I'm honoured to have been selected to be the Labour candidate for Manchester Central.

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can join the army, so surely they should in turn be given their right to vote.

Surely, the best and most effective measure is to get the economy moving and shorten the period of recession or slowdown. That's the rationale for Gordon Brown's "fiscal stimulus" and it sounds like a good one to me.

The impact of the downturn is starting to feel very real. House prices and the housing market have been taking the knock for some time and that's affecting people.

As the economy faces such difficulties, more tough questions need to be asked about what the Tories would do if elected. Their ideology of free markets and small government needs challenging. That has to be part of our job.

Connecting people to jobs and to each other is absolutely vital to a city's economy (and to the wider economy).

It's estimated that by 2030 there will be virtually no unskilled jobs in the British economy.