At 4:51am on Tuesday 29 September, Brad Pitt’s LinkedIn profile changed. Location: Manchester. Headline: ‘Open to Work as a Scumbag’. No notice to his agent. No notice to anyone. The profile stayed live for eleven minutes before Denise Ackroyd, a recruitment consultant in Salford, screenshotted it and posted it to a WhatsApp group called ‘Northern Recruiters (No Southerners)’. By 9am the screenshot was on X. By noon, 2.3 million views. Pitt’s only public statement, issued via a publicist at 3pm, reads: ‘Brad has long admired the M postcode.’ You have not updated your own profile in four years. I know. I have looked.

What a scumbag role actually involves in the North West

The job description, circulated internally at Manchester Combined Authority, lists the following duties: attending three breakfast meetings a week in Spinningfields, being photographed near a tram, and ‘representing the scumbag community at a strategic level’. Salary band: £78,000 pro rata, zero-hours, no pension.

Councillor Yvonne Fairhurst of Ancoats told a scrutiny panel that the role was ‘a key pillar of the Hope Is Back agenda’. A Freedom of Information request submitted by a Mr Eric Duckworth of Wythenshawe revealed that the post was created in a 14-minute meeting on 6 March, and that the recruitment budget had already been spent on a laminated leaflet campaign.

The applicant pool has some thoughts

By Wednesday, 11,000 people had applied. Among them: a 61-year-old retired bus driver, Colin Meecham, who wrote in his cover letter that he has been a scumbag for forty years without formal recognition and would like it on his CV before he dies. A 23-year-old graduate from Stockport applied with the subject line ‘I am a scumbag but I am also a fast learner’. A woman in Bolton withdrew after learning the role was unpaid at weekends.

Pitt’s own application, submitted through a personal Gmail account, lists his previous experience as ‘various’ and his notice period as ‘immediate’. Nobody at the Combined Authority has confirmed whether he was shortlisted. The shortlist has been leaked. He was not on it.

Manchester says yes, then says something else

On Thursday morning, Andy Burnham told BBC Radio Manchester that the city was ‘open for business, open for hope, and open to Brad’. By Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson clarified that the role was ‘symbolic’ and that no public money would be spent. By Thursday evening, the Combined Authority had confirmed the appointment of Pitt as Head of Scumbaggery (Placemaking), effective immediately, on a zero-hours contract with no pension and no holiday.

Pitt’s first official duty will be a walk from Piccadilly Gardens to the Etihad on 12 October. He has not been told which direction. Neither have you.

A brief clinical note on the whole matter

You have been reading this on a screen. Of course you have. You have also eaten this morning. I will not ask what. Manchester, as a city, presents with a mild case of attention-seeking, exacerbated by the weather and by a diet high in egg. My prescription is as follows:

  • Walk briskly to the coast. Any coast. Preferably not Blackpool, you know why.
  • Reduce egg intake to zero. Then lower.
  • Attend one breakfast meeting a week, maximum. In Spinningfields or not at all.
  • Apologise to Colin Meecham.
  • Do not update your LinkedIn. Nobody is looking. I am looking.

If the symptoms persist, that is your own fault. I have been watching Manchester since 2012. I have been watching you longer.