All In: The must-read manifesto for the future of Britain

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There is also a great deal of focus on how things which make a community are now often commodities to be bought and sold by the super-rich, most notably football clubs and trains but also buses, the post office and the energy and water companies. Indeed, the introduction of the book goes into detail on how she and the community fought to save Wigan Athletic when they went into administration in 2019 after being taken over. The shadow minister made it a point to say that both are great leaders, with differing personalities and ways of leading politics. These local vignettes capture a wider sense of civic and economic powerlessness in much of the the UK, one that, Nandy argues, a generation of politicians either ignored or failed to understand. Brewing in English towns for 40 years, it drove the “red wall” Brexit vote. Globalisation – and, in particular, the role of the Chinese economy as a source of cheap labour – saw 6m British manufacturing jobs disappear. The power of unions diminished accordingly and was further undermined by successive Thatcher governments. New Labour mitigated the economic impact of deindustrialisation, but its strategy for growth focused overwhelmingly on cities. Towns such as Wigan, ageing and neglected, were ripe for revolt and the 2016 referendum was the opportunity they needed. Loved this. I wasn't really aware of Lisa Nandy or any of her political projects, so reading this felt like starting from scratch and discovering a side of the UK I had very little idea existed. Despite being a Labour MP (and serving during the Corbynite/Blairite split), Nandy clearly makes an effort to avoid stark positions and easy solutions. She focuses on the middleground, not just between political parties but also looking at getting the right balance between local, community-based efforts, national government and international collaboration. A Tannoy sounded. “Would Lisa Nandy please leave the building,” Flower told her. “Go and give someone else a hard time.”

All In by Lisa Nandy review – why Labour must give power to

The Bee Network for her has gone a great way to promote connectivity across GM, and seeing the ‘smaller’ boroughs access it first will help stimulate their economies.Why don’t you just call my mother and tell her how much I’m failing?” said Flower, beaten down. The NS Summer Special, out 29 July. Illustration by Cold War Steve Nandy’s mission, she said, was not to bring Westminster to the north but “to make the national work like the local”. She introduced me to the redoubtable Phyllis Cullen, a councillor who had observed a local pub being developed into flats (literally: she watched with binoculars as the kitchen units were ferried in) and presented Nandy with an obscure piece of Cameroonian legislation to prevent the sale. As for the joyriders on Cullen’s estate? “Bootcamp.” She looks at Nandy with dark eyes. “Why can’t we have bootcamp?” You haven’t mentioned girls yet,” Nandy cut in. “And,” said Flower, taking a deep breath, “50 per cent of our workforce is ­female; 46 per cent of participants are female, 50 per cent of our management team are female.” Nandy recently stressed that one of Corbyn’s big achievements as leader was to make Labour “proud to wear our values on our sleeve” again.

Lisa Nandy | Events | Manchester Literature Festival Lisa Nandy | Events | Manchester Literature Festival

Wrote at university that “The LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) society for example doesn’t accept straight members, but we still have to pay for it, something many find unacceptable” (she now insists she “will always support” LGBTQ+ comrades). Nandy agreed to film with them, but returned looking disarranged: the crew wanted her to stand in front of the one boarded-up shop they could find. She refused until they re-angled the camera.

In the 2016 Panorama on Labour Party divisions, Nandy (apparently without a hint of irony) said the infighting “means that we’re distracted from the real task, which is to unite” to oppose the Tories. The trust is financially independent, Flower told me, employing 60 staff across 13 programmes that range from four-year-olds with school-readiness issues to a football team for the children of Afghan refugees. When we spoke on Zoom I asked her whether she would run for the leadership again. She flipped her iPad round and showed me a crawl space under her desk – which is leather-topped and once belonged to her grandfather, the life peer. “There is definitely a bit of me that, when I’m asked if I want to run again, really wants to climb into this little hole – and I could get into it, if I thought about it seriously,” she said, meaning the hole and not the question. When pressed, she said that she saw her 2020 bid as a valuable corrective to the pro-Corbyn consensus. “It was a long shot. I’d stood in opposition to the party line on both anti-Semitism – which is why I left the shadow cabinet – and on Brexit. So I could see it was an unlikely prospect.” There are two other problems to solve for ‘a country that works’– male domination in politics and city-centric approaches. After last night's comments we've asked her for clarification. @UKLabour members need to know if she's still committed to those pledges https://t.co/CrhvtKG0Vg

Lisa Nandy sets out her ideal vision of devolution Lisa Nandy sets out her ideal vision of devolution

Nandy never intended to become a politician. She wanted to study English literature at university, but her sister – a superior academic, she said – got a place to study English at Oxford. “And I thought, that is not a comparison I’m going to win.” Instead, she studied politics at Newcastle. Her years at university were, bar none, the best of her life, she said. Nandy believes that Burnham’s position as mayor explains why this is the case, as he is able to talk more directly to the people who he represents. Lisa Nandy is known for her defence of community and local people. Indeed, she made it a key part of her pitch to be Labour leader in 2020. This is why it is so good to see her vision captured in written form in her book All In . This rally call highlights the challenges we face as a country through the prism of community and how, despite the odds, a real difference can be made if we work together. Community is something many people believe has diminished in recent decades. Nandy makes this point throughout the book. In the presence of Flower, Nandy morphed into someone comically merciless, a precocious teenage daughter ribbing her dad. She pulled him up on a new sign. Johnson, she said, had “trashed politics”. As for his successors, Nandy thought neither Liz Truss nor Sunak constituted bad news for the Labour Party. “Truss will drop the more bonkers tax cuts to the rich and focus relentlessly on trying to win the general election. She will reinvent herself again – which she is very good at – and I don’t think she is interested in levelling up. The issue is whether she can convince the public that she’s likeable, human and trustworthy.”

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All In shows how, by handing power and resources with a stake in the outcome, Britain can draw on the talent, assets and potential in every part of the country and start firing on all cylinders again. Finding strength rather than fear in our differences, it reimagines the relationship between people and government so that all of us can play our part in meeting the challenges of our age and rebuilding Britain the only way that works – together.