The Manchester Guardian. A Century Ago

My paternal grandfather lived to see the celebration of the centenary of The Manchester Guardian in 1921. The Guardian has been celebrating the beginning of its third century in recent days.

Cartoon by Karel Čapek

I wonder if my grandfather would have agreed with Anthony Burgess, who was born in 1917, only five years before my grandfather died? I think not. He was far too loyal, having worked for the newspaper for most of his life, but he might not have approved of the newspaper's change of name or transfer to London..

"At the time of my birth, Manchester was a great city, Cottonopolis, the mother of liberalism and the cradle of the entire industrial system. It had the greatest newspaper in the world, meaning the only independent one. The Manchester Guardian debased itself when it grew ashamed of its city of origin: a superb liberal organ was turned into an irritable rag dedicated...to the wrong kind of radicalism." Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God, 1987.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yeQ9wr5SrmgC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Anthony+Burgess,+at+the+time+of+my+birth,+Manchester+was+a+great+city&source=bl&ots=S-PlUCsY7d&sig=ACfU3U3YYlggN0z3cyGf2m7ZGfqoCsEvtw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq5dWetbLwAhWhoFwKHSRGAbgQ6AEwCXoECAYQAw#v=onepage&q=Anthony%20Burgess%2C%20at%20the%20time%20of%20my%20birth%2C%20Manchester%20was%20a%20great%20city&f=false

Could the Guardian have resisted the magnetic pull of the metropolis?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2021/may/06/guardian-200-magnetic-pull-metropolis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I have to admit that The Guardian is only one of many national and international papers that I look at on most days.