Chilling
"Craig, who at 36 is almost half Leese’s age, said there had been “a generational shift in politics more broadly, about recognising that actually, people experience the city differently and we need to be open to those experiences.”
Leese, a former youth worker from Nottinghamshire, is retiring after 25 years in the top job, saying he wants to spend more time with his grandchildren. He was instrumental in the city’s rebirth after the IRA bomb in 1996 and went on to play a key role in Greater Manchester’s push for devolution.
Craig is also an adopted Mancunian. She dreamed of moving to Manchester from Northern Ireland after secretly watching Russell T Davies’s
Queer As Folk, set in Manchester’s Gay Village, in her bedroom with the sound down.
Football also drew her to Manchester: while Leese supports City,
she is a big United fan.
She came out as a lesbian aged 14 after joining an LGBT youth group. Her politics began to form there when she realised “the only political party at the time that would even speak to us was Sinn Féin”.
Craig joined the Labour party in 2009 while working for Blackburn council as an equalities and inclusion policy officer and was first elected to Manchester city council in 2013."