most people listening to this podcast will likely have been able to take for granted having a loving family to look after them as they grew up. But for tens of thousands of children in the North, that is not the case. For a host of reasons, whether it’s a risk of harm, their parents being too unwell to look after them or just the absence of any one to take parental responsibility, they have been p...

The scandal of grooming gangs targeting vulnerable girls in places like Rotherham and Oldham has dominated the news in 2025. But this week on the podcast Rob Parsons sheds a light on a sickening crime that’s had a lot less publicity. Child sex abuse by family members is far more common than most people think. But in one part of the North of England, West Yorkshire, the region’s mayor, a children’s...

The North in Numbers takes over The Northern Agenda: Our Kids in the North for this episode, looking at the human stories behind the stats. Annie Gouk, Data Investigations Editor at Reach and host of our sister podcast, explores the data on the rising cost and lack of availability of childcare, and what this means both for working parents, and for kids when it comes to being ready for school.  She...

Our Kids in the North, a new series from The Northern Agenda, launched with a focus on the big societal problem that you can’t escape if you’re talking about children in the North of England: poverty. In the second episode of our podcast, Rob Parsons talks about a part of the country that has so much going for it, but where the high rates of poverty are holding back the potential of tens of thousa...

The Northern Agenda presents Our Kids In The North - a special series of episodes looking at what it's like to be a young person in the North of England. Over six episodes Rob Parsons and data journalist Annie Gouk will be exploring topics like the state of Northern schools, the early years of children in our region, why there are so many young people in care in the North and the options available...

Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons previews our brand new series, Our Kids in the North. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Northern Agenda podcast is changing - and our editor Rob Parsons shares the details! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the last five days the eyes of the political world have been focusing on Liverpool's waterfront for Labour party conference, its first in power for 15 years. Thousands of people have piled into venues around the city, from party members and MPs to business leaders, metro mayors and of course senior Cabinet members - many of whom are from the North - and their teams. Rob Parsons spent two days...

​I​f you're into politics it's likely you'll be heading to, or at the very least reading about, one of the big party conferences happening this autumn. By far the biggest is Labour's annual get-together in Liverpool, their first as a new government. ​A​nd anyone who's interested in the future direction of the Labour party will want to ​R​ob Parsons' interview with one of its most interesting new M...

Only a few weeks ago the big story in many of our Northern communities was the rioting and disorder we saw this summer, seemingly sparked by the horrific killing in Southport. We saw violence break out across the country but it seemed like much of it was in the North, places like Sunderland and Darlington, Blackpool, Hull, Preston and Liverpool. Since then we've seen a steady stream of the perpetr...

There's a definite 'back to school' feeling in the air in politics this week. The news agenda is already being dominated by the issues that we're going to be hearing about again and again in the coming months - small boats, the housing crisis and the ravaged state of the public finances. It's back to school for the North's politicians too, and with Westminster resuming after the summer break this...

The Northern Agenda tries to think outside of the box when it comes to both our newsletter and podcast, and in this week’s episode, our guest does exactly that.  Tina Catling is a renowned innovation consultant, author, and speaker, who advises organisations and people around the world on how to unlock creative potential and innovation. She has been running her Leeds-based business ThinkOTB with h...

We all know there's a big North-South divide when it comes to pay, but which part of the North of England has the highest average wage? Here's a clue, it's not Manchester or Leeds. With an average median annual full-time wage of nearly £42,000, Ribble Valley in Lancashire is the highest-paid local authority area in Northern England. Its residents earn an average of £14,000 a year more than those i...

Politicians and pubs are a combination as old as the hills, with even the likes of teetotal e​x-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak turning up for photo shoots a​t​ local watering holes on the election trail this year. But if our decision-makers stuck about after the cameras disappeared and observed the conversations ordinary pub-goers were having, would they be better informed about their lives and what m...

So if you look at the biggest jobs in local government in the North of England, undoubtedly near the top of the list are the chief executives of the city councils of Manchester and Leeds. They're roles that come with responsibility for vital services in our region's two biggest cities, leading thousands of employees and overseeing annual budgets into the hundreds of millions. So with both Tom Rior...

Just over a year ago, TransPennine Express, which runs intercity services across the North of England, became the latest to come under government control due to its dire performance that had infuriated political leaders and customers. Installed not long after as managing director was Chris Jackson, faced with some formidable hurdles to overcome if TransPennine was to get back on track, not least t...

On a brutal General Election night for the Conservatives, there were a few bright spots where their MPs managed to defy the swing to Labour and hang onto their seats. In the North East of England - where Labour otherwise swept the board - just one Conservative MP now remains, Matt Vickers, who won in the new seat of Stockton West despite pre-election polling which suggested it would turn red. He s...

Doesn't it seem a long time ago that a victorious Boris Johnson took in the applause from Conservatives in Tony Blair's old seat of Sedgefield after winning a host of North East seats in Labour strongholds like Darlington, Redcar and Bishop Auckland in the 2019 General Election? Five years later, the Tories have been all but wiped out in the North East, reduced to just one seat. How did things go...

This week's there's an induction like no other going on in Westminster's corridors of power, as dozens of newly-elected MPs from across the North are introduced to the bewildering intricacies and traditions of life in the epicentre of British democracy. But what's it been like for someone who a week ago was battling to be elected and now finds themselves rubbing shoulders with the nation's politic...

It's General Election night and Rob Parsons has got himself a front row seat for one of the highest-profile counts in the North: Rishi Sunak's Richmond and Northallerton constituency in North Yorkshire. With Sunak's Conservatives facing near certain defeat to Labour in the polls, the media is waiting for the Prime Minister to show his face in the early hours of the morning - and that's if he can h...

This week voters across the North will be going to the polls for the General Election with all the national polling pointing to a big Labour victory.  But Rob Parsons wants to hear what's happening at local level across the North of England and has reassembled a panel of top political journalists, Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfiel...