Should the UK move more power to the regions, using the success of areas like Manchester as a model?

Devolution scraped a win, 57% to 43%, on 35 votes — a clear but hardly emphatic verdict, the kind of margin that reflects a chamber persuaded rather than converted. This was not a rout in either direction; it was Yes doing just enough.

The real story is generational. Voters aged 25-34, by far the largest bloc here with 17 votes, backed more power for the regions by nearly two to one (65%). Strip them out and the rest of the sample tilts the other way — the 55-64s split 2-3 against, and the small clutch of over-65s leaned no too, with only one Yes among three. It is the young-adult vote that carried Manchester's model over the line.

That pattern tracks a familiar fault line in English governance debates: enthusiasm for devolved, city-region power tends to cluster among younger, urban-leaning voters who came of age watching Manchester's mayoralty and Metrolink expansion, while older voters remain more instinctively Westminster-centric. Men here were also somewhat keener than women (62% versus an even split), though with only six female voters that gap wants treating carefully.

A win for the "Manchester model", then, but one built on a single demographic pillar rather than a broad coalition.