In just 6 days Tory representatives from all over the UK will be gathering in Manchester for their annual conference.
In recent years the city has become one of the regular locations for big conferences and for the Tories it is politically useful to be holding something near where quite a few of their red wall seats gains at the 2019 election are located.
Problem this year is the news that has seaped out that Sunak is planning to block the HS2 line going north of Birmingham – the section to Manchester.
Mancunians ain’t going to be happy because it it will be portrayed as a snub to the city region and a reminder how southern biased the Tories can be.