For the love of Oldham

Jim McMahon: coffee with the council leader

Martyn Meets... Council Leader Jim McMahon
OH boy . . . where to start chronicling the life of a guy who is half my age and runs Oldham?

His is an awesome, jaw-dropping responsibility — but he’s a cool dude. After spending time in his company, I reckon my home town is in good hands.

Not safe hands, but hands that will shape and make Oldham a better place.

But like so many others, I hardly know the guy. Jim has crept up on our consciousness in recent years, so it was with enthusiasm that I approached our meeting.

A couple of years back, when he was coming to prominence as a public figure of substance, he sent me a Christmas card which told me one of two things: either he was important, or I was.

I didn’t know the man, hadn’t met him, but I had read about him in the columns of this newspaper and, more pertinently, knew I wasn’t important.

So it had to be him. Former Chronicle editor Jim Williams certainly thought it was him, labelling Jim a potential council leader when the guy was only 27.

If he wasn’t important then, he certainly is now... having grown into his current role.

I remember his first public utterances, when he wasn’t exactly uncomfortable in the public domain in front of his peers but was simply unused to the attention — having significant figures in the business community hanging on his every word.

These days, diffidence has dissipated. He enunciates clearly and is totally at ease with himself, comfortable with his place in modern-day Oldham. People listen to what he has to say because the message is clear: this is a politician who speaks from the heart.

Yep, this is Jim McMahon — and if you don’t like it, elect someone else.

I wanted to get behind the mask of imperturbability he exudes whenever I see him in the company of fellow Oldhamers.

What did I discover? Well, a man who, in his own words, is “consumed by Oldham . . . not by the politics of Oldham, but by the town and the people.”

As an example, in August he went with his family — wife Charlene and sons Jack and Harry — on a family holiday to Ireland. With his wife’s agreement — pointedly important; he puts his family first — he flew home for a day to conclude a deal on behalf of the council - a deal that will bring jobs to the borough.

He told me in a way that marks him as the “ordinary guy” as he describes himself. Clearly, though, this is a man with far greater dedication to the task than you might expect.

Councillor Jim McMahon was once the youngest council leader in the country: ordinary people don’t achieve such high office if they don’t possess extraordinary talents.

There seemed little point presing him on this; Jim would simply have denied being Oldham’s own Marvel Comic character.

“I’m just a normal person doing my bit for Oldham. I am lucky enough to have been entrusted with an enormous responsibility,” he says.

It is not a responsibility he will shirk. I would be staggered if, when he steps down, Oldham isn’t a better place, unrecognisable from the Oldham we all love with a passion difficult to put into words.

And yet he isn’t even from these parts. Born of Catholic Irish stock in Manchester, he lived his early days in Miles Platting and was educated in Middleton, meeting his future wife at Middleton Technical College. I love stories about childhood sweethearts.

He is clearly devoted to Charlene and his boys and often cites his family - without a hint of embarrassment - as the reason he gives so much of himself to his adopted town.

Jim arrived in Oldham looking for a family home. He was renting a place in Manchester, which he described as simply awful. Friends in Failsworth suggested he take a look round. Finding a repossessed property that was in dire need of major repairs — like a roof, walls, doors and windows — he spent six months living away from his wife until the place was habitable. The McMahon family live there to this day.

On leaving school, he had worked as a trolley pusher at the Chi Yip Chinese goods business for 12 months, until his father suggested he needed a more rewarding career.

His mother Alice — later to divorce his father, marry an Algerian and convert to Islam — helped Jim get an admin job at North Manchester Hospital, which led to his working with audio visual and IT technicians. The McMahons, with first-born Jack in tow, were getting by.

His career took him to an apprenticeship in audio visuals at Manchester University and he progressed through the ranks to become a senior technician.

Clearly our leader isn’t a man obsessed by money - that job paid £16,000 a year.

I tentatively suggested that he must be doing at least ok, given his executive leader’s salary, council allowances, and the fact he still works — he remains the town-centre manager for Middleton, albeit on negotiated reduced hours since becoming leader of Oldham Council.

His wife works too. Charlene runs the coffee shop at Chadderton Wellbeing Centre and I’m not giving away any state secrets here because customers already go to her with complaints about council stuff. Like parking and dustbin collections, he laughed.

All part of of life’s rich tapestry, I suspect for a man of the people, a man of contrasts, a man of simple tastes.

But note he didn’t answer my question — he is a cute, consummate politician is our Jim, whatever he says to the contrary.

And yet, at the same time, he is a complicated man. How else can you describe a good Catholic boy who is immensely proud to have a step brother and sister, Alana and Farid, who are of the Muslim faith?

So what makes him tick outside of his family life and his increasingly busy public commitments, I ventured?

“Nothing really,” he shrugged, taking a sip of his black, unsweetened Americano — told you, simple uncluttered tastes — “Charlene and I used to go to the pictures but I don’t do any sports or anything like that.”

What about hobbies then, or musical instruments? At this he perked up . . . “I do play the penny whistle, but very badly and it irritates Charlene and the boys when I do.”

And his face creased into a smile of beguiling Irish charm which, I suspect, has caught out one of two unsuspecting folk in the past.

For, make no mistake, this guy means business. If there is a Gaelic magnetism to his public persona there is a core of steel coursing through the man who does not suffer fools in his company for any longer than is absolutely necessary. So how on earth did he get into the dogfight that is politics?

His first tentative steps into public life came when he discovered a box of fascinating antiquities in Failsworth Library, relics from the disbanded Failsworth Historical Society. He created a website to publicise the treasures and soon the society was reborn.

He then became a member of the Labour Party —“I just joined, I didn’t go to a meeting or anything. If I had I certainly wouldn’t have joined,” he stated with a flat finality that hinted at his frustrations with some aspects of the local game — and when a by-election was called in 2004 he was asked to stand.

He found himself under a national spotlight, for Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, was also a candidate. The eyes of the political word were on Failsworth East.

“Everyone expected Griffin to win so I campaigned and knocked on doors right up to five to seven when the polls closed,” added Jim.

History records that Jim won by more than 2,000 votes and was on the council. For years he kept a low profile, working with his ward colleagues to improve Failsworth, including the War Memorial, the Ben Brierley statue, Failsworth Pole, Westminster Gardens and lots of play areas.

By now enamoured with working for the community, he took a job with Groundwork Manchester as a project manager and he was appointed to the council Cabinet when Labour got back into power, being given the governance and special projects brief.

“I think some people saw me as a troublemaker so they wanted to keep me busy and out of the way.”

His tone of voice told me he wasn’t joking, he doesn’t jest when he talks about the serious matter of Oldham politics.

Clearly he was now becoming politically astute — watching from afar as the politics of a council forever on a knife-edge hamstrung Oldham’s progress. Here he speaks with an intensity which borders on savage frustration as he recalls that £250million has been invested in Oldham since the riots of 2001. “And what have got to show for it?” he asks.

So here we had our first insight into what drives this man who has in his hands the destiny of 5,000 authority employees and more than a quarter of a million residents. It’s an onerous responsibility and one he will not shirk. He doesn’t shirk much, actually. He has opinions on everything and everyone and is not afraid to share these, at least not over a coffee with a journalist whose pen, at this point, was firmly in his pocket.

Yet those confidential asides and comments, adjectives and descriptions, confirm what I had suspected when I first sat down: Jim McMahon is a man of substance, is a man of the people.

He became leader in 2008, after eight years on the council, when the Labour Party was naval gazing in the wash of harsh light that saw the group suffer a humiliating defeat in the local elections.

“There were grumblings that we needed to change, that we needed a different approach, and new way of doing things. There had always been grumblings but no one seemed prepared to do anything. So I put myself forward and I was elected leader.”

He concedes that others, more experienced than he, coveted the post but they didn’t put their heads above the parapet.

“For too long Oldham has been led by people who were more concerned with being re-elected than actually taking the town forward.

“We have to make decisions and make things happen. I am determined that there will be fundamental change to the social and economic landscape of Oldham. We have set a target of creating 2,000 jobs and that will happen. It is happening already.”

Having become leader of the group at 27 he set about reconciling some of the warring parties, not in the least concerned if a few feathers were ruffled — an attitude that prevails to this day, be they executive or elected colleagues.

“I want people around me who will take us forward. That’s me, I’m not a political animal in any sense. My family keep me firmly grounded. There are no airs and graces. I am not prepared to listen to lots of excuses from people to whom we pay a lot of money. To people who, in the past, have monitored decline.”

Wow. At that — which is about a close to a tirade as this genuinely gentle man will ever utter — at least, I suspect, in public, I sat back and took fresh stock.

This is a guy who talks passionately about where Oldham will be in 10 years or, more pertinently, where he wants, expects, demands Oldham to be in 10 years.

And will you be along for the journey or does greater office beckon, I bravely suggest, casting an imaginary eye towards Westminster?

He is snortingly dismissive.

“I have absolutely no interest in going to London as an MP. None whatsoever. The very thought of being in London four days a week, away from my wife and family . . .”

His voice trails away, he sits back, sips his now cold coffee, and fixes me with a look that suggests something else is coming. I eagerly take up my smoking pen and prepare to listen.

“The people of Oldham are behind us. We are going to deliver. The town hall will be restored. The money is in place, the planning permissions sought and I expect work to start next summer. Several cinema operators have already approached us. Seven restaurant operators want the three outlets we are planning.

“These things will happen. The Lightbox at the Town Hall is just the start. There will be a new Coliseum. There will be a new look to Union Street and Yorkshire Street. These things will happen.

“People need to believe they have a stake in Oldham. I am doing my bit, that’s all. I am rolling up my sleeves and getting on with it.”

And with that he was gone. Back to his desk, or one of them.

And to Charlene, Jack and Harry.