Piccadilly Garden's wall has been spray-painted with a protest message as tensions mount between local leaders and the government over lockdown measures.
City centre commuters woke to find the words 'The north is not a petri dish' in red capital letters daubed on the wall today (Friday).
The other side of the wall was spray-painted with the words 'Full Furloug(sic)'.
It is unclear who is responsible for the graffiti, but city centre councillor Pat Karney said it will be taken down.
He said: "There is a lot of anger and anxiety about, but we will remove any graffiti."
The photo of the wall was tweeted by Manchester Evening News reporter Andrew Bardsley.
In a retweet, Coun Jon-Connor Lyons wrote: " Maybe instead of demolishing this wall, we can just relocate it to our southern boarder, facilitating our independence from the Tories (we can green the wall on our side)."
While another Twitter user commented: "Bonus points if they just rip the wall down."
And one social media user wrote: "Honestly that wall is the worst thing about Piccadilly. Adding graffiti makes it look better."
On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Andy Burnham made a passionate speech decrying government pressure to put the region on 'Tier 3' lockdown due to high coronavirus infection rates.
He described the north as being treated like a 'sacrificial lamb” for unproven measures that were being carried out “on the cheap”.
