Picture the scene. You open your Sunday newspaper to discover that a cabal of Westminster MP’s have decided that from now on the UK will be run on a Presidential system, that an interim President chosen from the “political elites” would be installed any day now but we might be able to vote on a President in 2017.  After choking on your Cornflakes and passing on to the sports section you could reflect that this is not dissimilar to what has happened to the 2.7 million inhabitants of Greater Manchester. The situation becomes even more democratically surreal when you consider that Mancunians were polled about having a Mayor in 2012 and said ta very much but you’re all right.

The background to this rather bizarre situation is as follows. In a moment of back of a fag packet policy panic George Osbourne blew into Manchester all full of jobs, growth…