Introducing the Assembly District

Michael McDonough

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Quite how Manchester Metro Mayor, Andy Burnham came by his coronation in the media as ‘King of the North’ is subject to conjecture.

Some such as journalist and author Brian Gloom speculate that it started as an internet meme, while others wonder whether it was a creation of Marketing Manchester, an agency never shy to position it’s home city as the centre of everything. Whatever its source, and Burnham has himself joked about ruling from a Game of Thrones-style castle, like all good observation comedy, its absurdity is centred on a degree of truth. You’d have to have been operating with your eyes closed since at least the emergence of David Cameron’s government in 2010, not to pick up the sense that Manchester has become the increasingly less unofficial capital of the north, much favoured by business, government ministers and media alike. It’s hard not to notice that whenever the north’s regional mayors get together for a photo op or conference, it’s Burnham that is usually centred as the pivot point around whom others orbit. 

You could say this position is much deserved. Over several decades Manchester has played a very successful and canny game and has done much in the running of its economy that is both admirable and instructive to other regions with ambitions to raise their own performance. But this article is not intended as a Manchester love-in. The fear from the outside is that other regions, most notably its closest neighbour Liverpool, are caught in something of a gravity well, heading towards the event horizon, where the blackhole sucking in wealth and talent becomes inescapable. 

The UK government appears to have been operating a policy known as agglomeration where the economies of towns increasingly centralise around cities, and the economies of cities are pulled towards the biggest and best of them. The idea is that a northern London will offer snowball effects that drive increasing productivity and opportunity. Any attempt to discuss the downsides are quickly dismissed as jealousy. But what happens to everywhere else? As any real political or investment efforts become increasingly centred on Manchester and Leeds, the north’s other towns and cities are forced to focus on more tertiary and lower value economic sectors to avoid this very obvious elephant in the room. No wonder there’s much discussion about transport. You need good trains and good roads to create a commuter belt. 

Whether the north actually needs a ‘King’ is moot, it seems to be getting one, whether it likes it or not. In which case, maybe that King (or future Queen) really does need a castle or administrative centre from which to watch over their lands.

I’m being facetious, of course. But there is one idea that’s been doing the rounds for decades about the governance of the north that never truly goes away, even if no one has quite had the courage to turn it into reality. I’m talking about a Northern Regional Assembly or Parliament – a new constitutional arrangement that would put meat on the bones of devolution. I think it’s worth considering, for two reasons. Firstly, because history teaches us that no matter which party is in power in Westminster, nothing really changes for us. A Northern Regional Assembly would be founded on the simple understanding that only the north can be trusted to look after the north. And the second reason is that, done right, an Assembly could help to counter the divisive politics of regional capitals and agglomeration economics. Power could be distributed in a way that lifts up many communities, rather than few. For this reason an assembly must never be located in Manchester. 

‘Let’s aim high. Consign talk of the ‘King of the North’ to the metaphorical dustbin and carve out a new sense of identity and purpose.’

I’ll leave the finer details to minds more attuned to the vagaries of politics and taxation, but it would almost certainly require a bonfire was made of existing local governance arrangements. This would not be yet another fatty layer of bureaucracy feeding off the twitching corpse of local democracy. It would be the pinnacle of a fundamental re-working of power – a place where the core cities and towns of the north would come together to fix and finance their priorities at scale. Cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle joining forces with the Hull’s, Sunderland’s, Blackpool’s and York’s with one objective in mind – to challenge the economic pull of London and re-position the north as the economic engine room of the UK.

Maybe that sounds fanciful. Can we really reverse the economic gravity of the last 150 years? I don’t know the answer to that but I’d sure like to try. We should have some confidence about what is possible. Most of the UKs core cities reside in the north and our economy is bigger than that of whole countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden. Our population is made up of 15 million souls and we account for about 20% of the UKs national GDP. While Westminster neglects to address the wealth inequalities that fuelled the demands for Brexit, isn’t it time we took power into our own hands and gave our region a stronger, collective voice? One where different parts of the north were incentivised to put aside regional rivalries and work together.

In which case, I’m going to ask you to imagine a world in which Liverpool becomes the focal point and home of that Northern Assembly. Is that really so far-fetched an idea? Some would immediately dismiss the prospect. Our council is after all essentially under special measures being guided towards competence by government appointed commissioners because we couldn’t manage it ourselves. What credentials do we have? But I’d simply say, why not? We may have had a politically turbulent history and a less than stunning present, but we also have a tradition in the last one hundred years of standing up for the many, not the few.  Perhaps there is no more natural home for a regional assembly based on pan-northern equality and fairness as opposed to agglomeration, soft power and resource thirsty regional capitals.

Besides, despite all its issues, Liverpool is a city with an enviable international draw, incredible setting and bags of waterfront space to house such an assembly. A parliament might actually give Liverpool Waters some actual purpose too, while raising our own city’s aspirations. Some of our own will decry it as pie in the sky. But let’s not throw rocks or weave excuses. Let’s aim high. Consign talk of the ‘King of the North’ to the metaphorical dustbin and carve out a new sense of identity and purpose. One that is not only forward looking and aspirational but is also collaborative with its neighbours and based on a desire to see balance, fairness and justice intertwined into the north’s wider politics. it’s already there in the minds and hearts of northern people. Now let’s put it there in the institutions that represent us.

And so in the rest of this article, I’ve taken the liberty of going ahead and designing it. I hope you don’t mind the presumption but they do say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’ve created a series of visuals to conceptualise a new government district centered on Liverpool’s Central Docks.

Assembly District - Principles and Functions

Assembly District fly through.

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Today, the site is owned by Peel Holdings and development plans are proceeding at a snail’s pace. A recent consultation was announced for some kind of canalside park, but it’s a blank canvass and no buildings have been announced. The creation of a new political ‘village’ or district laid out to intertwine with neighbouring developments such as Stanley Dock and Ten Streets could be the final piece of the jigsaw for Liverpool’s waterfront regeneration. 

This new district would have to accord with some key functional imperatives and some core design principles. For function, the area must be able to accommodate our representatives and supporting administrative staff comfortably and securely. It must capitalise on the economic opportunity by creating desirable workspace which will be attractive to inward investment, and it must be broadly open to the general public to enjoy offering new facilities  which are available to all.

From a design perspective, the development should be ambitious and contemporary, forward-looking, sustainable and transparent. This area should boast a ‘postcard design’ while being the embodiment of openness to enshrine in the built form the idea that our representatives work for us, not themselves or even their parties. A trigger for the designs should be northern solidarity. In addition, I’d like to create an element of pleasure through the creation of quality, yet surprising recreational space.

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The Ten Streets and Central Docks area today

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The Plan

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Conceptually, the Central Docks plot would be divided into two areas: river and canal side to the west and further inland to the east.  The waterside plots would feature the landmark structures and open space, while the east side could house complimentary mixed-use facilities including both work and residential schemes. Mirroring the adjacent Ten Streets grid pattern, the plans would see a series of new tightly packed, pedestrianised streets opening up the Central Docks site before reaching a series of new waterways and ‘blue spaces’ which will be reclaimed from parts of the site that are currently infilled docks.

New architecture on the site will be encouraged to straddle our quaysides, complimenting and working with water space rather than requiring for it to be filled in to create room for building. This in meant as both a symbolic and practical gesture of compromise in a city often at loggerheads with itself on how to reach for the stars architecturally without compromising existing heritage.

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The Ten Streets District, Plan View

The centre piece of this new district would be the Northern Assembly building. Built across a series of pillars and positioned across the quayside to create a floating form, the building would be in a perfect position for security being largely surrounded by water and accessed only from one side. As a landmark for the north of England, the assembly would feature a circular internal layout to encourage parliamentarians to work together as one collective, while ensuring all areas of the north where represented equally. Cladded in steel and glass, with an undulating façade, the building would take some inspiration from Germany’s Reichstag building in which the public are free to observe parliamentary sessions as part of a commitment to transparency. 

On the riverside of the Assembly building, a new public space would be built on a series of interconnected concrete pier structures inspired by Heatherwick Studio’s ground-breaking and beautiful Little Island Park in New York. Each of the up to 50 piers would represent core towns and cities as part of a linear park space on the water’s edge topped with attractive landscaping and robust Mersey-friendly planting. The piers are also symbolic of Liverpool’s position as an arrival and departure point for the whole of the north of England. Together with green spaces throughout the site, reclaimed and newly created blue space and interconnecting bridges this area would become a landmark open space for the city, a riverside space to think, debate, contemplate and engage with politics in a new heart of central Liverpool. 

Two other landmark buildings neighbouring the Assembly are proposed for the water-side plot – one striking, multi-use cultural building and one mixed use 35-storey office and hotel.

The office and hotel building has been given a classic robot form with square body, head and antennae – this slightly retro but nevertheless futuristic form pointing to the need to put the industries of tomorrow at the heart of the north's strategy. 

The form of the cultural building, which could house museums, exhibitions, performance and meeting spaces as well as a visitors centre, is modelled on a modern interpretation of Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral while it’s four brick turrets are an echo of the city’s landmark Liver Building. The overall effect is somewhat church-like to reflect the central role that faith and secular belief and moral values have in our communities and their deep historical roots in the region.

Transport

One of the key issues facing Liverpool’s central and north docks area is that of connectivity. To compare Central Docks to waterside redevelopment plots in London’s Battersea and Docklands areas it’s clear that a development of this scale and footfall would require a comprehensive transport strategy. 

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Conceptual design for Ten Streets station, Northern Line.

One possible solution would be the development of a station on the Merseyrail Northern Line to the western edge of the site. Built across existing railway viaducts and positioned equidistant between Moorfields and Sandhills. This new station could multiple audiences including the emerging creative Ten Streets district, Assembly District and also Everton’s Bramley Moore Stadium a few hundred yards north. 

One of the key factors slowing down the regeneration of the north Liverpool docks has been access to the city centre and transport in general. Whilst a station at Ten Streets would go a long way to addressing this problem, the influx of new high density development may increase the viability of further transport infrastructure. The plans to the east of Central Docks envisage a concentration of high density homes and commercial and administrative buildings. The substantially increased footfall and employment in the area could support the creation of a new light rail link connecting directly with Lime St station through the currently disused Waterloo/Victoria tunnel alignment. 

For illustrative purposes and to create a sense of arrival at the new Ten Streets station, I am proposing two wing-like structures addressing a new public square. Essentially abstract in form, they provide a modern interpretation of the industrial cranes that would once have been seen in the area. They also serve an important function, providing weather-proof covering for 4 escalators which take passengers up to the station’s platform level.

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The Northern Assembly is the first of a two part article exploring the development of the Central Docks area. For our next article I will be exploring how the Ten Streets district itself could take advantage of Liverpool’s digital and gaming sector and if extended pull the area closer to the city centre.

Michael McDonough is the Art Director and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a lead creative specialising in 3D and animation, film and conceptual spatial design.

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Face Value: What makes a good council?

Richard Kemp

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There have been a lot of comments on the Liverpolitan Twitter feed recently after they published Child Labour, an article about the number of young councillors coming on to the scene in Liverpool. 

I was struck by the defensive nature of some of them especially from those who had been elected as young councillors themselves. Yet no-one has suggested that young councillors are a bad thing. They can offer a viewpoint and an energy that older members of the chamber might struggle to bring. A good council will use the knowledge and energy of young people as part of a balanced team where their voices can be heard rather than dismissed as it so often is.

I thought that I might contribute to this discussion because although at 69, I’m clearly not a young councillor, I was once and my experience of moving through the ages might help the debate.  I was first elected at 22, became the equivalent of a Cabinet Member at 24, and after 39 years in office, I’m now the longest serving councillor in Liverpool. In a variety of roles including as national leader of Lib Dem councillors I have supported elected members in more than 50 councils across the country so I’ve seen a lot of local government – both the good and the bad.

This experience does hopefully give me a long-term perspective from which to answer two related questions which I want to address - ’What should a good council look like?’ and ‘What does a good councillor look like?’

So to the first question. In a nutshell, a council should look as much as possible like the people of the area it represents. This applies both to the elected side of a council and also to its workforce, but in this article I’m just focusing on the elected side. 

“When choosing candidates we have to be looking at factors like gender balance, ethnicity, age and class. Does what’s found in the chamber reflect what’s found out on the streets?”

Why is this important? Because having a diversity of councillors means that there is a diversity of knowledge and experiences within the council chamber. Different groups of people are impacted by decisions in different ways so having broad representation ensures that we keep our eyes open and our hearts sensitive to the different priorities of the groups that make up our population. That’s really important because even if our intentions are good as councillors we can’t presume we understand everything or even feel everything that is important to our electorate.

For example, I have never been discriminated against on the grounds of race, gender or sexuality. I can empathise with those who have and have a feeling for their challenges but I do not have that direct experience.  Perhaps it’s the same with generational differences. I wasn’t born into the computer age, so I don’t have that instinctive feel that younger people do when discussing the challenges of technology, the industries of the future, the pitfalls of social media and issues around how we best communicate with each other. Ultimately, each person has their own stories to tell, and the better our representation, the more able we are to harness them to improve policies and more effectively monitor their success from different perspectives.

All of this means that when choosing candidates to stand for our parties we have to be looking at factors like gender balance, ethnicity, age and class. Does what’s found in the chamber reflect what’s found out on the streets? It’s worth looking at some of the available statistics. In Liverpool, according to the last census data 51% of our population are female and 49% male, while about 14% are from ethnic minorities including those born in other countries. A wide range of faiths are represented. Our population trends slightly younger than the national average with the under 30s clustering in the centre and average ages increasing as you move outwards especially to the north.  When you start to look at profession and class, manual workers now make up a smaller proportion of our elected officials compared to when I first became a councillor, but that reflects changes in the city and society as a whole. The age of mass employment in big unionised factories like Tate & Lyle, Ogdens Tobacco, Dunlop, Courtaulds or, of course, the docks is long over, a decline which set in many years ago as computers and mechanisation took over.

Liverpool Council is  currently completing a survey of councillors but the last one, conducted five years ago, showed that only 40% of elected members were female. However, the last five years has brought about a big change in that figure with Liverpool now one of the few councils in the country to achieve gender parity. We appear to have made less progress in other areas. Later this year we will have access to the first results from the 2021 National Census. This will provide us with the most up-to-date information about the make-up of the city’s population compared to that of its councillors. Those results should prove useful as we continue to try to improve representation.

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Councillors from Liverpool and the Wirral had their say on our article, Child Labour

However, and this is an important point, diversity is not enough on its own. Having elected members that look like the community does not mean they’d make inherently better councillors. Being a councillor involves passion and compassion; with a strong civic desire to serve the community. It involves commitment. It involves hard work. Being who you are is only the start. It’s what you want to do and how you want to do that counts and it takes a council chamber full of people with vision and ability to make a good council that is both representative and capable.

If we turn our attention to the second question, ‘What does a good councillor looks like?’, we can see why the ideal council is difficult to create. Your average councillor has four calls upon their time. In addition to what can be the hard and demanding grind of the job of councillor, they also need to earn a living, care for their family and help run their political party which usually involves a lot of campaigning and canvassing. Juggling these different demands is a challenge and the level of difficulty lands differently on different people effected by things such as time of life, financial security, responsibilities for others and many other factors. 

Being a councillor in a big city like Liverpool is a particularly arduous task if you do it properly and most councillors of most parties do.  The life of a councillor involves attending council and committee meetings, keeping up-to-date with the constant stream of information and documents, coordinating with other councillors from your political group,  and undergoing professional training when necessary. And all the while you are trying to weigh up matters, figuring out what decisions you have to take, and the need to make decisions is continuous. We then have to work within the communities that we represent, fact-finding and campaigning alongside the many volunteers who keep community life ticking over. For many of us council life is almost 24/7 and 365 days a year.

It’s worth noting that councillors do not receive a salary. Instead they receive a basic annual allowance which is worth £10,590 plus expenses. Those councillors who have additional responsibilities such as Cabinet members receive additional Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) but of course, many do not. This means, that most have no choice but to work for a living. Very few employers like the idea of a member of their staff being a councillor. The fact that we can legally demand unpaid time off to a certain level is unattractive to many which is why councillors often work for the public sector, unions or choose to be self-employed.

Outside of work, councillors have families and face the same pressures as the rest of the population. Those with added responsibilities such as caring for ageing parents or young children will inevitably have more on their plate than those who aren’t dealing with such issues. This is of course not unique to councillors but it’s worth noting because for some perfectly able individuals it can be an impediment preventing them from running for office or continuing their work once elected. In my experience, it’s easier to find the time to do things when you are a grandparent rather than when you’re weighed down with the challenges of parenthood.

Finally, all councillors except perhaps independents have to work inside their own political party undertaking political campaigning and policy development not only for local but also for national elections. What will surprise people who always think of us as politicians, is that party work often takes up a very small percentage of our time. More often than not, we tend to think of ourselves as councillors and not politicians.

All of these four factors intervene at different times to affect what we can do as councillors and even whether we can continue to do the job. 

In future, if we want a more representative council we need as an organisation to understand the realities of these four competing pressures on councillors and provide support mechanisms to help people cope with them. For example, there’s a carers allowance whereby councillors with young children can get some support for childcare activities but none for those who have to care for relatives either older than themselves or those with physical or mental needs. 

“The question of money gets raised from time to time. Some believe councillors should be paid more to attract better candidates. I don’t think that more money would actually change the makeup of the council, nor should it.”

I often mentor Lib Dem council groups and young people who are thinking of standing for office or even sometimes those who have been already been elected and they often ask me if I think being a councillor is a good idea. My answer is invariably, “Yes, but think through what that will mean to you and yours.”

Being an elected representative is a huge learning experience which we often fail to capture. On the job, I learned how to speak in public, how big organisations work and how to work effectively within them. I developed many skills in political and managerial leadership. I also picked up a lot of knowledge about people, communities and the way that the public sector responds to needs and problems. 

I was lucky enough to find a job as a regeneration adviser which made use of those skills and knowledge sets. That was, however, by luck not judgement and no help was given to me to find work that would utilise my hard-earned experience. I think a major way forward for all councillors, except for old gimmers like me, would be to find a way of accrediting the learning experiences and training that we have acquired. Having people who know how the public sector works, can chair meetings, can speak in public, and understand how to interpret balance sheets and trading accounts should be a very attractive proposition for both public and private sectors if we could capture that and enable us to put it on our CVs.

For very practical reasons there are life factors which will inhibit the very young and very old from being councillors. Most young people want to experience life in a range of educational, work and leisure activities before settling down. At the other end of the timeline, I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope with some of the grind of council work. I can now only deliver leaflets for 2.5 hours before the knees go!

But saying that, there is an advantage to being an ‘old hand’. I have developed a deep well of ‘life experience’, some of it gained though my time at the council, but much of it elsewhere.  I’ve learned how to listen, how and when to intervene, how to make a point and when it’s better to keep my mouth shut. I now have the confidence to know that I know a lot, but also that it’s OK to admit that there are areas where I know little or do not have the skills required. Always strive to surround yourself with great people – you don’t have to be an expert in everything.

The question of money gets raised from time to time. Some believe that councillors should be paid more to attract better candidates. I don’t think that more money would actually change the makeup of the council, nor should it. When I was first a councillor, we only received an allowance of £10 a day which wasn’t a lot of money even in 1975! But it didn’t affect my desire to do the job. You have to do it because you care and because you feel that being a councillor is your way of giving back to the community that you live in.

I’ve had a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from my years as a councillor, but it has never been an easy job. When people tell me I am not doing enough of this or that or spending my time wrongly, I always challenge them to stand for the council themselves. Being an angry couch potato or keyboard warrior is much easier and few take up the challenge.

Most councillors of all parties do their best. Everyone can help us to do our job better by supporting us with their time and knowledge in a positive way. If you want more good councillors think of ways in which you could help the ones you’ve got now – that is if you are not prepared to put yourself to the electoral test!

Richard Kemp is the longest standing councillor in Liverpool. He is also the Leader of the Liverpool Liberal Democrat Group.

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Child Labour

Michael McDonough and Paul Bryan

The latest local election results have confirmed an ongoing trend - Liverpool councillors (especially Labour ones) are being recruited at an ever younger age.

Sam East (Warbreck) and Ellie Byrne (Everton) both in their early twenties, join the likes of Harry Doyle (Knotty Ash), Frazer Lake (Fazakerley) and Sarah Doyle (Riverside) who became councillors at ages 22, 23, and 24 respectively (give or take the odd month – feel free to correct us). The latter three are now all serving in senior positions as part of the Mayor’s Cabinet. 

Labour are not the only ones playing to this trend though. On the Wirral, Jake Booth, 19, took a seat last year for the Conservatives while in Liverpool the Tories recently appointed the frankly mature in comparison, Dr David Jeffery as their Chairman at the ripe old age of 27 (though he’s not a councillor). 

The emergence of ever more fresh-faced local political candidates, which is often presented as energising and key to connecting with the city’s younger generation is nevertheless curious. Traditionally, solid life experience and proven competence in some other field of endeavour have been seen as valuable traits essential to making a decent fist of a job in public office. Demonstrable skills and previous success, which take time to accrue,  have acted as a semi-reliable predictor that a candidate will land on their feet. But that kind of thinking is out of fashion. A fresh, young face is the recipe de jour.

Except it doesn’t seem to be working. The turnouts in the latest by-elections were abysmal- the puny 17% turnout in Warbreck putting the even more atrocious 14% in Everton to shame. Perhaps this should be a lesson that viewing politics though the lens of identity resonates far less than actually being credible.

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Clockwise from top-left: Ellie Byrne and Sam East on the campaign trail; Sam East promotional leaflet; Now councillors, Ellie Byrne and Sam East celebrate their success in winning the seats of Everton and Warbreck; Councillor, Cabinet member and Assistant Mayor, Harry Doyle, now 25, responsible for Culture and the Visitor Economy

None of this is to suggest that young people shouldn’t be in politics - far from it! And you could argue the older generation haven’t exactly pulled up any trees. Age and ability are not guaranteed bedfellows and we’ve all met unwise old-hands who are best left in the stable. But surely, even amongst the parroted outcries of ageism, track record counts for something?

The comments in the Liverpool Echo were a peach. “Shouldn’t those two be in school?” said one. “What life experiences can they bring to their roles. Jesus Christ!” said another.  L3EFC expressed some doubt that “People fresh out of Uni” would be able to “stand up to the people who grease the wheels in this town.”

Which means we have to ask the question… can it be right that such inexperienced councillors are representing these deeply challenged areas which are crying out for leadership that can deliver on the ground? Will Councillor Ellie Byrne, the daughter of a sitting MP, deliver the kind of positive change Everton desperately needs? Does Councillor Sam East have the real-world nous to effectively tackle the issues holding back Warbreck? Or are these two eager and no doubt able politicians the product of a disinterested local Labour machine that doesn’t care or need to care about who it puts forward for election? 

“The comments in the Liverpool Echo were a peach. ‘Shouldn’t those two be in school?’ said one. ‘What life experiences can they bring to their roles? Jesus Christ!’ said another.”

Of course, there are several reasons why young candidates are so attractive to party leadership. On the upside, they offer the classic and generally much needed injection of new blood. They hold out the potential for new ideas and new energy. And in Liverpool, where there is a dark shadow over much that has gone before, you can understand the desire to clear the decks and start afresh. But there’s another darker reason. Young councillors are pliable. They’re more likely to do what they’re told. While they’re still building their confidence, they won’t challenge the top dogs and that’s useful when your grip on power is weak. Mayor Joanne Anderson, herself relatively inexperienced as a councillor, has introduced young members to her Cabinet with responsibility for key portfolios including Development and Economy, Adult and Social Care, and Culture and Tourism. Without casting any aspersions on Cabinet members talents or potential, you can see their appeal.

We have to ask where the Liberal Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives and Greens are in all of this? Despite making admirable gains in many wards they still haven’t made much of a dent in the city’s ‘red rosette’ Labour strongholds and this despite the Caller Report offering them ammunition on a platter. As strong a campaign as the Green Party’s Kevin Robinson-Hale ran in Everton (albeit clearly under-resourced) he still only polled 362 votes. In Warbreck, the Lib Dems Karen Afford polled 874. This is not what engagement looks like. Perhaps it’s time all parties in the city took a long hard look at who they’re putting forward for local elections, what pledges are being made and why for the moment so many amongst the electorate simply couldn’t give a toss about what their local political parties have to say. 

Councillor Ellie Bryne’s election pledges to Everton given the Liverpolitan treatment

Ellie Byrne’s vacuous election promises were a case in point and a classic example of how an unengaged electorate enable party cynicism. Why bother getting too specific or measurable with your commitments when no-one is asking for it might be the rejoinder of the spin doctors, but it feeds the descent into low participation. A deeper critique suggests a more existential worry – our parties just don’t have any answers, scraping around in the bargain bin of ideas, and plucking out little more than platitudes of intention. Heaven forbid someone might actually come up with a plan to drive more employment.

It must be said in Liverpool the wheels turn more slowly. Many voters’ unflinching loyalty to party blinds them to individual failures, provoking little more than a shrug of resignation. Or worse, it depresses their sense of the possible. And that’s deadly, because if you don’t believe you can do much in life, the world has a tendency to deliver on your expectations.

But you can only hoodwink the voters for so long. When it comes to delivering results in the four years of office a councillor receives, competence beats willing nine times out of ten. A fresh face may serve you well enough amongst the cheap thrills of an election campaign, but does it really get the job done? Eventually, without the ideas or the know-how to deliver on them, you’ll get found out.

There is the temptation in Liverpool to think that little changes in the political sphere. That despite the odd bit of noise within the ruling party, on the outside all is stable and unchanging. A recent electoral modelling exercise suggested the upcoming 2023 boundary changes in electoral wards would have only the most superficial of effects.  Labour, instead of holding 78% of council seats would now hold 79% it predicted. So much for turbulent times.

But bubbling away under the surface, something is happening and the results will be unpredictable. The recent by-elections were a warning, not just to Labour but to all parties. Sooner or later, voters will do what voters do. They don’t like being taken for granted. 

All of this opens up a wider question about the city and its communities. Why are there so few people from a more professional background standing for election? What exactly is turning them off? Many of these people will be successful in their own lives. Could there be some really strong politicians and visionaries amongst the roughly 70% who don’t vote in local elections? Are there talented leaders amongst those Liverpolitans who look on at an unwelcoming, opaque and sewn-up political culture with distaste and disengagement?

Decades of brain-drain have undoubtedly had an impact. Liverpool has jettisoned so much of its professional class who left in search of opportunity they could not find at home. And now the parties are trying to fill the void by turning to ever younger graduates. If the trend continues we may well see in the coming years candidates organising their election campaigns around their GCSE examination calendar. An 18-year old Jake Morrison, who triumphed in 2011 over former Council Leader, Mike Storey to win the Wavertree seat may have well been a harbinger of times to come. He retired from politics aged 22.

Of course, at Liverpolitan, we always wish newly elected councillors well and hope to be pleasantly surprised by the new additions but we’d argue their election success is symptomatic of a much bigger elephant in the room, a room that clearly has fewer and fewer adults. It is a room dominated by established party complacency and a dash of arrogance; a city electorate detached from politics and a political culture devoid of real local talent and energy putting itself forward.

Michael McDonough is the Art Director and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a lead creative specialising in 3D and animation, film and conceptual spatial design.

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach

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How should we be governed? Six parties have their say…

Liverpolitan

Well, we might not have got the referendum we wanted but the people of Liverpool still have a chance to have their say on how the city is run. The Council’s public consultation on future governance models is now open and at Liverpolitan we think you should get involved.

Healthy democracies require participation and in a city that often sets a high bar on shenanigans, figuring out how to keep our representatives and over-lords in check and on-track seems like a worthwhile way to spend our spring evenings.

So what do you need to do?

Visit https://liverpoolourwayforward.com

Read about the three options on the table, weigh up the pros and cons, talk to your friends and family, have a row about it, and complete the online survey by no later than the 20th June 2022.

The three options presented are:

1) The Mayor and Cabinet model – what we have now

2) The Leader and Cabinet model – what we had previously

3) The Committee model – what we had before the year 2000

Once the results of the consultation are in it’s then up to our councillors to decide how or indeed whether to implement the results. That may leave wiggle-room for all kinds of disagreements but there’s a strong suggestion that parties will attempt to honour the outcome. Any changes that take place will be implemented from the 4th May 2023 at the local elections.

But which models do each of the parties support?

We asked six local political parties – Labour, Liberal Democrats, The Green Party, The Conservatives, The Liberal Party and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) to write up to 400 words stating which of the three governance models they favour and why. Each party either has local councillors in Liverpool now or in the case of the Conservatives and TUSC regularly field candidates in local elections.

Here’s what they had to say.

The Labour Party position

We approached Major Joanne Anderson for comment but did not receive a reply, although in a previous interview on BBC Radio Merseyside she said “I want to say neutral." However, an official party spokesperson gave us this statement:

by a Liverpool Party spokesperson

“The city wide consultation is now open and the Labour Party is committed to listening to what the residents of Liverpool have to say about how the City Council is run. It is important that no political party pre-judges the outcome of the consultation and that residents feel that that their voices are being heard. Based on the results of the consultation, the Labour Party will then take a formal position on the governance of our city.”

Model favoured: Undecided

Liverpolitan says: Labour’s position is not to have a position until the results of the consultation are in. They will then decide on their favoured model ‘based on the results’.

The Liberal Democrat position

by Councillor Richard Kemp, Leader, Liverpool Liberal Democrats

The ‘committee system’ is the Lib Dem choice for Liverpool’s governance

“There are three choices allowed in law by which the council can govern itself although some modifications can be made to the Leader and Committee models.

“I am working on the assumption that few in Liverpool would be mad enough to vote to keep the Mayoral system as it has been so badly devalued by Joe Anderson.

“The Leader and Cabinet model has many of the bad mechanisms that are contained in the Mayoral model. Much has been made of the fact that this is the model that the Lib Dems introduced in 2000 but we had little choice because the only two options that were available to us were the Mayoral or Leader models. Both of them concentrate power in the hands of a few people and do so in a way which encourages secrecy and makes it very difficult to challenge what the Cabinet wants to do. The Leader model was the least bad option!

“Since 2012, a third way has been available which is called the Committee system. This means that decisions are taken not by a one-party cabinet but by a number of committees which are representative of the political make-up of the council. That means that:

1. Decisions can be challenged at the time they are made by members of both the biggest party and the other parties on the council.

2. All councillors will be involved in decision making which means that they will know more about what is going on and have to account for the decisions that they make to the people.

3. The people of Liverpool will be more involved as well because there are far more people that they can ‘nobble’ about these decisions.

4. The system is much more accountable and transparent with far fewer decisions being made in the dark recesses of the council.

“We believe that this is the best way forward and will campaign for it in the coming months. However, there is no point in consulting with the people of Liverpool unless we are prepared to debate the issues with them and take heed of what they have to say. We hope that a clear expression of what people want will come out of the consultation. We will then support the people’s views and I challenge the other parties to do exactly the same.”

Model favoured: The Committee system

Liverpolitan says: The Lib Dem’s position is clear – they will be campaigning in favour of a Committee structure of governance but promise to abide by the results of the consultation.

The Green Party position

by Councillor Tom Crone, Leader, Liverpool Green Party

Democratic decision-making for a cooperative political culture

“We are very critical of this consultation. Once again, the people of Liverpool are being denied a proper say on how we are governed. In 2012, while voters in cities across the country were asked if they wanted an elected mayor, Liverpool Labour decided they knew best and imposed the mayoral model. The result was a decade of chaotic mismanagement. Now the city council is having to work round the clock trying to fix the mess left behind.

“This consultation does not have the same democratic authority as a referendum. Having three options makes a clear, unambiguous decision unlikely. The responses will need interpreting, and that will still leave the final decision with the Labour Party. That has a nasty whiff about it. We would much prefer to trust the people of Liverpool with the final decision.

“The Greens will be making the case for adopting the committee system. The committee system involves many more councillors in decision making and policy development. Under the current system even most Labour councillors have very little to do with real decision making. It is only Cabinet members who have real executive powers. Other democratically elected councillors are simply shut out. Even within the Cabinet, the Mayor sets the agenda and can predetermine outcomes. Power is really concentrated in a very small number of individuals. This leads to poor decision making, not least because it fails to make use of the skills and experiences of all the 90 councillors elected to represent their communities.

“The committee system, as well as sharing out power more fairly, also encourages much more constructive cross party working. The public rightly complains about “yah-boo” politics and it is shocking how often our debates in council chamber descend into pointless political point-scoring because really decisions are taken elsewhere. A committee system means different parties having to sit down together and really decide how best to deliver for the people of Liverpool. Councillors will soon realise that they agree on a lot, while learning to respect distinctive perspectives.

“The imposed Mayoral system opened the door to the shame of the Joe Anderson years, and slammed it shut on transparency and democratic accountability. It’s time to ditch the personality politics and let the people back in.”

Model favoured: The Committee model

Liverpolitan says: The Green Party’s position is clear – they will be ‘making the case’ for a Committee structure of governance.

The Conservative Party position

by Dr David Jeffery, Chairman, Liverpool Conservatives

The voters should decide whether we have a Mayor, not Liverpool Labour

“In 2012, referendums were held across 11 of England’s large cities on whether to introduce directly elected mayors. One city was conspicuous by its absence: Liverpool. Instead, in their infinite wisdom, the Labour-run city council decided to ignore the people and voted to bypass a referendum. They introduced the mayoral position by stealth, and parachuted in Joe Anderson – and we all know how that turned out. Of the three authorities which have adopted and then subsequently abolished the mayoral system, all three have done so following a referendum. If Liverpool Labour get their way, once again one city will be conspicuous by its absence: Liverpool.

“The truth is that this Labour council want to ignore voters. This consultation is a gimmick – the result is a foregone conclusion, likely designed to sooth internal party arguments and resentments that have built up under Joe Anderson. We’re told by Labour that a referendum would be too expensive - never mind the fact that seven Labour councillors rebelled over Labour’s budget, which built up excessive financial reserves – but those more sceptical than I might argue it’s not a surprise that this move came after Labour were forced into a humiliating second round of voting in the 2021 mayoral election.

“Decisions on how our city is run should not be made from on high in Labour Party backrooms. Our executive arrangements should not be a consequence of internal Labour Party management. This city’s government is not their plaything, and to treat it as such is an insult to voters.

“There are good arguments for a Mayor: studies have shown that, compared to a council leader, mayors better represent the whole city, are more outward-looking, and are better at bringing much-needed investment into the city. Mayors are put in office by the people, whilst council leaders are selected in grubby back-room deals within their own party, and as such mayors have a better claim to speak for the city as a whole.

“Indeed, it is arguable that the real issues with Liverpool’s politics isn’t the mayoral system, but the fact that Liverpool Labour allowed Joe Anderson to abolish the mayoral scrutiny committee because he didn’t like the type of scrutiny he was receiving.

“Liverpool Labour should do the right thing and give the people of Liverpool a vote on how they are governed. It really is that simple.”

Model favoured: Undecided

Liverpolitan says: The Conservative Party have yet to take a formal position but do see merits in the Mayoral system. However, they believe that it should be up to the voters, not parties to decide which model to choose through the implementation of a referendum.

The Liberal Party position

by Councillor Steve Radford, Leader, The Liberal Party

Time to wake up. Keep the Mayor, adopt Proportional Representation and ask questions

“In over 40 years in politics I’ve seen corruption and abuse of power in all models of local government in Liverpool.

“In the Militant years I saw the sale of land at knock-down prices, council officers withholding information, dodgy minutes and record keeping and much more that I sadly can’t put into print. And that was under the committee system.

“Key to the abuse of council procedures was a willingness by some to turn a blind eye to those who broke or undermined the rules. Later on, during the Lib Dem years things were little different and legal battles had to be fought just to uphold the basic right of council members to attend certain public meetings. That was under the Leader and Cabinet model.

“One of the reasons I fear abuse of power has gone on for so long in Liverpool is the failure of the police to uphold the law. Today, they are tasked with some very important investigations under Operations Aloft and Sheridan that have been triggered during the years of the Mayor and Cabinet model. We should watch the outcome of those investigations closely.

“So what’s the answer? Firstly, we must get rid of the first past the post voting system than gives an inflated majority to a lead party, creating a vacuum of safe seats where the electorate is totally taken for granted.

“Secondly, we need senior council officers selected on merit, not on how subservient they are to the ruling party. Some have been brave enough to stand up for professional standards. Others have not.

“On to the Mayoralty. Without a doubt, both central government and the business community prefer a Mayor with an agenda focused on the whole city, rather than a Leader who is just accountable to a ward and their own political council group.

“Liverpool is an internationally recognised city and we need a Mayor to put us on a level playing field with our global peers. If Liverpool has in the past elected the wrong mayors that responsibility ultimately lies with the electorate. Being candid, it’s about time residents looked more at the person, and less at the colour of the rosette.

“Some readers may know that I chair the City Region Scrutiny Committee – and from that role I can see how the Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram quietly secures funds for the region by adopting more mature and less confrontational politics.

“We should have a Mayor but we need a more diverse council elected by proportional representation, and we need a more curious electorate willing to ask difficult questions of the candidates who canvass for their votes.”

Model favoured: Mayor with Cabinet

Liverpolitan says: The Liberal Party position is clear – they support retaining the Mayor with Cabinet structure of governance, but want to see the adoption of city-wide proportional representation for local elections.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) position

by Roger Bannister, Leader, Liverpool TUSC

Response to Proposals on City Governance

“Three proposals have been put forward on models for council governance in advance of the ending of the term of office for the directly elected Mayor in 2023, which are referred to as The Mayor and Cabinet Model, The Leader and Cabinet Model and the Committee Model. Of these three models, TUSC supports the Committee model.

“TUSC takes this position because it is the Committee Model that gives most powers to the directly elected councillors, rather than concentrating many of them in the hands of one person, as the Mayor and Cabinet Model does, or in the hands of a relatively small number of people as the Leader and Cabinet Model does.

“It is the strong view of TUSC that the electorate is best served when power is more evenly shared amongst councillors, so that by making representation to a Ward Councillor about an issue, that councillor will be able to exert influence effectively on behalf of the people that he/she represents. This is less likely to be the case with the other two models.

“It is our belief that both the Mayor and Cabinet and the Leader and Cabinet models were devised in order to ‘speed up’ the council decision making process, and whilst this is not a bad thing in itself, if it is done at the expense of democratic process, it is potentially prone to corrupt practice. Given the current involvement of the police in the municipal affairs of Liverpool, this point must be taken very seriously indeed.

“It is also our belief that there is a large and growing disconnection from, and cynicism in local politics in Liverpool, which can be expressed quite vehemently when people speak to TUSC candidates and supporters during election periods. The introduction of a directly elected Mayor, not as in most cities following a referendum, but by will of the Council alone, has done little to halt this trend.

“Local government in Liverpool is at a crucial stage, with democracy under attack both from the recommendations of Max Caller, with a reduced number of councillors, and elections only on a four yearly basis. Now is not the time to further reduce democratic accountability as the first two options would do.”

Model favoured: Committee system

Liverpolitan says: The Liverpool Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) position is clear – they support the Committee structure of governance.

So there you have it. Some for the Committee system, some leaning towards keeping the Mayoral model and some steadfastly neutral or yet to declare. But now it’s over to you. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. What do you think?

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Liverpool Waters: Peel’s recipe for anytown, anywhere

Jon Egan

The debates around the Waterloo Dock project in Liverpool Waters and the expansion of Liverpool Airport caused heated debate amongst Liverpolitan’s contributors leaving plenty of room for disagreement. But one thing we all agreed on was their totemic importance to the city, revealing a schism between competing visions of our future. It’s a discussion the people of Liverpool need to have. What kind of place do we want to be? In this article, Jon Egan self-identifies with those sometimes christened as ‘nimbys’ and puts forward his idea for a city built around the cultivation of difference, individuality and beauty.

In the months ahead, we’ll explore these issues from other perspectives as part of a new ‘Debating Our Future’ series. If you would like to contribute to the discussion with your own vision, contact team@liverpolitan.co.uk

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It's rare we embark on journeys in pursuit of the familiar, the ordinary or the humdrum. Travel, they say, is about broadening the mind, experiencing new sights, sounds, flavour and ambiences. The places we cherish and remember are those most imbued with a capacity to charm and surprise. So for places and cities aspiring to become destinations, cultivating and conserving what makes them different and original seems like a rewarding strategy. For Liverpool, a city that loudly proclaims its originality and inimitability, this should be a simple and unchallenging task.

When travel is neither practical or affordable, we always have the consolation of reading about the places we yearn to visit, experiencing their enchantment vicariously, though often with the added patina of poetic imagination.

Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel, Invisible Cities, is predicated on a series of imaginary conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The famed traveller regales the Mongol Emperor with tales of the many fabulous cities he has visited, but true to the spirit of Calvino’s magical realism, these are not actual cities, nor even possible cities. They are extraordinary and fantastical creations - parables and paradoxes that explore what the book describes as the “exceptions, exclusions, incongruities and contradictions” that characterise and differentiate cities. Towards the end of the book, Marco Polo describes a city that heralds a disturbing vision, an incipient possibility foreshadowing the endpoint of globalisation.

“If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off. The suburbs they drove me through were no different to the others with the same little greenish and yellowish houses. Why come to Trude? I asked myself, and I already wanted to leave. “You can resume your flight whenever you like”, they said to me, “but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same detail by detail. The world is covered by a sole Trude which does not begin and does not end. Only the name of the airport is different.”

The Waterloo Dock project in Liverpool Waters has totemic significance. For modernists it stands for ambition, progress and status. For the conservation lobby it was loaded with deep symbolism representing the destruction and the desecration of heritage.

So what, you may ask, does this have to do with Liverpool and its future? The answer lurks somewhere in the subtext of a recent planning controversy that divided commentators and communities, polemicists and politicians.

The project was the proposed residential development on the partially infilled Waterloo Dock in Peel’s Liverpool Waters. For modernists and urbanist thought leaders the project had totemic significance, standing as a shorthand statement of ambition, progress and status. For the conservation/heritage lobby the project was similarly loaded with deep symbolism representing the destruction and the desecration of heritage. The fractious debates and the absence of a shared narrative or vocabulary suggest a city without a clear or shared sense of self, insecure about its past and uncertain about its future.

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The Romal Capital proposals for Waterloo Dock in Liverpool Waters were unanimously rejected by the Liverpool City Council Planning Committee on 18th Jan 2022. The developers have appealed and the plans will now go before the government’s Planning Inspectorate

So which side am I on? Typically perhaps for a Libra, both and neither. I have lamented the city’s lack of ambition, absence of vision and its inability to answer, or even ask itself, the fundamental question - what is Liverpool for? But I have also questioned the assertion implied, or explicitly asserted by some, that development is nearly always an intrinsic good. Indeed, in the context of the Waterloo Dock debate, I found myself aligned with alleged nimbys, and in spirited disagreement with many allies including the Editor and Founders of this publication.

Maybe the partial infilling of the dock and construction of an inoffensively bland apartment building was not the greatest ever crime against Liverpool’s heritage, but neither was this drably functional box of micro-apartments the most aesthetically or socially desirable addition to our (formerly) World Heritage waterfront. The debate and passions were evidently focused on bigger agendas and deeper sensibilities.

Fly-through video panorama of Waterloo Dock, Liverpool filmed in January 2022

Looming almost literally over the Waterloo Dock debate is a bigger picture, a grander vision and a development proposition that has insinuated itself into being a substitute for an actual future vision for our city. Liverpool Waters is now so ingrained into the city’s discourse and psychogeography that you could be forgiven for thinking that it actually exists. Peel’s near messianic promise to deliver Manhattan or Shanghai on the Mersey was proclaimed with a prophetic urgency in 2007, imbuing its curiously cinematic CGI’s with a hyperreal potency. When choosing between the actuality of World Heritage Site designation and the ephemeral fool’s gold promise of Liverpool Waters, we opted for the phantasy.

Liverpool Waters has both framed and constrained the debate about what sort of city we want to be, and what kind and quality of development we should be encouraging and embracing. Tall buildings have an obvious glamour. UK cities in particular seemed to be in frenzied competition to erect the tallest buildings, as if this, above all else, was a shortcut to status and significance.

Peel’s phalanx of waterfront skyscrapers was Liverpool’s trump card ready to be played (at some ceaselessly rolling future 30-year date), catapulting us ahead of our provincial rivals and reasserting our true global status. But is this what we want for Liverpool - a derivative identity, a replicant city? Trude on the Mersey?

Without for one second surrendering to nimbyism, we can recognise that imitation and simulation should not be our template. Echoing Calvino’s prescient warnings about globalisation, Desmond Fennell, the essayist and philosophical writer, foresaw similar tendencies at work in the early days of Ireland’s embrace of cosmopolitan modernity. In a beautifully evocative passage, in his book, State of The Nation, Fennell laments the loss of Dublin’s once rich and distinctive urban culture and soul. He mourns the curious and idiosyncratic details and delights that once defined and differentiated places.

Liverpool Waters is now so ingrained in the city’s discourse and psychogeography that you could be forgiven for thinking that it actually exists.

“If he is a Dubliner, walking amongst the offensive tower blocks, one who can cast his mind back 20 years, he will remember the vast Theatre Royal with its troupe of dancing girls, The Capitol and the old Metropole with their tearooms, Jammet restaurant and the back-bar, the incomparable Russell, the Dolphin, Bewley's and the Bailey as they used to be, the elegant grocers shops staffed by professionals of the trade, the specialist tobacconists with their priest-like attendants... It would be an exaggeration to say that consumerism destroyed or reduced the quality of everything: it improved the quality of tape-recorders, computers and inter-continental missiles and many other things. But it destroyed many of the amenities and much of the pleasure of cities, and, in a sense, the city as such."

The steady erosion of difference, character and defining originality is in danger of creating a sense of alienation and disinheritance as places converge and identities become eerily homogenous. We lose our bearings as familiar places lose their landmarks and legibility.

All too often progressives and modernisers have a tendency to disparage ‘conservatives’ whether they are rabid xenophobes or harmless nimbys, as people living in the past, fearful of change, trapped by prejudice and insecurity. But sometimes those who question change do have a point, even if it escapes rational or tangible articulation. Loss is something that is easier to feel than it is to explain.

So am I proposing a future constrained by conservation and suffocated by the cult of heritage? The simple answer is no, and if I may be excused for recycling New Labour nomenclature, I believe there is a third way. It’s an approach that can be radical, imaginative and ambitious without being imitative or simulatory. In a recent Guardian Op Ed, Simon Jenkins added his voice to the argument for diverse and differentiated strategies for regeneration.

“The Leaders of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol can think of no other way of competing with London than by erecting garish towers of luxury flats in their central areas. They ignore the evidence that modern creative clusters - in design, marketing, the arts and entertainment - are drawn to historic neighbourhoods and old converted buildings… Northern cities regard their Victorian heritage as a liability not an asset.”

For Liverpool this should not mean a moratorium on tall buildings or intelligent contemporary design, but it should be a challenge to rethink and re-prioritise. We know from our experience that innovation and regeneration are about more than large-scale physical development and shiny glass towers. It’s about what happens in the cracks and gaps, the higgledy-piggledy neighbourhoods and Wabi sabi spaces where innovators and pioneers just get on with it. So let’s learn the lesson from the Baltic and formulate a planning framework for the Fabric District before its character and urban ambience are swamped by more identikit apartment blocks.

The decline of our port economy has bequeathed us an enviable array of empty buildings and fallow dockland areas ripe for reseeding as creative clusters. But areas like Ten Streets need more than protective planning frameworks, they need assertive interventions and clever curation if they are to fulfill their potential. Where are the big catalytic ideas that would stimulate investment and clustering in an area that may otherwise remain a squandered asset? If we see Ten Streets as the incubator for a world-class digital cluster, should it also be the home for Liverpool’s equivalent of Paris’ Ecole 42 - the digital “university without teachers” whose model and approach is now being embraced by cities ambitious to expand their technology and creative sectors.

And what about Ten Street’s brash and status-obsessed neighbour? It’s time to radically reappraise Liverpool Waters. As a benchmark for ambition it’s looking increasingly hackneyed, irrelevant and unrealistic. Even its most impassioned advocates are now beginning to question whether Peel is seriously committed to actualising this Fata Morgana version of Liverpool's future.

The debate about the northern docks should not be a battleground between nimbys and tall building fetishists. It should be about what the city needs and how the immense potential of vacant dockland can be harnessed to make Liverpool a different and more attractive city for its people, its visitors and investors. In San Francisco the development brief for its historic piers (former docks) proposes a mid-rise human scale built form aimed at preserving the setting of the city’s downtown cluster - an important part of its visual signature - but also to safeguard the city's view of the bay and sense of connection to its port history. Far from fostering mediocrity, the city has encouraged architectural excellence and experimentation with brilliantly innovative contributions from Thomas Heatherwick amongst others. Ironically, this was the approach favoured by UNESCO as the basis for the future evolution of our World Heritage Site. It’s also an approach that would have facilitated a more seamless integration with Ten Streets and wider North Liverpool.

Sometimes those who question change do have a point, even if it escapes rational or tangible articulation. Loss is something that is easier to feel than it is to explain.

Of course, we need to recognise that regeneration of the city centre alone will never suffice; Liverpool’s individual identity resides as much in its suburbs and neighbourhood high streets, its stunning parks and rich Georgian and Victorian legacy as it does in the more showpiece locations. Prefiguring Calvino's parable, Marxist critic Guy Debord and his Situationist collaborators warned that the redevelopment of Paris in the late 1950s signified a ruthless process of rationalisation, commercialisation and homogenisation where the authentic social life of cities was being replaced by spectacle - "all that was directly lived has become mere representation." Like their Surrealist forbears, the Situationists saw the city as a playground or dramatic stage promising limitless encounters with the extraordinary and the unexpected (le merveilleux quotidien).

It seems strangely apposite for a city seduced by the film-set flimsiness of Peel's promise, that we cherish our architectural heritage less for its intrinsic quality - its lived experience - than its capacity to mimic more significant and glamorous places. Sure, we can take pride in being the UK’s most filmed city, but is that it? Is our identity founded on an aptitude for imitation and representation?

Peel's penchant for visionary masterplans extends beyond the stalled blueprint for Liverpool Waters. Equally "ambitious and aspirational" are its plans to transform our humble provincial airport into a global hub with direct links to long haul destinations on every continent. Irrespective of the merits, feasibility or environmental impact of the plan, it is another ingenious attempt to stroke the ego of a city short on self-belief and uncertain about its place in the world.

Proper cities have proper airports, and the fact that Manchester has one, is less a matter of convenience than cause for a deep seated inferiority complex. But as latter day Marco Polo, Bill Bryson’s descriptions of Manchester as “an airport with a city attached” and “a huddle of glassy modern buildings and executive flats in the middle of a vast urban nowhere,” reveal, mere status symbols are not enough to make a city significant or memorable. In contrast, Bryson observes that “in Liverpool, you know you are some place.”

We need a regeneration prospectus based on the cultivation of difference and individuality, that cherishes what’s unique, irreplaceable and above all beautiful, but also fosters experimentation and originality. We want Liverpool to be the conspicuous and refreshing antidote to the nightmare of endless and interchangeable Trudes.

Being “some place” is not a bad guiding principle for a city seeking to nurture difference, and be a place that people want to come to, and are in no hurry to leave.

Jon Egan is a former electoral strategist for the Labour Party and has worked as a public affairs and policy consultant in Liverpool for over 30 years. He helped design the communication strategy for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture bid and advised the city on its post-2008 marketing strategy. He is an associate researcher with think tank, ResPublica.

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Once Byrned, twice shy?

Paul Bryan

The upcoming council by-election in Everton Ward (April 7th) has thrown up an interesting wrinkle. Labour’s candidate is a certain Ellie Byrne – a young woman in her early twenties who until recently we’d never heard of.

She keeps a fairly low profile on social media and there’s not much online to suggest she’s previously made a mark as an activist. Yet here she is standing for political office in one of the poorest wards in the country. And being Labour’s candidate in a one-horse, red-rose town, she’s almost certain to win. Which begs the question, who is she? And how did she win the nomination to represent Labour?

Let’s be honest about what caught our attention here. It’s that surname – Byrne. Sounds familiar. And it should because it’s also name of the previous incumbent, Ian Byrne, who announced his resignation at a feisty town hall meeting in January, which triggered this by-election. Ian Byrne is of note for two reasons. Firstly, because he is Ian ‘Two Jobs’ Byrne - the Everton councillor who also became the MP for Liverpool West Derby at the 2019 general election and who broke electoral convention and the rules of good sense by refusing to step down for over two years from his council position. He obviously felt the citizens of Everton and the citizens of West Derby needed him that badly that he had to represent them both. Lucky them.

The other reason why Ian Byrne is of note is because he is Ellie Byrne’s dad, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at any of Labour’s campaign materials. They and the Liverpool Echo which reported her selection are steering well clear of revealing the truth of their relationship as confirmed by residents who have been paid a visit by the Labour team. So what we have here, for clarity is the prospect of a father handing over the baton of office in his electoral ward to his young daughter, as if it was some kind of private enterprise. Now to be fair, there is going to be an election which has to be won, and Liverpool, it must be said, has a long history of keeping it in the family and I’m not talking about the propensity of Andersons (not related). A quick flick through the history books reveals a host of siblings, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, cousins and aunts who have been regular suckers of the proverbial town hall teat. Peter Kilfoyle’s book, ‘Left Behind’ is very good on this topic.

What do we know about her? From her Facebook profile we know she’s partial to Cadbury’s Cream Eggs, Hannah Montana, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians and for some reason likes Justin Bieber High School.

But still, does it pass the smell test? Given everything that we’ve recently learned about mismanagement and suspected corruption, after the police investigations and arrests, and Labour’s own Hanson Report into what it found to be a ‘toxic culture’ within the Liverpool Labour Group, wouldn’t you bend over backwards to avoid even giving the slightest impression of impropriety or self-serving?  Wouldn’t a genuine sense of civic duty demand it?

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Still, this could all be cleared up really easily. An interview with the candidate herself would be the chance for her to make her case and show what she’s made of. To show that she’s got here under her own steam. Because maybe she has. But sadly, the Labour Party are not letting her off the leash. No interviews allowed. Such a stance doesn’t breed confidence.

Liverpolitan spoke to Sheila Murphy, who was appointed by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to oversee the clean-up of the Liverpool Labour group. She was not having it.

“You’re not the only person wanting to speak to Ellie and there’s a bit of a story developing which I think is unfair. Ellie has been a member of the Labour Party for some time and is active in her community. She was selected by Everton members as part of a rigorous process based on her own ability but there won’t be any interviews.”

Sheila was keen to get across the message that Ellie was one of two young candidates (the other standing in Warbreck) and that if the Labour Party was to reinvigorate itself “these are just the kind of people we need to represent us.”

It’s certainly true that Ellie’s candidacy was supported by the official Labour Party apparatus. Following the Caller report, it was announced that candidate lists would be approved by the NEC at least until 2026. Everton ward members made their selection from a short-list that included Brian Dowling and Jean Barrett, both long-time party activists. Speaking to The Post, neither losing candidate had any complaints and positively glowed in their assessments of Ellie.  

But doubts still remain. What do we really know about her? She grew up locally, attending Our Lady Immaculate and Notre Dame schools. She claims to have worked in the L6 Community Centre at some point possibly assisting with her father’s foodbank campaigns such as Right to Food. Her spartan Linkedin profile says she graduated from Liverpool University in 2021 with a degree in Law and History. From her social media profile on Facebook we know she’s partial to Cadbury’s Cream Eggs, Hannah Montana, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians and for some reason likes Justin Bieber High School. We also know that she was once pictured standing next to her ever-present dad and Jeremy Corbyn and that she seems to like posting shots of her pouting to the camera although she doesn’t post much at all and she’s hard to find on Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok. What doesn’t shine out in any of the publicly available information is any kind of political heritage at all. Unless you include liking the Happy Pets app.

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Labour campaign leaflet for Ellie Byrne (Everton ward, March 2022)

None of which is definitely a deal-breaker. Social media is an unreliable tool at the best of times although it’s all we’ve got if she won’t talk to us. But if there’s more to her and she wants your vote, I think she owes it to the electorate to come into the sunlight and tell us what she really thinks in her own words. What she stands for, and what she believes. A campaign leaflet produced by the party machine won’t cut it. If nothing else she should do it to prove that she isn’t just her father’s mouthpiece. That she’s got a mind of her own and the ability to make a difference. Otherwise, the faithful are just being taken for a ride. Again.

Liverpolitan spoke to some of the other parties and candidates contesting the seat. Kevin Robinson-Hale of the Green Party was previously a Chair of Labour’s Everton branch before quitting in 2019, a man well-versed in the ways of the dominant party around here. Yet he seemed a bit reticent to open up, “I haven’t got an opinion on Ian and I don’t know Ellie”, he said. He just felt that Everton voters “shouldn’t get a candidate they’ve never heard of” and residents shouldn’t be forced to “go out of their way to try and get things done.” He was at pains to say that unlike others he wouldn’t be looking to use the council seat as a stepping stone to parliament.

We also heard from Local Lib Dem Leader, Richard Kemp, who was quick to shoot down any suggestions of nepotism. “Having relatives as a fellow councillor is not unusual,” he told us. “My wife served alongside me for 23 years.” Indeed. But then he performed an about-face, thundering into his keyboard “Labour now seems to favour the inherited system of power and patronage in Liverpool! What next? Baron Byrne of West Derby!?” Richard seemed particularly exercised that Ian Byrne had timed his resignation “to allow his daughter to reach 18”, a curious piece of factual inaccuracy given that as we pointed out earlier, Ellie is actually a university graduate going on 23 years old. That snippet I suspect was picked up from a recent email to Liverpool Council and the Government Commissioners into which he was cc’d from a ‘Ms Bett and Residents’ who are extremely exercised by the selection of Ellie as Labour’s candidate. Although, he may have picked it up from a separate anonymous email from ‘Labour Activists in Everton Ward’ who are equally infuriated. 

“Does Labour condone nepotism as a way to recruit councillor candidates?” they wrote. “To say we are startled by this information that the Candidate for this by-election is actually the daughter of the outgoing councillor is an understatement and we hope the National Labour Party if not the local Everton CLP rectify this situation before the election date to avoid a national scandal.”

Clearly, beneath the surface all is not calm in Everton ward and despite the efforts of Labour Party fixers, there appears to be considerable disquiet at Ellie’s selection at least amongst some of the group’s natural supporters. Right now, we’re left to wonder, what is it that makes Miss Byrne the perfect candidate to represent the interests of a ward which struggles with the basics of food and employment? Until, she speaks up we’ll never know. I guess the voters of Everton will just have to make up their own minds. But if the continual re-election of Malcolm ‘Milk'em’ Kennedy by neighbouring Kirkdale - who chose to live in Spain rather than in Liverpool - is anything to go by ... it looks like there will be few obstacles to Ellie Byrne enjoying a glittering political career, whether she’s up to the job or not. He may well have reluctantly stepped aside (three years after he perhaps should have done) but you can bet Ellie will be doing her best to keep the red flag flying, under the watchful guidance of Dad, Ian.

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach.

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No Platforming: Taking statues off their pedestals

Ed Williams

An unforeseen consequence of the enforced closure of our cultural institutions during the recent ‘lockdowns’ is that the curious and bored alike encountered, perhaps for the first time, the numerous statutes and public monuments located in our major towns and cities.  Much like an open air exhibition, these free ‘exhibits’ were one of the few cultural experiences available during the uncertain and tedious days of enforced ennui.

Liverpool, like many cities of a similar ‘vintage’, has a plethora of statues. They are a testament to the city’s ‘fathers’ and an attempt to engender a sense of civic pride, commemorating as they do the legacy of the ‘big men’, the ‘great and the good’. These honoraries were predominately white, bourgeoisie males who (allegedly) conformed to the idealised values of piety, philanthropy, the championing of free trade or military prowess in some overseas campaign.

Though for many such art works elicit nothing more than indifference as they hurry past in the rain, for others contemporary reaction has become deeply politicised, ranging from visceral contempt to staunch defence.  Most graphically, the toppling in Bristol of the statue of slave trading merchant Edward Colston and the perceived threat posed to others draws attention to the fiercely contested debate between those who seek their removal and those who feel that such change represents an existential challenge to ‘tradition’ and ‘history’, a reductive dispute that places figurative sculpture very much on the battle front in the ongoing ‘culture wars’. In light of such a polarised debate perhaps there is an alternative approach to removal or maintaining the status quo, one which seeks to re-imagine the role of public figurative sculpture altogether. Fundamental to this approach is to question why do sculptures exist? What, if any, function do they serve and can these aims be achieved via alternative means?

Different approaches to the statue problem. Some take direct inspiration from events in Bristol…

‘History is complicated so we have made some judgment calls’, says the Topple the Racists website, which has compiled a map of statues and monuments which celebrate aspects of Britain’s colonial past. Despite the website’s name it claims its aim is to ‘promote debate’.

The vogue for erecting sculptures of the ‘worthy’ emerged in Britain during the late eighteenth century, a period in which the nascent British Empire sought to emulate, through wholesale adoption, the tastes and virtues of the great classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.

This fascination with statues reached its peak in the Victorian era when it approached something akin to mania. Liverpool, like the majority of towns and cities in the North of England had experienced relatively recent urbanisation. Unlike those great ecclesiastical centres of York, Chester, Hexham or Durham, most of the ‘boom’ towns of the Industrial Revolution lacked the convivial Roman ruins, medieval fortifications, or ancient sites of worship that conveyed a sense of historic importance, so a new civic story was required for these modern metropolises. Sculpture allowed a sense of ‘history’ to be created instantly.  Committing a likeness to bronze, or more commonly embalming in marble those local or national heroes provided more than just a mnemonic memory device for the masses (something which the recently developed art of photography was mastering with ever greater verisimilitude). The statue was first and foremost a didactic tool for conveying officially sanctioned moral education. ‘Here before you stands’, his (rarely her) virtues and triumphs, dates and places listed instructively. This way, civic history, like classical history can be taught by rote through stone to future generations of proud civic citizens.

The toppling in Bristol of the statue of Edward Colston and the perceived threat posed to others places figurative sculpture very much on the battle front in the ongoing ‘culture wars’.

These moral lessons were further, powerfully enhanced by the sighting of works on plinths. The public were compelled to literally ‘look up’ to these individuals, lending them an almost god-like aura, respectful awe implicit in the architecture. Conversely they (the statues) cast a downward glance upon us, lesser mortals, few, if any of whom, would be deemed worthy of such sculptural dedication.  This asymmetric relationship is perhaps the most contentious issue, in this author’s opinion. Why should we be compelled to look up? Craning one’s neck skyward is not the ideal way to view any artwork, especially when dealing with the additional height of those old regal and military favourites, the mounted equestrian statues. Frankly from this vantage point you might conclude that one stylized representation of a Victorian is much the same as the other (and oddly never too dissimilar to the late Prince Albert).  Whilst the curious amongst us may trouble ourselves to read the plinth plaque (though many are so weather worn as to be illegible) their elevated position compromises comprehension. We simply cannot appreciate, nor begin to truly understand and scrutinize, the work from this position.

Stranger still perhaps is the location of such works, often arranged together in neat, parallel rows or clustered together as in Liverpool’s St John’s Gardens.  Was this an attempt to create an open air pantheon of sorts? Yet as time passes, and we become ever more distant to the reasons why these people were heralded in the first place, the result often feels more like a dusty necropolis, a graveyard of dead luminaries, littering the city, lest the tourists be interested.

If such works now appear to be instructive failures could their continued presence perhaps reveal something more contentious?  Are they not now reminders of a ‘once great past’, a symptom of the wider British malaise, the fetishization of previous times, those fabled ‘good old days’? This fatuous narrative remains a potent deceit, which serves to stymie progress, especially in a city like Liverpool where heritage is pinned as our number one asset. If things were indeed better ‘back then’, we truly are doomed.  In light of the supposed ‘culture wars’ a wider debate is needed to determine the proper place of the past in our national dialogue, and one starting point may be statues and their continued legacy.

Sky Arts, Northern Town and Culture Liverpool chose to redress statues in ways designed to be celebratory or confrontational

Former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli re-dressed in rainbow colours by artist Daniel Lismore to reflect his conflicted relationship with homosexuality. Photograph by David Edwards, courtesy of Sky Arts.

This author’s, perhaps provocative suggestion is not to remove these works, nor to ‘re-purpose’ them in the latest postmodern fashion by ‘dressing them up’ in colourful clothes, as was seen during the recent Sky Arts ‘Statues Redressed’ programme, but rather to remove them from their plinths and site them at ground level. This way we can encounter these figures more closely as physical equals and as fallible humans, not superior secular gods.

Such an approach is not unprecedented. More recent commissions such as the statues of Sir John and Cecil Moores in Church Street, The ‘Fab Four’ at The Pier Head and those of Sir Ken Dodd and Bessie Braddock at Lime Street Station are all sited at pavement level. Being devoid of plinths it allows us to interrogate their features and to consider them further as real people, rather than simply ‘grandees’. In short, we encounter and experience the statues as figurative artworks, not pieces of sociological propaganda. Divested of their lofty position, we can begin the process of critique from a more nuanced position. After all, the measure of history’s heroes and villains is rarely clear cut. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the ‘Greatest Briton’ according to a BBC poll, was also an incompetent military adventurer (Gallipoli) and violent strike breaker (Gun Boats on the Mersey), who allowed millions to starve in Bengal during the Second World War. The truth is, simple judgements are not always easily arrived at. Life is complex. Besides, if you look at our most popular media tastes today, we tend now to prefer the flawed anti-hero, or loveable rogue over the unsullied but rather boring saints of yesteryear. Heath Ledger’s Joker was a far more compelling character than Christian Bale’s growling Batman. Such dubious figures may be perceived as models for redemption for those of an optimistic streak, or perhaps they remind us that we are all deeply fallible, despite our best efforts. In seeking to bring statues ‘down to our level’, we are effectively humanising them in order to better understand them. That doesn’t mean that we necessarily forgive them their sins, just that we are in a better position to take a view.

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Clockwise starting top left: Stone relief of 2 slave children (St Martins Bank), a petition for its removal attracted approx 2000 signatures; Penny Lane street signs were defaced despite no proven link to slavery; Chained prisoners of war beneath a victorious Admiral Nelson (Exchange Flags), the figures are often mistaken for African slaves; Explorer Christopher Columbus dressed in an African-inspired Elizabethan ruff (Sefton Park Palm House) as part of the Sky Arts project, Statues Redressed. Images courtesy of Jane Anderson

Notwithstanding Lenin’s allegedly prophetic assertion that statues are for pigeons to shit on, commissioning figurative sculptures remains as popular as ever. Is this evidence of their continued cultural significance, or yet another example of a paucity of imagination when faced with the tyranny of ‘tradition’? Is their use so hard wired into our cultural psyche that we have no other alternative but to default to the obligatory statue as the go-to reminders of our latter day worthies? Who knows but at least today the metal and stone pantheon has been somewhat democratized with footballers, comedians, actors and musicians just as likely to get the nod (sometimes with dubious results). This is most probably a good thing as welcome evidence of a more meritocratic society which appreciates and applauds those whose lives and work resonate more with ‘ordinary’ people.  A cynical alternative may be that we just set the bar on achievement too low or are just a bit too quick to judge greatness?

In recent years, it’s not uncommon to see the subject of a statue, still living and breathing, pulling back the curtain on their own likeness. In this way, they get to enjoy all the benefits of exalted, sanctified status, while still being very much of this world. Sometimes however, the public reaction is not what was hoped for, as Fulham Football Club’s hasty removal of their Michael Jackson statue would attest. Dictators such as Saddam Hussein have also lived to see their own sculptures pulled to the ground, while once omnipresent busts of Lenin are now in Russia conspicuous by their absence. This rush to cast a likeness does suggest a certain growing transience in the form – statues turned into short-lived consumables, instead of boasting the forever quality that their form implies.

Devoid of plinths, divested of their lofty position, we encounter and experience the statues as figurative artworks, not pieces of sociological propaganda.

Today’s ‘legends’ are often described as ‘idols’ and idols are naturally associated with worship, venerated to the grave and beyond by their acolytes. The phrase ‘immortalised in stone’ hints at the unspoken pact – you may die but your memory will live on forever. But what happens when all that knew them or knew of them, or who valued their achievements are gone?

And on the pedestal, these words appear; 

‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; 

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

So wrote, the great romantic poet Percy Shelley in his poem, Ozymandius, about a statue half sunk and very much forgotten in the remote desert sands.

Whilst this may strike some readers as peculiar, cults of adoration pass with time, memories fade and the ‘legends’ supporters pass on themselves. All is forgotten. This leaves us to ponder, what do we do with such ‘relics’ when they no longer matter to anyone still alive? Should we consider them as historical artefacts, totemic symbols of a past creed? Should we dispose of them discreetly, or are they, as I would suggest, worthy of consideration as art objects, as opposed to yet another example of ossified history?

Like sculpture from antiquity, considering them as art, rather than artefact, may engender a more human, civilized response to the ideas of our forebears. Let us not be too judgemental in our critique of how our antecedents perceived their world. No generation has a monopoly on ‘truth’ or ‘virtue’. Let us be free to consider each work as an individual piece, divested of its grandeur and pomp, having been brought back down to earth. 

Ultimately the best thing about the past, like this article, is that it is over.

Ed Williams is an Academic Art Historian who works for TATE Liverpool. He is passionate about all aspects of visual culture and enjoys sharing his knowledge with interested groups.

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Trams-phobia. Time to face our fear of light rail

Prof. Lewis Lesley

Liverpool’s status at the point of embarkation for the first inter-city train journey is well acknowledged and celebrated, but it’s also the case that our city region (or Birkenhead to be more precise) was the location for Britain’s first ever urban tramway in 1860.

Trams continued to be a major means of transit and connectivity across the City Region until the late 1950s. The rise of personalised motor vehicles and the desire of drivers for unimpeded priority over cumbersome fixed-track trams, led to their gradual replacement by diesel buses across the UK and many other countries.

In recent decades there has of course been a growing awareness that ever increasing car use has presented its own set of problems including poor air quality, congestion, fatalities and injuries arising from crashes, not to mention the motor vehicle’s not inconsiderable contribution to global warming. The desire to rebalance cities, reduce congestion and pollution and prioritise sustainable transport modes, has led to a major renewal of interest in trams as a key component in cleaner and more efficient urban transit. Today, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Bristol are amongst the cities that either have or are planning to introduce integrated tram networks as part of their urban transport system.

So why not Liverpool? Light Rail systems (trams on tracks) are not only not under active consideration, but they have become a taboo subject never to be whispered in the corridors of power. Why is this the case, and shouldn’t proper consideration be given to the contribution that trams could make to addressing some of our most acute transport and environmental policy challenges?

Let me start by declaring an interest. I am not only an expert advocate for trams, but I played a key role in promoting a tram system for Liverpool between the city centre and John Lennon Airport in the 1990s. The project had a number of notable and attractive features; lightweight trams and track would have been a less intrusive and costly option to the system then being installed with great fanfare in Manchester. But perhaps its most significant component, at least as far as the public decision-makers were concerned was that it was to be delivered and financed entirely by the consortium's lead partner, PowerGen.

The repercussions of the Merseytram fiasco were enough to make trams a toxic subject and a trauma that no local politician ever wanted to revisit.

Private investment in Liverpool has, alas, never been an uncontentious or universally welcomed proposition. The idea that a private company should physically install as well as operate a modern transport system was perhaps ahead of its time, and considered something of an affront to the teams at Merseytravel and Liverpool City Council. Their preferred option was something called the Merseyside Rapid Transit System - effectively guided buses - which was ultimately thrown out by the Secretary of State for Transport. Despite its comparative drawbacks, its status as an approved Merseytravel scheme ensured that our consortium's proposals received less than perfunctory consideration and planning permission was refused. Unlike trams that operate on dedicated track, MRTS would have operated on existing roads, competing for space and priority with other road users. Without dedicated road space and right of way priority even the modern incarnation of "trackless trams,"  with their sleek train-like appearance  - designed to overcome the "trams are sexy, buses are boring perception" - are a poor second best solution. Steel traction always provides a better ride and passenger experience than rubber on tarmac.

Some years passed. By 2005, even Merseytravel had embraced the tram concept.

Fig 1: Merseytram’s proposed 3-line network

A three line network was proposed with routes from Liverpool city centre to Kirkby, Prescot and Whiston and the airport. But the project was doomed to failure and it’s a sorry tale with many twists and turns.  Project costs spiralled amid delays, accusations of poor value for money, arguments over which routes should be prioritised, as well as reported management failures at Merseytravel as outlined in a damning 53-page report by District Auditor, Judy Tench.

Relationships between the transport authority and councils, who were responsible for providing a not insignificant chunk of the now £325m budget for Line One, proved challenging and buy-in was never firmly established. Merseytravel spent £70m on consultancy fees, land acquisition, design, initial engineering and steel for the tracks without ever getting final sign-off from the Treasury. The government watched on as Merseytram morphed from a transport project into a local political football.

Senior management at Merseytravel blamed “rogue officials” at the City Council such as CEO David Henshaw for undermining the project, claiming he was leaking information to the Department for Transport, which chipped away at the government’s confidence.  The City Council saw it another way believing the project was an impertinent and poorly managed imposition on their turf by Merseytravel. In the face of political rows, planning wrangles and the absence of unequivocal local political support, the government’s patience wore out. Despite being granted full planning approval at a Public Inquiry, the prospect of ongoing squabbles between the City Council and Merseytravel, ultimately resulted in the withdrawal of funding by the then Transport Minister, Sadiq Khan.

Merseytravel spent £70m on consultancy fees, land acquisition, design, engineering and steel without ever getting final sign-off from the Treasury. Merseytram had morphed from a transport project into a local political football.

Interestingly, the decision to prioritise the Kirkby route over the more obviously strategic and commercially viable route to Liverpool airport, was one of the reasons why Merseytram lost the crucial support of the City Council in the first place. The Kirkby route scored higher in terms of regeneration and social value attracting higher capital grant support from central government but it came at greater financial risk to the local authorities and they were reluctant to jump in. In the end, the only thing the city had to show for it was substantial debts, embarrassed red faces, and a stack of unnecessary compulsory purchase orders on private property. Sadly, the repercussions of the Merseytram fiasco, including the selling off of the unused steel rails for a third of their original purchase price was enough to make trams a toxic subject and a trauma that no local politician ever wanted to revisit.

In the intervening years, trams have been introduced into other major cities with great success and growing public popularity. Yet Liverpool, burned by its past experiences, has shied away from taking a fresh look at the subject and has avoided initiating any kind of study or research to evaluate the potential benefits or contribution of light rail to the region’s future transport needs.

But can we really allow political embarrassment to preclude consideration of a transport option that in 2005 was recognised as an inherently good idea? As late as 2012 Liverpool Vision’s Strategic Investment Framework (SIF) embraced the need for a direct rapid transit link to Liverpool Airport, which was once again addressed in our 2015 Trampower proposal.

So what are the potential benefits of a tram system for Liverpool City Region and how might it help us to solve some of our most pressing policy challenges?

1.  Trams are clean and green

During the first Covid lockdown, reductions in car traffic realised an enormous and immediate improvement in air quality, but car use is now already back to pre-Covid levels, whilst public transport patronage is only at half its former level. Transport is the main source of toxic air pollution and in a city where more than 60% of all journeys are by car, motor vehicles bear a massive responsibility for the estimated 1,040 annual deaths in the city region arising from bronchial and cardio illnesses attributable to poor air quality. Reducing car use and promoting modal shift towards public transport would make a substantive contribution to improving air quality and ensuring fewer illnesses and deaths.

Similarly, cars are a huge source of CO2 emissions locally and globally. The recent COP26 summit in Glasgow drew up plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 to avert the worst consequences of global warming. Liverpool City Region has adopted an ambitious Climate Action Plan and aims to be carbon neutral before 2040. This will necessitate a comprehensive reappraisal of transport policies, beyond its current rail investment and bus re-regulation plans, to achieve modal shift and reduce private car use. Whilst electric cars produce no CO2 they do create carcinogenic micro particles from tyres and tarmac. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of their contribution to CO2 reduction depends significantly on how quickly people make the switch from diesel and petrol, which in turn will be influenced by the availability of charging points. So, notwithstanding the environmental benefit of electric cars, they are not going to provide the magic bullet. Promoting modal shift where possible to reduce congestion and pollution should encompass consideration of sustainable transport modes, including trams.

2. People like trams

Where trams have been introduced in other UK cities they have resulted in a significant shift from private car use to public transport with roughly a quarter of users attracted away from their cars. According to a study by the Passenger Transport Executive Group it was estimated that the first wave of tram systems in the UK led to an annual reduction of 22 million car journeys, with more recent studies suggesting this figure is now nearer to 60 million.

Trams are reliable, they run to predictable timetables and are three times more energy efficient than buses. There is also significant evidence that they are perceived as more modern, aspirational and attractive to commuters who would be unwilling to switch to buses. The introduction of the Luas tram system in Dublin was instrumental in ensuring that two thirds of all journeys into the city centre are now via public transport, compared to only a quarter in Liverpool.  Attitudinal studies in Dublin revealed that many tram users from the more affluent suburbs would never contemplate bus use.

A Department for Transport Survey in 2019 showed that tram passengers gave a 90% approval rating, because trams are 90% reliable, as well as 73% always finding space and 70% agreeing tram fares are good value for money.

3. Trams make quicker connections between neighbourhoods and centres of employment

As recognised by the 2015 Liverpool Vision SIF a direct rapid transport link to

Liverpool John Lennon Airport remains a fundamental necessity. We are one of the few UK or major international cities without such a link, and extending the rail connection from South Parkway is neither practicable in terms of land availability nor affordable. Trampower has demonstrated the viability and affordability of a tram link to John Lennon Airport which would also serve key retail and employment sites as well as residential neighbourhoods not currently served by Merseyrail. The detailed scoping and feasibility work undertaken by Trampower envisaged a tram every six minutes, and a journey between the airport and city centre taking about half an hour, with a high level of reliability thanks to traffic-free tram reservations for nearly half the route, and ‘green wave’ priority traffic management for the rest.

Trams and streetcars have also been mooted as a means of improving connectivity to emerging, but currently disconnected employment areas like Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter and Wirral Waters. Whether these are stand-alone solutions or part of an integrated city region network, the proposals acknowledge the value and popularity of trams as a means of getting large numbers of people from A to B within a dynamic urban environment. With one line operational, additional lines can be added on a marginal cost basis, so strengthening otherwise weak financial cases.

4. Trams are more affordable and cost effective

Whereas extending Merseyrail from South Parkway to the airport may seem like a preferable option, for the volume of passengers involved, it would simply be uneconomic. Despite the Chancellor’s substantial, recent £710m transport grant to the Metro Mayor, there is limited scope to significantly extend metro rail infrastructure across the city region due to its intrinsic cost. As one senior transport practitioner observed, trams cost 10% of a metro rail system and deliver 90% of the benefits. So a tramway could therefore be a cost effective solution, and serve communities along the route very well.  Focusing on the priority route to Liverpool Airport, Trampower identified at least 60 possible routes and combinations, many following old tram lines which utilised the central reservations of boulevards in the south of the city. In addition, there is already space allocated at the Liverpool One bus terminus for trams dating from the failed Merseytram project.

Combining lighter, newer CityClass Mk2 trams with a low profile “no dig – glue in the road” track system would further reduce the cost and time of installation in streets, and provide work for British Steel to roll LR55 rails, saving on imports. LR55 has been in use in Sheffield for over 25 years without needing any maintenance.

5. Trams deliver investment and regeneration

Trams bring investor confidence, as demonstrated in Croydon, Manchester, Nottingham and wherever they have been installed. This means that development is attracted to locations close to tramways, benefiting from the improved quality of service offered with enhanced accessibility and reliability. Research published by Lloyds Bank looking at the effect of tram systems in Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh revealed that house prices rose by 12% compared to average rises in unserved parts of those cities. More generally, trams are seen as a visible sign of investment, ambition and modernity, boosting civic pride and confidence and helping to attract tourism. Manchester’s civic leaders have cited the Metrolink tram system as one of the pivotal investments that transformed perceptions of the city.

In conclusion, trams are clean, green, efficient and affordable. They deliver outputs that are hard to replicate through comparable investment in rail or bus. It’s not the purpose of this article to insist our city region embraces the tram now, but we should be willing to put it in the mix and to evaluate their potential contribution to meeting future transport, regeneration and environmental challenges. It's time for our Metro Mayor to signal a new era, and a willingness to consider ideas and proposals emanating from outside the closed circle of public sector policy makers - still seemingly traumatised by the Merseytram experience. It's time to take another look at trams.

Professor Lewis Lesley is an acknowledged expert in urban public transport. Formerly Professor of Transport Science at Liverpool John Moores University, he is also the author of the Light Rail Developers’ Handbook. As Technical Director at Trampower Ltd, he provides consultancy on the design and development of light rail technology.

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Devolution Derailed: When trust turns to dust

Matt O’Donoghue

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Elected Mayors. Cabinet or Committee. Devolution. Who wants any of it and who really cares? Well, we all do and those who don’t really should. The more say we have over the way we’re governed, and the way we raise and spend our taxes, the better. But what good is having an opinion about how your city or region is run, if your voice is only listened to but never heard?

A proper referendum – not a ‘consultation’ on just the Mayoral Model – but one that gives the citizens a real choice in how they are governed is what the political nihilists of Liverpool need. Encourage them to step away from the edge, to stop blaming the Tories and their Commissioners, or Joe Anderson and his cronies, and let the people take control of their future.

The current debate over an elected Mayor for Liverpool, and who should have the final say, has more than the malodorous whiff of déjà vu. We could have hot-wired the flux capacitor and jumped into the Doc’s DeLorean to step back to the future of the Cunard’s Council Chambers circa 2012 and barely noticed the difference.  Many of the same faces are there. Just as Joe’s army of acolytes did, back when he was Labour Leader of the ruling party, so Joanne Anderson and today’s elected members appear to have snatched the option to choose how their city will be governed from the fingers of its citizens. The best you can say is that it took the current Mayor until January 26th - that’s ten months - to break her manifesto pledge and her media promises for a referendum.

Accusations of ‘betrayal’ and ‘u-turn’ by Mayor Joanne Anderson on this issue, however true they may be, are as pointless as the consultation that her passed amendment is likely to deliver. The binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ choice that the citizens are likely to get is an exercise that’s estimated to cost £120,000 and will not be legally binding. It serves to appease and to distract. At its core this is about far more than whether to elect a City Mayor. This is about popular engagement and allowing the people to finally have their say over how their city is run; Mayor with a Cabinet, Cabinet and Leader, or Leader and Committee. And it obviously scares them to give the people a choice because our councillors appear to be doing everything they can to make sure this doesn’t happen. Again.

Amid smokescreen-claims that the estimated costs of any full referendum would be £450,000, the Mayor’s post-election pledge that she could be trusted to deliver a legally binding vote have been turned to ashes. As one council insider put it;

“She really should have looked under the bonnet before she promised to put the car back on the road.”

But the importance of a push towards a re-engagement with politics and how the Liverpool City Region’s capital is governed cannot be underestimated. The people of Liverpool deserve this much after being taken for granted, and for fools for so many years. Trust has not just been lost, it’s been shat on and flushed into the river. Never have the people of Liverpool felt more disillusioned with - and more distanced from - those they elect.

When Manchester voters were handed their referendum they chose to reject Mayoral and Cabinet governance and to stick with the Committee system, led until recently by Labour’s Sir Richard Leese. In this city, Labour holds 94 of the 96 seats. Of course, we still ended up with the ‘King of The North’, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham imposed upon us from above. But in terms of the city authority, we never missed what we never had, a spare Mayor to push the city’s interests. But at least we had our say through a referendum and the people were engaged with the political process. They said ‘no’ in a way that had to heard.

Trust has not just been lost, it’s been shat on and flushed into the river.

When it came to Greater Manchester’s Mayor, like Liverpool, the toy came without instructions. Our two great cities and our regions were political petri dishes. This was Call-Me-Dave Cameron’s experiment in devolved democracy and we just had to get on with things as best we could. But both experiments have had disastrous consequences because transparency and accountability have become an ‘inconvenience’ in the dash towards devolution. I spent the last decade as a journalist exposing the effects of these slippery standards in integrity and investigating the statutory failures of governance and oversight that got us here, in Liverpool and Greater Manchester.

In Greater Manchester, the Mayor was handed the Policing and Crime Commissioner’s duties. Where once we had a monthly Police Committee made up from elected members with statutory powers of oversight and audit responsibilities over the country’s second largest constabulary, now we have Baroness Beverley Hughes who was appointed by Andy Burnham. Oversight has slipped and with it transparency, leaving the Fourth Estate (the media) and its journalists to hold the police to account for their failings and to expose the devastating effects on individuals. 

Perhaps Greater Manchester Police was too complicated or contentious for the new office to deal with? Whatever the reasons, we now have a new computer control system that’s possibly £80 million over budget - we can’t find out for sure because the Mayor’s office has refused to answer the Freedom of Information requests - and it still doesn’t work more than two years after it was switched on. It’s likely that the Integrated Police Operational System - or iOPS - will soon be binned. Tens of thousands of victims have not received justice because their crimes have been ‘lost’ and tens of millions that should have been spent on front line policing has been blown on consultants and a computer that says ‘no’. What’s certain is that the Police Committee, whose meetings I used to attend, would have publicly asked the questions of the Chief Constable that could have halted this slow-motion car-crash and this disaster may have been averted before the damage was done. Instead, we had complicit cronies of the Chief who covered up his failings. Those who should have held him to account either didn’t see, or chose to look the other way. Sounds familiar?!

One telling difference between our two regions is the excellent job that The Manchester Evening News and the fearless Jennifer Williams did to investigate and hold authorities to account. If only The Liverpool Echo had been so diligent, rather than acting as if they were a branch of Joe Anderson’s official communications team for so many years, perhaps then the rocks would have been turned over much earlier.

Despite continual warnings from whistleblowers and the stories from those brave journalists who fought to give voice to their claims of cronyism and coverup, it took two years for the ‘King’ to kick his Chief Constable to the kerb. This only happened after an investigation by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies which exposed all the truths that we had broadcast and published. Finally, GMP was placed into ‘enhanced special measures’. This was the first time a police force had been found out to be operating so poorly. Andy Burnham’s nose was rubbed in it by authorities higher than himself, before he admitted that he could smell the stench and cleared the air. The best you can say is that Andy Burnham’s wilful ignorance was born of his desire to be liked and to avoid conflict - little comfort for the countless victims of rape or assault who never saw an officer because his computer kept crashing, meaning the crime was never investigated. Even so, ‘The King’ was re-elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote.

Transparency and accountability have become an ‘inconvenience’ in the dash towards devolution.

Look to Liverpool and we see a familiar pattern; an overwhelming political majority for Labour and an elected Mayor with the powers that were once held by Committee members, now in the hands of one person. The similar failings in oversight, transparency and accountability that allowed Greater Manchester Police to spiral out of control, and the same lack of integrity in those elected to serve our best interests, have brought Liverpool to the brink of financial ruin and political shame. This complete failure of the devolution experiment and the democratic governance that was supposed to hold the Mayor to account has delivered - ‘The Commissioners’, plus a former Mayor and his officers who are ‘released under investigation’, and a financial black hole the auditors say gets bigger by the day.  But please don’t let them use this to fool you into thinking ‘Mayor-Bad’, ‘Leader-Good’.

The shift to elected Mayor delivered the adoption of the “Cabinet Model” of Governance creating new Committees for Regeneration, Communities, Education and more besides. These Cabinets are chaired by Leads who sit with their members, to consider and vote on the issues before them. As their reward, all Lead Members receive a top-up, or ‘Special Responsibility Allowance’ of around £13,000 on top of the £10,500 they receive as a councillor. And they are appointed by the Mayor. 

The power of patronage means it pays well to stay close to “Big Joe” and “Joanne”. Under this style of constitution the idea of “delegated responsibility”, that always existed, is focused on the Mayor and their Cabinet Leads. They can choose to vest the authority they have to approve matters under consideration into the hands of Departmental Directors. In theory, this should make the resolution of difficult matters much quicker. For example, urgent business deals can be dealt with before they collapse. In practice, it has meant schemes like the Tarmacademy were railroaded through council without the proper scrutiny.

By a deft sleight of hand and before the end of 2015, the only two committees that were asking difficult questions about policies and performance - The Mayoral Select Committee, and The Overview and Scrutiny Committee, were ‘disappeared’. Mayor Joe Anderson left oversight and transparency in his wake with barely a look over his shoulder.  Even so, in 2016 the voters of Liverpool still returned Mayor Joe for a second term on a reduced majority of 52%. But inside the Labour Party mutiny loomed on the horizon.

On the eve of the 2019 local elections, Joe Anderson’s own former Deputy Mayor, Anne O’Byrne, wrote her mutinous clarion call for rebellion and change.  Under the flag, “Why Liverpool needs to return to a Leader and Cabinet Model”, she posted her assault on a system in which she had once been key.

“We’ve done a lot of things well (since we swept to power in 2010), however over the past few years the whole of the city has seen the problems of the Mayoral model being too centralised, adopting a Presidential style of decision making.”

Councillor O’Byrne continued her Trumpian-takedown of the way her boss did business.

“The current mayoral model insulates the Mayor from criticism.  A Mayor does not hold surgeries, report regularly to the Labour Party branch and does not represent a ward that would ground them in the issues people raise on a daily basis.” 

The mayoral structure, according to his one-time deputy, insulated him in an ivory tower and away from all the problems and concerns of his councillors and the electorate who voted for him.

In doing away with the position of Leader of the Council and in concentrating all power in the hands of an elected Mayor, Joe Anderson may have hoped the new system would be more dynamic, with faster decision making.  He was to be the boss and his close-knit ‘gang’ would get the job done. But while listening to and communicating with councillors and communities may take a bit more time, Councillor O’Byrne wryly remarked, “It means you make better decisions for everybody and not just a selected few.”

As the electorate of Liverpool prepared to cast their 2019 votes, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party saved her most devastating lines for last;

One telling difference between our regions is the excellent job that The Manchester Evening News did to hold authorities to account. If only The Liverpool Echo had been so diligent.

“The Mayoral model lends itself to meetings with developers, investors, Whitehall mandarins and Tory ministers in order to have a top down approach to developing the city.  The people of the city have no role other than voting for the Mayor once every four years.  The rest of the time they are seen as obstacles to development, not integral to the process of inclusive growth.”

Councillor O’Byrne’s depth charge was still making waves as the Labour Councillor for Knotty Ash, Harry Doyle, looked forward to working with and speaking up for his residents. In a ward once famous as the home of the comedian Ken Dodd, Councillor Doyle was more likely to be concerned with the community legacy of Liverpool Football Club’s former training ground, Melwood, than looking for a fight with the man now known as ‘Big Joe’. 

Yet less than a week after the count, a leaked email chain exposed Councillor Doyle’s true feelings about his life inside Liverpool Council. “During my induction day last year, a council officer advised new councillors that 95% of decisions are made by the Mayor,” he wrote. “This is a figure that baffled me as it made me wonder what role we backbenchers have to play in policy formation.”  In his leaked emails, Doyle echoes the sentiments of the former Deputy Mayor, from her night-of-the-election tweet. He wrote “It centres all of our decision-making around one person, and some decisions are not made clear to us until they’re made clear to the public via the press.”

Is it any wonder that the people who’ve watched their city carved up and sold off on the cheap have begun to abandon hope for change and trust in those they elected to deliver a better life? ‘They’re in it for themselves’ or ‘they can’t do a thing’ becomes ‘my vote makes no difference’ and soon gives way to ‘what do I care?’. And once that wall is built between the people and their politicians and it becomes unscalable, who will rise up to knock it down? The Infidels? Militant? Extreme disaffection can feed extreme politics. Councillors, be careful what you vote for.

As a proud woolly-backed Lancastrian and adopted Mancunian, married into Old Swan heritage, I believe the affairs of both cities bookending the western stretch of the M62 are important to our mutual understanding and growth. Only those who’ve breathed life in the Liverpool City Region or in Greater Manchester can truly begin to know what’s going on here, and what needs to be done in the best interests of the people whose lives and jobs reside here. Well, that assumes the people in charge actually have the best interests of their electorate held closest to their hearts… rather than their own careers, or those of the businesses and individuals of influence who drip poison in their ears.

From Corbett and Conception, to Kemp and Crone; the elected representatives of Liverpool still have the chance to unite. Mayor Joanne Anderson, must jump down from that conveniently climbed fence and make a difference for those citizens who feel their trust has been misplaced. It is they who must shoulder much of the blame for what has passed and the political embarrassment that Liverpool became. Their wards elected them to serve, and instead they passed motions that concentrated powers and blinkered oversight. They cancelled the Committees that created accountability, and set up Cabinets led by cronies. And when their constituents came with complaints about the scam developments blighting their neighbourhoods, or the Cabinets rubber stamped back-door-disposals of the city’s Crown Jewels, they found they were powerless to stop things, or too late to change them. Now is their chance to consult, to listen to those voices calling for respect.

The practice and custom of a one-size-fits-all set of policies that are dictated from a Westminster and London-centric government just doesn’t work for any of us any more. Our regions are individual and different and only a federation working together and towards the common national good can be the right way to go. This country’s regions have their own characteristics, their own needs and their own strengths. You can’t properly understand a place unless you’ve lived, loved and listened to its citizens. And heard what they have to say. To deny a ‘proper’ referendum – in favour of some ‘Mayoral Choice’ - is so much more than a sacrifice of the alternative. In a city where the councillors barely have a grip on costs, let alone appreciate values, what price to encourage engagement with ‘democracy’ and to deliver on a promise?

Matt O’Donoghue is an investigative reporter who has worked for the BBC and ITV including Granada Reports and Newsnight. He is a previous winner of the O2 Broadcast Journalist of the Year, ITV Correspondent of the Year and has won numerous awards from the Royal Television Society.

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The Ten Commandments of Scouse TV and Film

(How Liverpool stereotypes shape our media)

Paul Bryan & Michael McDonough

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“Ignore the non-creative, faceless, nameless, self-appointed prick Tony. Imagine someone in New York (with all its crime stories) taking that same lazy, blinkered view. There’s a dark side to our city - anyone who doesn’t accept that is in denial. Well done & good luck mate.”

 Dave Kirkby, a Writer/Producer/Director on Twitter

The Tony in question was Tony Schumacher, the screenwriter of new Liverpool-based BBC cop drama, The Responder, which stars Martin Freeman as a morally compromised Urgent Response Officer working the night-time crime shift. According to the Guardian, we can look forward to seeing the policeman pinch cigarettes and food off the dead while battling local drug barons. The show airs on the 24th January 2022.

Tony was not happy and to be fair, Liverpolitan had something to do with that. We’d spoilt his day, we were told, with a tweet of our own. It was maybe a little bit naughty.

“Another crime drama for Liverpool. Original,” we’d posted. Queue shitstorm. Tony bit back and all hell broke loose. Actors, producers, godknowswhosers leapt in intent on tearing us a new one, and presumably to make Tony feel better. But it was too late supposedly. We’d taken the shine off his achievements. Bubbles had been burst. You can check out all the fun here.

Based on the strength of the reaction, there was the distinct feeling that we’d touched a raw nerve. Are film and TV producers, writers and directors aware of just how often they go to the same well, selecting from the small set of go-to tropes and narratives that depict the city as the land of desperation rather than opportunity? We’re bored of it. Bored of seeing Liverpool as a metaphor for the down at heel, for crime and unsafe streets. For plucky, gobby underdogs struggling to keep their heads above water. There’s got to be different stories to tell.

But weren’t we being unreasonable or unkind? After all, we hadn’t even seen the show yet – just the trailer, the star interviews, and the press coverage, which seemed to major on how hard Freeman had worked to perfect his scouse accent. Marvellous. Wouldn’t want to get that wrong.

We’re bored of it. Bored of seeing Liverpool as a metaphor for the down at heel, for crime and unsafe streets.

BBC Trailer for ‘The Responder’

The truth is, The Responder could be the best British TV show ever written (and we hope it is) and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. We’ve walked this path many times before. That’s not to say Liverpool doesn’t have real social problems. Of course it does, just like any other major city. And we’re not saying people shouldn’t write about them – everyone’s got to make a living, but what you really notice is the absence of alternatives and the laser-like focus on suffering. And what happens when the same kinds of story and the same kinds of characters get rolled out time and time again? How do the scouse stereotypes impact the way the world sees us? Or even more worryingly, how we see ourselves.

But’s let’s park that discussion for a minute because we need to make a point. Liverpool is, as many readers will know, a popular filming location. Everything from The Batman to Peaky Blinders and The Crown have been filmed here in recent years and many more productions besides. The Liverpool Film Office claim the city is the most filmed UK location outside of London. It’s an undoubted achievement. But the truth is, Liverpool tends to act as a stand-in for other places – notably New York and London, rather than as a setting itself. This is no doubt testimony to its incredible architecture and urban landscape. But what this does mean, is that the cultural imprint of Liverpool is often invisible on the screens. Unless you were in the know, you’d have no clue you were seeing the north’s best city. So when assessing how Liverpool is represented in film and television drama you can disregard all of those productions. You need to look at shows that are set here and you need to look at Liverpool characters that appear in other programmes located elsewhere. It’s the only plausible way you can do it.

And the mind naturally turns to Stephen Graham, that quite brilliant actor who is nevertheless, a one-man industry in televisual scouseness – the close-cropped hard man with the inner vulnerability. He is screen-gold, no doubt about it and we’re huge fans. He is unreservedly a fantastic asset to the city, whose name will be forever synonymous with Combo, the fascist scouse skinhead from This is England, perhaps only rivalled in intensity by Robert Carlyle’s scouse football-obsessed racist psychopath in Cracker.

I guess we need to put our money where our mouth is. Tony Schumacher seemed to think there hadn’t been any crime drama set in Liverpool since 2012. But our yardstick is wider. Here’s a list of crime or crime-related dramas that have been set in Liverpool or featured major stereotypical scouse characters – Waterfront Beat (1990), Cracker (1994), Liverpool 1 (1998), Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Going Off Big Time (2000), 51st State (2001), This is England (2006), Good Cop (2012), Little Boy Blue (2017), Tin Star (2020), Time (2021), The Responder (2022).

Of course, we’re only really touching the surface here.

Benidorm (2007-18) featured a whole plethora of dodgy scousers on the rob, Coronation Street has never been shy to play the thieving scouse card either. Who can forget Jackie Dobbs, Diedre Rashid’s classic Liverpudlian prison cellmate. Then we’ve got the crafty lazy type – Lister from Red Dwarf (1988-2020), a self-described bum, and Jim Royle of The Royle Family (1998-2012), the cynical, albeit amusing slob. England’s most incompetent manager ever was also a scouser in Mike Bassett, England Manager (2012). We’ll steer clear of Harry Enfield … All of them had a flexible moral code when it came to the law (with the possible exception of Mr Bassett). We can’t help but feel we’re missing other examples – Boys From the Blackstuff (1982), Blood on the Dole (1994), Bread (1986-91). Hell even the C4 series, The £1 Houses: Britain’s Cheapest Street (2018) had to feature regular shots of feral-looking kids.

What you really notice is the absence of alternatives and the laser-like focus on suffering. How do the scouse stereotypes impact the way the world sees us? Or even more worryingly, how we see ourselves.

Now we want to make absolutely clear, this is not about passing judgement on whether TV shows are any good. There are clearly some classic stories and memorable characters here. Neither is it about advocating for only ‘positive’ portrayals like some latter-day Mary Whitehouse protecting the nation’s morals. Creators should be free to fly wherever their muse takes them including to the darkest of places. Writers should feel no obligation to tell any kind of story unless it’s an imperative they feel within themselves. Nothing is off limits as far as Liverpolitan is concerned and we are wary of those who want to place limits on expression in pursuit of other political goals. We will not put forward the case for restrictions on the use of regional stereotypes by co-opting the kind of representation arguments employed in matters of protected characteristics. Creatives have enough on their plate as it is.

But the question stands, why when it comes to Liverpool, do certain types of narrative and certain types of character re-occur over and over again? And this goes way beyond crime. That’s only a subset of the cliches. In addition to the drug dealers and gangsters, lazy slobs, dirty cops, jailbirds and grifters we have the more scouse-than-scouse; the images of decay and struggle; of hard-men and gold-hearted working class women (only working class is allowed if you want to be a hero) striving to overcome the limitations of an oppressive place that wants to beat them down and crush them.  Sometimes, if we’re lucky we get the positive spin version, where ‘authentic’ people find happiness or social solidarity in the most unexpected places, despite ‘the system’ and the limitations of their surroundings. Liverpool characters are typically portrayed as ‘street-wise’ and ‘gobby’, which is something I guess we’re supposed to take pride in, but less so do we see them as educated or refined (the entire premise of Educating Rita was based on the unlikeness of a scouser going to university). Often, they are just one heart-beat away from kicking-off, sometimes saved from eruption by that omnipresent scouse ‘sense of humour’. Throw in the name checks to the Reds, Blues and Beatles and the lingering shots of discarded shopping trolleys and the rain-soaked terrace houses where everyone is supposed to live and it’s hard to escape the feeling that we’ve seen it all before. That those creating or commissioning shows are themselves suffering from some kind of block, a collective failure of imagination. It most probably doesn’t help that most (all?) commissioners are located elsewhere, but the truth is many of our own sons and daughters seem all too happy to play this game. They may be wonderfully talented professionals who can play or write characters with nuance and all power to their elbow. But maybe we should try a little harder to look outside the model and imagine different kinds of stories. When is Liverpool going to get its own When Harry Met Sally? (not the coke-snorting edition). I’d even take a horror - the Williamson Tunnels lend themselves to finding a monster in the deep. You can have that one for free.

Of course, the question naturally arises, whether any of this is important. Are we exaggerating the significance of dramatic media portrayals in shaping external perceptions of the city? And even if they did have an influence, does it matter? Does the way a region and its people are viewed have any impact on real-life outcomes? How credible is it to say, as we suggested in the online debate, that fictionalised accounts of crime, depravation and struggle when incessant impact business investment decisions? Surely that’s a nonsense?

This stuff is always hard to prove and it’s easy to mock. As one exasperated Tweeter said in the Schumacher clash, “If crime dramas damaged a city's reputation then New York would never see a tourist.” Perhaps stretching the point, someone else made a similar argument about Costa Rica and the threat of Jurassic Park dinosaurs. But New York is not the debate-winning example they seem to think it is. For every NYPD Blue, there’s a Coming to America, Birdman, Jersey Girl and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York is an unofficial capital and home to powerful media empires. Its stories are legion and diverse, reflecting the vast variety of life in one of the world’s most important cities.

Creators should be free to fly wherever their muse takes them including to the darkest of places. Nothing is off limits. Liverpolitan will not put forward the case for restrictions on the use of regional stereotypes.

Liverpool’s media landscape consists of The Liverpool Echo and some broadcast journalists on loan from Manchester. Its biggest TV Production Company, Lime Pictures inspired the scripted reality nonsense that was Desperate Scousewives. It’s once ground-breaking soap opera, Brookside is long dead, and Richard and Judy fled back to the capital because TV guests didn’t fancy the trip up to the Albert Dock. The city is simply not in control of its own narrative. It eats what it’s fed and what it’s fed is the drip, drip, drip of bleakness and all too often criminality. It might make for good TV (if you like that kind of thing) but it’s depressing as hell, and it’s about as ‘real’ as a Potemkin village.

We can’t prove that a business looking to invest lets the latest Stephen Graham crime special outweigh what its spreadsheet calculations tell it, but we’ve been around long enough to know there’s a strong dose of subjectivity in the decisions people make. If all you’re ever told is Liverpool is the land of the desperate, how likely is it to make it onto your office relocation shortlist?

The perverse thing, if it is a thing, is to wonder to what extent these narratives become internalised by the city’s own people? Become part of our own self-image, heralded as truth as we play the fool. Do we start to celebrate our own stereotypes, and invent new stories that fit the ever decreasing circles of our imagination?  It’s worth thinking about even if you end up dismissing it. At the very least, you should ask yourself, why Liverpool is never the setting for a romcom, or a political drama (God knows we give them the material – appreciative nod to Bleasdale’s excellent GBH (1991)) or any number of things that we don’t currently see. What exactly is going on in the heads of our commissioners?

So we’ve been doing some thinking about these fictional tropes and narratives that swirl around the city of Liverpool. We’re going to call them The Ten Commandments of Scouse TV and Film. There’s actually more, but 13 didn’t sound as snappy. So read on, we’re about to list them and let us know if you can think of any more. Oh, and for the avoidance of doubt, they are intended as satire, not tablets of stone. We named them, but they aren’t ours - they’re in the minds of those with the power to green-light, polluting our cultural soup.

But before we get to that, one final point. In our minds, when we were writing this, our intention was not criticism but rather a rallying call to creatives. It is time to set our imaginations free. To see the city of Liverpool not as others do, but as we do. In full technicolour. Let the new stories begin.

The Ten Commandments of Scouse TV & Film

Thou Shalt …

1. Make only working class heroes

‘Real’ heroism is measured in the absence of a bulging wallet or purse.

E.g. Letter to Breshnev, Boys from the Black Stuff, The Liverbirds; Bread

2. Depict Liverpool as a cesspit of crime

Coke wars, feral kids, dodgy police, prison officers and cons, murders, gangsters, hard-bitten opportunism, and an uncooperative and sullen populace. You get the picture.

E.g. 51st State, Blonde Fist, Tin Star, Little Boy Blue, The Responder, Good Cop, Liverpool 1, Going Off Big Time, Clink, Merseybeat, Z-Cars, Wired

3. Ensure the scouse accent is turned up to eleven

According to TV, every character from Liverpool speaks with the thickest of scouse accents because it’s ‘authentic’. If they didn’t, they’d be bracketed as a ‘snob’. Don’t expect to be hearing anyone that sounds like they might hail from Woolton or Crosby.

E.g. Almost every single show that ever featured a Liverpool character

4. Portray Scouse protagonists as gobby, streetwise but uneducated

The only higher education most scouse characters get is from the university of life. They grew up the hard way, on the streets, but they’re crafty or smart in their own way – not easily fooled.  Schooled in conflict, they can always handle themselves verbally with fighting-talk, and if required with fists too. Always dreaming of better.

E.g. Educating Rita, Desperate Scousewives, Shirley Valentine, Benidorm

5. Point the camera at dirty streets, dereliction and decay

Phwoar, look at that, what a tip! But the poverty is ‘real’. Oh, and everyone lives in a terrace house up there.

E.g. The £1 Houses, 51st State

6. Plug the ‘scouse sense of humour’ as a genetic omnipresence

Everyone’s a wit. I mean, you’d have to be to live here.

E.g. Bread, Brookside, The Royle Family

7. Script storyworlds to revolve around misery, struggle, bigotry or a fight against injustice

Because that’s the sum total of life in Liverpool. Now, can I have a cappuccino with that?

E.g. Boys From The Black Stuff, Anne, Brookside, Blood on the Dole, Blonde Fist, Lilies, Secrets & Words, Hearts and Minds, Wired

8. Roll out the not-too-bright, fighty scouse psychopath, lazy slob or lowlife criminal

When you need a real nutter with a good line, who better than a scouser?

E.g. This is England, The Royle Family, Red Dwarf, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Cracker

9. Portray scouse men as hard as nails with a soft centre, women as brassy or hard-worn salt of the earth

Everyone’s got a shield and everyone’s got a story. They do what they have to do to survive. But deep-down, they’re good people. Even when they are knocking you unconscious.

E.g. Brookside, Time, Line of Duty, The Street

10. Mention either football or the Beatles or both

Well you’ve got to haven’t you?

E.g. Doctor Who, Help, Cracker, Yesterday, Scully

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach

Michael McDonough is the Art Director and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a lead creative specialising in 3D and animation, film and conceptual spatial design.

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The Beatles: Inspiration or dead weight?

Jon Egan

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There was something profoundly true and desperately sad in University of Liverpool lecturer, Dr David Jeffery's acerbic observation that "Liverpool is a Beatles' shrine with a city attached."

It is the dispiriting obverse to music journalist, Paul Morley's rhapsodic description of Liverpool as "a provincial city plus hinterland with associated metaphysical space as defined by dramatic moments in history, emotional occasions and general restlessness."

Jeffery's comments on Twitter appear to have been inspired or provoked by the recent announcement that Liverpool would be using a £2 million grant from Government to advance the business case for yet another "world-class" and "cutting-edge" Beatles' attraction on our hallowed waterfront. Presumably, it will be sandwiched somewhere between the Beatles statue and The Beatles Experience and conveniently close to The Museum of Liverpool and The British Music Experience with their not inconsiderable collections of Beatles artifacts and memorabilia. The exact nature of this new cultural icon remains a little unclear, however, amidst wildly differing descriptions offered by our City and Metro Mayors.

What is deeply depressing about this announcement is that it suggests that Liverpool is incapable of imagining any kind of cultural proposition that is not predicated on the seemingly inexhaustible allure of the four boys who shook the world.

There is of course a readily available and seemingly plausible justification for the never-ending Beatles' fetish, and that is the claim that they are the anchor for our hugely important tourism economy. Notwithstanding the implication that David Jeffery is right to suspect that the city is consciously morphing into a Fab Four theme park, I suspect that this is not exactly the whole truth. For Liverpool, The Beatles are a crutch, a cherished emblem of identity and importance used to exorcise painful intimations of diminished relevance and prestige.

In the novel, Immortality, Czech writer Milan Kundera tells the story of the man who fell over in the street, who on his way home stumbles on an uneven pavement, falls to the ground and arises dazed, grazed and dishevelled, but after a few moments composes himself, and gets on with his life. But unbeknown to the man, a world famous photographer happens to witness the scene and quickly snaps an image of the bewildered and bloodied pedestrian. He subsequently decides to make this picture the cover image for his new book and the poster for his international exhibition. For the man, a momentary misfortune freeze-framed, replicated and disseminated across the world, becomes the image that will forever define who he is.

The more we conflate the Beatles brand with the city's identity, the less space we have to imagine anything original, contemporary or remarkable.

In a sense, Liverpool is the City that fell over on the street, our external image is in significant part, defined by a succession of misfortunes, afflictions and tragedies that befell the city over two decades at the end of the last century. These events forged images, preconceptions and stereotypes that still blight us today and have never been successfully exorcised or replaced.

The Beatles hark back to a time before this blight, when Liverpool was in Alan Ginsberg's celebrated phrase, "the centre of consciousness of the human universe." They are, I believe, a therapeutic distraction from the task of making a different story or discovering a new identity.

Culturally, our Beatles fixation is unhealthy, debilitating and regressive. In fact, I fear we are reaching a point where The Beatles will become the single biggest impediment to any form of civic progression, or any serious project to make Liverpool important, interesting or relevant in today's world. If we are going to have a civic conversation about what kind of "world class" Beatles attraction should be erected at The Pier Head, my immediate impulse would be to recommend a mausoleum.

But perhaps a more imaginative and original idea was the one offered by the late Tony Wilson. That supreme Mancophile, Factory Records producer, Granada TV reporter and founder of the Hacienda nightclub was never held in particularly high regard in this city, especially following some tongue in cheek words of encouragement he gave to Club Brugge on the eve of their European Cup semi-final with Liverpool in 1977. Scousers may resemble elephants with respect to their prodigious powers of memory, but our skins can sometimes be just a tiny bit thinner. Tragically, Wilson's Mancunian persona and his tendency to lapse into casual profanity whilst presenting his project to civic decision-makers proved the undoing of his brilliant and visionary proposition for POP - the International Museum of Popular Culture. Pitched as the big idea for the European Capital of Culture, and the solution that would provide content for Will Alsop's audacious but otherwise functionless Fourth Grace, POP was a talisman for instant reinvention - a Beatles-inspired attraction without any reference to The Beatles. Alas it never happened.

Wilson had first dreamt of POP as an adornment for his own native city and a fitting celebration of its notable contribution to the history of modern popular music, but he soon realised that it was the right idea for the wrong place. He would often express irritation that when travelling in the US he would frequently have to explain where Manchester was by reference to its proximity to Liverpool - a place that people had actually heard of. And there was also the grudging recognition that at a time when Liverpool was "the centre of the human universe" globalising popular culture - Manchester could only offer us Freddy and The Dreamers. Even the outrageous charisma of Manchester United football god, George Best was derivative as he was often dubbed the 5th Beatle.

POP would not simply have been about popular music, it would encompass every facet of popular culture, every expression of contemporary creativity in film, TV, advertising, games, cars, sport, fashion, digital technology and consumer culture. And it was proposed for Liverpool because this was the place that spawned a phenomenon that reached the four corners of the Earth. It was a moment when the world discovered a common currency and a cultural vernacular intelligible to every ear.

POPs content would be dynamic and ever-changing, a continuous exposition of the new, curated by global creatives, designers and technologists. It would be Liverpool recovering its world city perspective and its capacity to invent and innovate - the pool of life, the birth canal for the extraordinary and the unprecedented. Its ingenious paradox was its implicit assertion that The Beatles did not make Liverpool, but Liverpool made The Beatles.

They monopolise our self-image occluding facets of identity and history now only half-glimpsed in the penumbra of a shadowy scouse dreamtime.

All of which is a million miles from Steve Rotheram's "world-class immersive experience" which he promises us will be more spectacular than a glass cabinet containing John Lennon's underpants. We can hardly wait.

If all we can possibly imagine are The Beatles etherealised into holograms - almost literally spectres from beyond the grave - then David Jeffery is right and Liverpool's once rich and cosmopolitan culture has collapsed into a black hole of redundant clichés. The more we inflate our Beatles offer and conflate their brand with the city's very identity, the less space we have in which to imagine anything original, contemporary or remarkable. Along with football (which at least tells new stories) they have come to monopolise both our external brand and our officially curated self-image, occluding facets of our identity and history that are now forgotten and suppressed, only half-glimpsed in the penumbra of a shadowy scouse dreamtime.

The Beatles have come not only to represent our brand, but have also helped to define our personality, attitude and accent - cheeky, chippy, sassy and defiant. As emblems of the 60s social revolution, they helped to forge and reify the idea of Liverpool as a working class city - or more accurately an exclusively working class city. As rock journalist Paul duNoyer, notes in his book, Wondrous Place, this is both a false and profoundly disabling imposition. Not only, as Tony Wilson asserted, are we the city that globalised popular culture, but we are a city that has contributed massively to every facet of culture, ideas and invention over the last 200 years.

The world's first enclosed dock and inter-city railway, together with the completion of the Transatlantic telegraph cable, are not only stunning achievements in technological innovation, but bolster the credible claim that globalisation began here.

The extent to which we have been willing to squander or disown the breadth of our cultural heritage was brought home to me in the febrile final stages of the European Capital of Culture bidding competition. Having commissioned pop artist, Sir Peter Blake to create a homage to his iconic Sgt Pepper album cover to remind the world, or at least the judging panel, of Liverpool's cultural and intellectual prowess, the task of deciding who exactly was worthy of inclusion was both fraught and enormously revealing. Apart from a few contemporary, and at the time highly topical creatives including the poet Paul Farley, artist Fiona Banner and film-maker Alex Cox, the principal criterion for inclusion appeared to be the directness or intimacy of connection to The Beatles. A lop-sided bias towards musicians, popular entertainers and Sixties icons meant no room for the likes of painters George Stubbs and Augustus John, poets Nathaniel Hawthorne and Wilfred Owen, novelist Nicholas Monsarrat, playwright, Peter Shaffer or even poet and novelist, Malcolm Lowry the author of the celebrated, Under the Volcano. Incredibly, until Bluecoat Artistic Director, Bryan Biggs' finally succeeded in persuading Wirral Council to erect a blue plaque on New Brighton's sea wall, there was virtually no public recognition that one of the 20th century's greatest and most influential novelists had any association with the Liverpool City Region.

Without questioning or diminishing the impact of the Mersey Sound poets (McGough, Henri and Patten) in the 1960s, their literary status is no way comparable to another unsung and forgotten cultural luminary with a significant Liverpool connection - C.P. Cavafy. Now acknowledged as one of the last century's most important and original poetic voices, Cavafy spent much of his childhood at addresses in Toxteth and Fairfield. Greek and gay, his poetry will forever be associated with the city of Alexandria where his family settled after leaving Liverpool. We do not know to what extent his formative years in the city helped nurture Cavafy's creative animus, but transience, up-rootedness and departure are woven into our narrative. Our sense of self and place in the world as Liverpolitans, owe as much to those who moved on, or merely passed through, as they do to those who stayed or settled here.

We are not, and never have been a monochrome canvass or a one trick city. Our culture is dense, deep and multifarious, formed by a hotchpotch of races, creeds and classes. For those tasked with defining a place and communicating its uniqueness to the world, there is always the temptation to reduce and simplify.

Brands, including place brands, are often conceived like Platonic forms - a distilled essence, fixed and immutable. But cities like Liverpool are neither simple nor static, and are thus frustratingly un-brandable. Described by Wilson as a place with "an innate preference for the abstract and the chaotic," our essence is pre-Socratic - unresolved, unpredictable and disconcerting. We know that port cities like Liverpool, Naples, Barcelona and Marseilles have historically been melting pots for ideas, influences and cultures - places where things never quite settled.

But their edginess is not merely a function of a perturbed diversity, it is also literal. It's connected to Marshall McLuhan's philosophical idea of right hemisphere sensitivity and the expanded perspective of what he terms acoustic space. Ports face outwards, they are perched on the precipice of a vast and formless abyss. It's an omnipresent reminder that there are no limits.

For Paul Morley, Liverpool’s character and identity - its ability to charm, entertain, inspire and infuriate - proceed from an inchoate restlessness and fidgety creativity. It's a place "where something happens, most of the time, leading to something else." But it seems like that creative energy and inventiveness have deserted us - or at least our leaders. What was once an animating pulse has been reduced to a piece of hollow rhetoric - a brand attribute.

It's sad that a UNESCO City of Music should have forsaken polyphony, and that we are continually stuck in a repetitive groove, narrowing our identity and stifling our capacity to be original (again). For this reason the very last thing Liverpool needs is yet another Beatles' attraction, even an immersive one.

So, OK, The Beatles were important, are important. They changed the world, but did they change Liverpool? We're still, I hope, the city capable of creating something else.

Jon Egan is a former electoral strategist for the Labour Party and has worked as a public affairs and policy consultant in Liverpool for over 30 years. He helped design the communication strategy for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture bid and advised the city on its post-2008 marketing strategy. He is an associate researcher with think tank, ResPublica.

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Life after Joe: Ditching the Mayor won’t fix our broken democracy

Jon Egan

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When nearly all of Liverpool’s political parties agree on something, you can bet it’s on an issue of mutual self-interest rather than in defence of any cherished principle.

As things stand, Liverpool’s voters will be invited, most likely in 2022, to decide whether to keep or dispense with the office of directly elected city mayor. It promises to be a rather one-sided campaign with the city’s three largest political groups (Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens) all arguing for abolishing the post and returning to what they collectively describe as the “more accountable” Leader with Cabinet structure.

Even our recently elected incumbent, Mayor Joanne Anderson, is pledging to vote for the abolition of her own job, which begs the question, why she was so anxious to run for office in the first place? But of course, she was not alone. In the 2021 mayoral election, only two candidates - the Independent, Stephen Yip, and the Liberal Party's Steve Radford - were actually standing on a pro-mayor ticket. Indeed, following the unprecedented intervention by Labour's ruling National Executive to disqualify all three of the senior councillors on the original selection shortlist, both the Labour and Liberal Democrat council groups attempted to cancel the election by abolishing the role without recourse to a public referendum, until they were stopped in their tracks by polite reminders from their own legal officers that such a move would be unlawful.

There is an acute danger that we will sleep walk into this referendum without either a campaign or a properly informed debate. Voters will be asked to reflect on the need to learn lessons from euphemistically labelled "recent events" and fed the seemingly plausible line that one mayor is better than two. After all, why do we need a city mayor now that we have a metro mayor?

Of course, there is a shadow hanging over this whole discussion – one powerful argument for the case against elected mayors – which comes in the shape of the now under investigation and widely discredited former mayor, Joe Anderson. For some, he has become a walking metaphor and deal-sealing symbol of the dangers of too much power in the hands of one larger than life individual. But this is too important a decision for knee-jerk reactions. Our democracy demands that the subject be properly examined and debated. It’s too easy for us to be seduced by over-simplified and questionable arguments. We should think hard before dispensing with a model, that I would contend, has never been properly embraced or tried by our local politicians.

There is an acute danger that we will sleep walk into this referendum without either a campaign or a properly informed debate.

Before we head off to the ballot box (presuming we get the chance), there are some key questions we have to consider. Are mayors generally a good thing? Can they achieve results that old-style council leaders can't? Is there something specifically about Liverpool and the state of our local governance, our politics and our economic and social predicament that makes having a city mayor here particularly desirable or dangerous? And how are we to make sense of our experience of the mayoral model to date? Are the critics right that the concentration of power has been unhealthy or even corrupting?

But first… a little context. Let’s delve back into the city’s recent history to find out how we ended up in this mess. City mayors were an early prescription for what is now fashionably described as ‘levelling-up.’ The problem of a seriously unbalanced economy and underperforming urban centres was a matter of serious priority for the incoming New Labour government in 1997. The publication of Towards an Urban Renaissance - the report of Lord Rogers' Urban Task Force was a seminal moment in re-prioritising the importance of cities as vital engines for growth, innovation and national prosperity. 

We’ve been here before - Liverpool’s democratic deficit

Harnessing that growth, it was implied, would require a new kind of energised civic governance similar in form and style to the dynamic leadership that had successfully regenerated European and North American cities such as Barcelona and Boston. In contrast, the fragmented committee structure of local government, then dominant in the UK, was seen as a recipe for old-school inefficiency and a failure of imagination. A new Local Government Bill (2000) set out the options to reset civic democracy. There was no coercion; just three choices: Leader and Cabinet (close enough to stay as you are), and two flavours of the big bang option for directly-elected City Mayors. Towns and cities were free to decide for themselves and unsurprisingly, councils overwhelmingly chose the least change option with only a handful willing to embrace the more radical mayoral restructure.   

In Liverpool, however, the idea of a directly elected mayor aroused immediate interest, though admittedly not amongst our politicians. Instead, the city's three universities, its two largest media organisations (BBC Radio Merseyside and the Liverpool Echo) and a collection of faith leaders convened the ground-breaking Liverpool Democracy Commission in 1999. Under the chairmanship of Littlewood's supremo, James Ross, the independent commission brought together politicians, academics, and community and business leaders such as Lord David Alton, Professor of Urban Affairs, Michael Parkinson (now of the Heseltine Institute), radio presenter Roger Phillips, and Claire Dove, a key player in the local social enterprise movement. They took evidence from national and local experts and were shadowed by a Citizen's Jury to widen representation. In turn, the city council made a commitment to consider its recommendations and, if a mayoral model was advocated, to hold a public referendum. 

From its inception it was clear that the commission was not simply evaluating the general merits of the available models, but was considering their applicability to Liverpool’s very particular local circumstances. Those circumstances included a wretched turnout of just 6.3% when a tired and divided Labour administration lost its majority in the crucial Melrose ward council by-election in 1997, the lowest ever poll in British electoral history. A Peer Review of the troubled council at the time by the Independent and Improvement Agency had painted a picture of lethargy, cronyism, an insular town hall culture, and wretchedly poor service delivery. Liverpool was acutely aware that its civic governance required a radical reboot.

Leaders run councils, Mayors run cities

The more general case for a directly elected mayor centred on its ability to reinvigorate local democracy, transferring the focus of civic leadership from the inner minutiae and manoeuvrings of the town hall to the wider city – its communities, businesses and institutions. As local government academic Professor Gerry Stoker put it when giving evidence to the Democracy Commission, “Leaders run councils, mayors govern cities.”

Stoker was by no means alone in advocating this radical change. Evidence from witnesses, community meetings, public surveys and the Citizen’s Jury converged on the same transformational proposition. Mayors could be convenors, able to galvanise civic energy by bringing multiple parties together in partnership. They would change the destiny of places in ways that our stilted and bureaucratic town halls could never hope to emulate.

Against this backdrop, the idea of giving every citizen the opportunity to vote for the city's leader seemed refreshingly progressive. It also offered a tantalising possibility - a radical break with party politics. Theoretically, the elected mayor system provides a level playing field for independent candidates. No longer would political parties with the networks and infrastructure required to support candidates in all of the city's wards be able to monopolise the system. Politics could be open, unpredictable and much more interesting and the talent pool from which to select a city leader was immediately expanded. Clever and experienced people from business and civil society would step forward to offer themselves for election.

But above all, it was the radical simplicity of the democratic contract that commended the mayoral model. No longer would local democracy be transacted behind closed doors, shrouded by arcane traditions and enacted through the inscrutable election-by-thirds voting system that somehow allowed political parties to lose elections but miraculously stay in power. With a directly-elected mayor, there would be visible leadership, clear and simple accountability and a transparent means of returning them or removing them from office.

By blaming the mayoral model for the shameful abuses and failures identified by Caller, our councillors are indulging in a transparently hollow attempt at self-exoneration.

It was for that reason that elected mayors were pitched as the antidote to voter disaffection, not just in Liverpool but across the whole country. Turnouts for local elections were in decline everywhere resulting in a widely acknowledged crisis of legitimacy.

Legitimate or not, one year before the Democracy Commission was founded, Liverpool’s voters had their say, overcoming their most ingrained cultural instincts to throw out what they knew was rotten. Liverpool's Labour administration was swept from power by an almost entirely unpredicted Liberal Democrat landslide.

So it would be a Liberal Democrat administration that would decide whether to adopt the mayoral model and respond to the unequivocal recommendation of The Democracy Commission. But they fluffed their lines, embracing instead the less radical option offered by the New Labour government – a Leader with Cabinet. Not for the first time, our political leaders knew best. Rather than allowing voters to choose their preferred model via the referendum they had promised, the council opted for the one that suited their own ends best.

Paradoxically, Liberal Democrat Council Leader, Mike Storey’s style and swagger were almost mayoral. He set up the UKs first Urban Regeneration Company (Liverpool Vision) and boldly calibrated a vision of the city as a European Capital of Culture. These were heady days, and many will now look back nostalgically on Storey’s early tenure as a time of almost limitless promise. So what went wrong?

Storey was instinctively attracted to the idea of city mayors and thought he could be one without having to navigate this dangerously Blairite and centralising heresy through his notoriously individualistic and anarchic Liberal Democrat Party. But Storey was constrained both by the instincts, prejudices and personal ambitions of his own political group, but perhaps more importantly, by the absence of an independent democratic mandate. His leadership rested on the confidence and acquiescence of his unruly Lib Dem caucus, but also on the compliance and co-operation of his highly ambitious Chief Executive, Sir David Henshaw - a challenging job at the best of times. From the outset, some had feared being left out in the cold by this high profile vote winner and knives were sharpened. Without a personal mandate from the public, it was difficult for Storey to face them down. The image of a beleaguered leader imprisoned and frustrated by an obstructive town hall bureaucracy was painfully and comically exposed in the infamous "Evil Cabal" blog. This was local government reduced to camp farce.

The fact is, Storey’s leadership and authority waned precisely because he was not a mayor. He lacked the clear constitutional and democratic authority to deliver on his mandate and to prevail over vested interests and personal agendas. At the end of the day, he was too much a part of a system that was still instinctively protective and self-serving.

Where power really lies

This may appear to be a subtle and rather academic distinction, but the source of a council leader's authority is always municipal rather than civic. The democratic process is indirect and opaque, and real power rests with councillors, not voters. It is councillors who choose the leader, and it is councillors who can topple them, even outside of the local election cycle. Ultimately, council leaders know who they are answerable to and are inclined to act accordingly.

Eventually Storey was forced to resign and after his nemesis, Henshaw, had departed, the Liberal Democrat regime lapsed into a familiar pattern of failure and chaos, mimicking its Labour predecessor. Before long it was being tagged as the country’s worst performing council, and was dumped out of office by an unlikely Labour revival. The compromise option of The Leader with Cabinet model had not ushered in the promised golden age of civic renewal, but only dismal continuity and an all too familiar story of town hall intrigue and ineptitude.

For the incoming Labour administration, the mayoral option was perceived as a threat, not an opportunity. Liam Fogarty’s Mayor for Liverpool campaign was gathering steam, and its petition heading towards the tipping point where a public referendum would have to be negotiated. For Fogarty, the slow implosion of the previous Liberal Democrat administration was evidence that the problems were systemic. He believed that only a new model which transferred more power to voters could fix Liverpool's dysfunctional municipal culture, and that the authority of leaders must rest on a direct personal mandate from the public.

Fearful that a referendum campaign would be a platform for a powerful independent, and in an act of supreme cynicism, Joe Anderson invoked a hitherto unsuspected provision of the Local Government Act to transform himself into an “unelected” elected mayor. It’s worth remembering that Labour’s adoption of the model was motivated solely by a neurotic phobia of a Phil Redmond (creator of popular TV soap-opera, Brookside) candidacy, rather than any intrinsic attraction to this radical new way of running a city. In truth, Liverpool Labour never believed in elected mayors and the shambles and shame of Anderson’s last days provided it with a perfect opportunity to dispatch the idea once and for all. 

Boss politicians and the school of hard knocks

Anderson's sleight of hand once again deprived Liverpool voters of the opportunity of a referendum where the mayoral model could have been properly debated and explored. The fact that it was adopted without enthusiasm or any thorough consideration of its merits, is perhaps the explanation for what subsequently transpired. Anderson did not rule as a convening mayor - as envisaged by Stoker and advocated by the Democracy Commission - dispersing power, building coalitions, and using soft levers to nurture civic cohesion. He was an old-style Labour “City Boss” – in the style and tradition of Derek Hatton, Jack Braddock, Bill Sefton and a host of less memorable and notorious predecessors. Anderson’s approach was that of a fixer and deal-maker - a pugnacious “school of hard knocks” political operator who once threatened to punch a Tory Minister on the nose for claiming that austerity was over.

If Mike Storey was a council leader masquerading as a mayor, Joe Anderson was a mayor acting out the role of a traditional boss politician. What Storey lacked in terms of authority and mandate, Anderson lacked in terms of subtlety, collegiality and an overarching civic perspective.         

During a mayoral hustings event in 2012 at the Neptune Theatre, an audience member posed the challenge, what is Liverpool for? A tricky question and one that demanded a perspective beyond the familiar horizons of the council budget and Tory assaults on its finances. Anderson seemed utterly dumbfounded. Only Liam Fogarty was able to grasp that existential questions like these cannot even be perceived, let alone resolved, from the myopic vantage point of a town hall bunker. Our politicians were simply incapable of rising to the challenge of a political role that required a radically different set of skills and a civic, rather than a municipal, mindset.

Which brings us to today. In effect, we have had a mayoral model, but we have never had a mayor in the way it was envisaged… as a radical antidote to a broken town hall culture.

It is the supreme irony that the case against elected mayors is now being framed on the record and reputation of Joe Anderson - the very embodiment of old-style Liverpool municipalism with its narrow and insular perspective. The argument that Anderson proves the perils of placing too much power in one person’s hands is a dangerous and misleading sleight of hand; a fallacy designed to obscure both historic truth and the complex considerations that should be informing this hugely important debate about how our city is governed.

The fallacy was set out quite pointedly in the 2021 Max Caller report, with its forensic exposure of Liverpool Council’s systemic municipal failure. In describing the governance structure of the city council, Caller observed:

“although the mayor is an authority’s principal public spokesperson and provides the overall political direction for a council, an elected mayor has no additional local authority powers over and above those found in the leader and cabinet model, or the committee system.” 

Mayors are a dangerous idea. Independent candidate Stephen Yip threatened to end party political hegemony in Liverpool with only the meagrest resources. This is an eventuality that establishment politicians must join forces to thwart once and for all.

In effect, the "Leader with Cabinet" model now favoured by our local politicians, places exactly the same amount of power in precisely the same number of hands as the “discredited” mayoral model. In no way is it inherently more accountable or transparent. We are being sold a false prospectus, and one we know from our own recent history is no panacea. This is the classic ruse of the second-hand car salesman, and we need to look under the bonnet before it's too late.

By blaming the mayoral model for the shameful abuses and failures identified by Caller, our councillors are indulging in a transparently hollow attempt at self-exoneration. The “few rotten apples” alibi became the recurrent mantra to explain away the systemic dysfunctionalism exposed by the report. It was all down to the Mayor and a system that allowed a few powerful individuals to operate without adequate transparency or scrutiny. Or so the story goes. The solution is simple, get rid of the Mayor and all will be well. 

But there was nothing extraordinary or atypical in Anderson's style, nor anything that was especially mayoral about the municipal culture or the way power was exercised. Caller's report is depressingly redolent of the Peer Review into the previous failed Labour administration and the chaotic end days of the subsequent Liberal Democrat council. This is simply what Liverpool local government looks like.  

Multiple Mayors - other cities seem to manage it

We cannot make the mayoral system a scapegoat for a chronic and systemic failure of governance in our city. If, as its critics allege, mayors necessarily lead to an undesirable and dangerous concentration of power, then logically, wouldn’t we also need to seriously revisit our devolution deal and the post of Metro Mayor? Our politicians can’t have it both ways.

And neither should we be spooked by the “too many mayors confuse the voters” line. If it turns out that mayors are a good thing after all, then why should they be rationed? Mayors and Metro Mayors co-exist happily in London, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, the West of England, Tees Valley and North of Tyne. Cities in these areas including Bristol, Middlesbrough and Salford appear to be able to cope with the idea of different mayors exercising different powers over different geographic jurisdictions.

We shouldn't of course be surprised that our politicians are advocating for a return to the Leader with Cabinet system, when its most conspicuous difference to the “disgraced” mayoral model is that it would give them the exclusive power to decide who our City Leader should be. Rather than a direct popular mandate, Liverpool’s leader would be entirely beholden to councillors from within their own political group. Only in the looking-glass world of Liverpool politics can this be presented as more democratic and accountable. As the elected Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees recently argued in response to those advocating abolition of the post there. “It doesn't take much understanding of why the old system didn't work. Anonymous and unaccountable leadership, decisions made by faceless people in private rooms, and a total lack of leadership and action. The mayoral model makes the leader accountable - he/she is elected by the people of Bristol directly, not by 30 people in a room as in the old committee structure.”

If Liverpool votes to abolish its elected mayor and reverts to a system that has already proven unfit for purpose, we will weaken local democracy and diminish accountability.

But this is precisely the brave new system that we will be invited to endorse in next year's referendum and one that has already been tried and found wanting.

The lesson is that having an elected mayor is not a sufficient condition to deliver radical civic and political change, but it is a necessary one. The authority, legitimacy and wider perspective of the mayoral office is vitally important in making our municipal edifice work for the city rather than for itself.

Mayors are a good idea because they provide visible, directly accountable leadership. Their mandate enables them to speak up for their locality with authority and influence. We only need to look to London and Greater Manchester to see how mayors have been powerful and effective advocates for their cities and regions. But ultimately we need one who understands and actually believes in the role, which is why it is difficult to believe that Joanne Anderson's tenure is likely to fulfil the potential that the post could still offer to the people of Liverpool.

But as our councillors understand only too well, mayors are a dangerous idea. Independent candidate Stephen Yip threatened to end party political hegemony in Liverpool with only the meagrest resources and virtually no grassroots organisation. This is an eventuality that establishment politicians must join forces to thwart once and for all.

If Liverpool votes to abolish its elected mayor and reverts to a system that has already proven unfit for purpose, we will weaken local democracy and diminish accountability. And we’ll be doing it in the name of its opposite, bamboozled by the Humpty Dumpty logic of Liverpool politics where words mean whatever our politicians choose them to mean. We will also denying ourselves even the faintest possibility of breaking out from the cycle of dysfunctional party politics.

The elected mayoralty is the only chance we have to change the way our city is run. The tragedy is, we could lose this opportunity before ever having really given it a proper go. Someone needs to start a campaign, and soon. 

Jon Egan is a former electoral strategist for the Labour Party and has worked as a public affairs and policy consultant in Liverpool for over 30 years. He helped design the communication strategy for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture bid and advised the city on its post-2008 marketing strategy. He is an associate researcher with think tank, ResPublica.

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HS2 - A Liverpool coup?

Michael McDonough & Paul Bryan

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The Department for Transport has released the ‘Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands’ to much wailing and gnashing of teeth anywhere north of Birmingham. But is it really as bad as all that? What exactly does it mean for the future of the Liverpool City Region and its rail connectivity?

Depending where you live, HS2 (or High Speed 2) has been seen either as a god-send for levelling up or a blight on pristine countryside. It’s been controversial from the start. Some of that has to do with the cost - after all you can buy quite a lot for the, by some estimates £100bn+ price tag. Some of it has to do with a sense of entitlement or environmental catastrophism in the home counties from the Not In My Back Yard brigade. But mostly, it’s the long-running sore of unequal investment, as northerners watch on jealously as one prestige project after another has been signed off around London. ‘When is it our turn?’, we asked and it seemed HS2 and HS3, subsequently christened Northern Powerhouse Rail, was the answer. Of course, Labour’s northern strongholds have long been suspicious, ever watchful for that knife in the back, and who can blame them? Rumours of nips and tucks to the ambitions of northern travellers have circulated for years and now those rumours have been put out of their misery. The eastern leg to Leeds is no more, Manchester is not getting it’s gold-plated underground station, Bradford is off the map and Newcastle, well they were never on it in the first place. But what about Liverpool?

‘The North’ is, and perhaps always was, a convenient ‘catch-all’ phrase used to hide the oh-so-obvious regeneration focus on Manchester.’

Watching the whole HS2 debacle from Liverpool has been something of a frustrating process. From the outset, our leaders have done their level-best impression of an ostrich with it’s head somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. They never seemed to understand the existential threat that HS2 posed to the city in its ‘Manchester-friendly’ form. Ah, Manchester, that northern capital (self-appointed), who doesn’t dream of being relegated to commuter-town status to serve that inflated mill-town? At Liverpolitan, that’s long been our suspicion, since before we were a twinkle in our self-published eye(s). ‘The North’, is and perhaps always was a convenient ‘catch-all’ phrase used to hide the oh-so-obvious regeneration focus on Manchester and the lack of focus on other places like Liverpool, Bradford and Newcastle. The logic of agglomeration means all roads point east along the M62. Why don’t they just admit it instead of all this secret code stuff?

Which brings us back to the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands. If it’s true that ‘The North’ is something of a deception to hide the fact that its cities have competing interests, then maybe we should take off the northern hair shirt and look with fresh eyes at the government’s new plan. Forget about the others, what does it mean for Liverpool?

Manchester-centric

Before we tuck too far into that, it’s most probably worth a quick history lesson. The HS2 project was first launched in 2009 by the Labour government and then picked up a year later by the newly elected Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition administration. They quickly began a consultation on a route from London to Birmingham, with a Y-shaped section to Manchester and Leeds. High speed rail was to become one of the centre pieces of then Chancellor George Osbourne’s ‘vision’ for an all-inclusive ‘Northern Powerhouse’ (singular, not plural) viewed through the skewed lens of his Tatton, Cheshire constituency.

The resulting report and general direction of travel made it immediately clear that this mammoth piece of railway infrastructure was going to serve up yet another Manchester-centric political indulgence. The scales would be tipped conclusively in favour of ‘regional capitals’ such as Manchester and Leeds, relegating cities such as Liverpool and Sheffield to more tertiary positions. Liverpool’s obvious absence from visuals, media coverage and general debate around the HS2 project only seemed to re-enforce this essentially political idea. For some, it may have entrenched notions of ‘managed decline’ by an uncaring Conservative government but our Liverpool leaders didn’t seem to notice. Look trains! Trains good…

At the time, there were numerous debates and disputes around the data on rail capacity, BCR (benefits-cost ratio) and route alignments, all used to justify a heavy public investment on the Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds sections of the line. Train-spotter types got all exercised about it. There seemed to be some logical perversion going on. Liverpool it was argued, didn’t need more trains to London because there wasn’t enough passenger demand, but Leeds did need more trains because, well, they needed to stimulate more demand from the current low levels. Say what? It was like one of those National Lottery games where the outcome was already determined and you only had the illusion of choice. The data was made to fit the argument as far as the Liverpool City Region was concerned. Led by Transport Minister Lord Andrew Adonis, the plan for HS2 would leave Liverpool staring down the barrel of a future in which the struggle to stay economically competitive just got a little harder. The dice, it seemed, were stacked.

From the beginning Liverpool’s politicians didn’t seem on the ball. Even ones with a bit of clout weren’t really arguing Liverpool’s case. Maria Eagle (former Shadow Transport Minister) and Louise Ellman (Transport Select Committee) were strangely absent from the debate despite holding roles that would have helped give Liverpool a voice. It was only after the establishment of 20 Miles More, a campaigning lobby group which made the case for better Liverpool HS2 connections, that the city region’s leaders finally started to understand the peril and by then it was very much an uphill struggle. Our politicians had like Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned (according to legend).

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Prioritising Planes

Meanwhile, to the east our friends in Greater Manchester had hit the jackpot, although it must be said, that forward-thinking and a pragmatic attitude to working with Conservative governments had certainly played their role. The HS2 alignment was to track away from Liverpool with its 1.6m inhabitants to serve a dedicated Manchester Airport station (and its Cheshire hinterlands) on the main trunk line. This gold plated promise, which would punishingly add to journey times between Liverpool and London came courtesy of a vague commitment to make a local ‘contribution’ to costs and a Chancellor whose own constituency sits perhaps coincidentally on the south western fringe of the city. Naturally, Manchester was also awarded with a further £7bn tunnel bored all the way to the city centre to meet a new station alongside Manchester Piccadilly.

In short, from the start HS2 pushed Liverpool to the periphery. The city region would be served by a slow lane connection using old tracks and with no promise of additional capacity. While Manchester and Leeds were drawing up plans for regenerated business quarters and glamorous city-pads off the back of huge station investments, some evidence pointed to the project causing a net loss in GVA (Gross Value Added) for the Liverpool City Region. No investment, no seat at the table and notably, no meaningful support from ‘The North’ to help Liverpool to benefit. That’s northern solidarity in action. Politician, Andy Burnham likes to speak for ‘the North’ but invariably only one city seems to benefit from his political manoeuvring.

It begs the question, whether Liverpool should de-couple itself from the pan-northern view that the government transport plans are a disaster. If the old plans weren’t so good for us, maybe the new plans are better? It is clear that Manchester and Leeds stood to gain the most from HS2 as previously defined. Now that the eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds has been entirely removed, maybe the focus of the benefits have moved a little closer to home.

Liverpool should take a more pragmatic view when assessing this change of direction and put the interests of our city first.

The Government’s New Plans

The first thing to say is that as far as the new Integrated Rail Plan is concerned, it’s a case of swings and roundabouts. Liverpool gains in some areas and loses in others. For HS2, things are looking much rosier, whereas the never fully committed to and still very much a paper project, Northern Powerhouse Rail has been downgraded. But one thing is clear. It is simply untrue to say, as Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram did, that the government have “chosen not to deliver anything at all.”

So let’s look at HS2. What the government is now proposing for Liverpool brings fast tracks much closer to the city. It’s better late than never ambitions to have a dedicated spur from the main route, while in no way fully delivered, have taken a major step forward. The argument that Liverpool is important enough to receive a better service appears after a long and bloody battle and against all the odds to have been won. Whereas before, Liverpool’s connection to the new rail network was situated some 40 miles away, just south of Crewe, under the latest proposal HS2 tracks will now run to Ditton Junction, approximately 11 miles distant and right on the outskirts of the city. This resolves one of the two main capacity constraints facing our part of the network and substantially increases the scope for an expansion of freight services - a key strategic goal for the growth of Liverpool’s port. It will achieve this by relieving the congested section of the West Coast Mainline (WCML) between Crewe and Weaver Junction (where the Liverpool branch connects) allowing many more freight paths towards the Midlands and the South. As an added bonus the revised route will also reduce journey times to London for passengers although by only a modest 2 minutes.

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Those improvements will be achieved through a combination of new track linking Manchester to Warrington Bank Quay station and the use of the under-utlised Fiddler’s Ferry route which will be redeveloped and electrified (without a significant effect on existing passenger services).

Of course, what we all want is for new track to be laid all the way to central Liverpool serviced by a station with sufficient capacity to handle the additional services, as was discussed in Martin Sloman’s article, Lime Street or Bust? The options for Liverpool’s HS2 station. But we should point out in the interests of fairness, that a new station and new dedicated track is not and never has been on offer from the government; it’s just something we feel the city needs. To go those extra eleven miles and build a new station would, according to the report, require local funding. This is, of course, a ludicrous and hypocritical position for a national government to take (given the resources thrown at other cities) but there’s room for optimism. A future government may take a different view and once the engineers start to tuck into the final details and look at the numbers, the business case for raising ambitions further may become obvious. After all, the big argument for better Liverpool services has been won.

In the meantime, the rail plan proposes a solution to the second big capacity constraint facing Liverpool - the narrow throat that is the entrance to Lime Street Station. This acts as a significant break on the amount of trains that can come in and out of the station at any one time, producing that all too familiar Victorian-era crawl over the last mile. The report recognises this issue and proposes that development work should focus on altering Lime Street and its approaches. Intriguingly, it states that ‘Network Rail analysis also shows that Liverpool Lime Street station can be altered largely within the boundary of existing railway land to accommodate the proposed service levels resulting from HS2 and NPR.’ Further work, it says, is needed to confirm the precise scope of interventions. This clearly points towards a very significant re-modelling project for our station.

For too long Liverpool’s interests have been subsumed under a ‘Northwesternist’ agenda centred politically and economically on the needs of Manchester. It has been the failing of our local parties - all of them - Labour, Liberal, Conservatives and Greens to notice what has been going on.

If we move into the albeit not entirely reliable realms of speculation, the acceptance of the requirement to address Lime Street’s capacity constraints may open up a chink of light for the long overdue Edge Hill Spur, a project originally proposed in the 1970s. This would connect Liverpool Central station with the east of the city via the currently abandoned Wapping Tunnel to Edge Hill. If given the green light, local services could be moved out of Lime Street allowing it to concentrate on longer distance services. It would also precipitate the wholesale redevelopment of Central Station with all the benefits that would entail. We’re not saying it’s going to happen. Just that if you follow the logic of the report, it kind of makes sense.

Runcorn appears to be the big loser in this new plan, as it will no longer be on the HS2 map. But all is not lost for south Liverpool. A new station at Ditton Junction would serve the same market equally well and has to be an option as the detail of the plans are worked through. It is also not beyond the bounds of possibility that an expanded Lime Street could support a London-Runcorn service on the old WCML or provide a connection at Crewe.

One of the not really spoken about benefits of the new plan is that Liverpool’s new connections should now open at the same time as HS2 Phase 2B to Manchester. In an age when Liverpool must learn to compete with its northwest city brother in every field, this is an important win. Comparative journey time penalties to London will impact on our attractiveness to investors and although we do concede a 21-minute longer travel time, it would have been worse and in place for longer under the old plan. Marginal gains can add up.

As for Northern Powerhouse Rail, it’s hard to argue that we are now on anything but thinner gruel. Travel times to Manchester will not improve appreciably from the current levels offered to Victoria Station, and the Piccadilly route will be 6 minutes slower than was previously proposed. Trips between Liverpool-Leeds will also be slower, downgraded from 61 minutes to 73, although still significantly faster than the 106 minutes we experience today. Either way, as most people don’t like to commute for substantially more than one hour and tend to live in suburbs, not train stations, it’s never been truly convincing to believe that significant numbers would commute between the two cities of Liverpool and Leeds anyway. Nevertheless, in the cold light of day, NPR may not be what we dreamed of, but it’s still a significant step up from what we suffer in the present.

So despite the generally negative tone from media commentators and local politicians (who will be driven by their own political imperatives), the proposals carry with them some very sensible ideas. If implemented, the rail plan will mean the Liverpool City region benefits from:

• New infrastructure for both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail services

• Improved capacity, journey times, frequencies and connectivity

• Facilities will now open simultaneously with Phase 2B to Manchester

Andrew Morris of 20 Miles More told us, “The journalistic hype is quite different from the reality. My reading of the new plan is that, although imperfect, it’s a coup for Liverpool. Since the 20 Miles More campaign, the Liverpool City Region has raised its ambitions and engaged constructively with HM Government. The LCR has been unified and managed to navigate through the political quagmire the Department for Transport created when it threw in together all of the northern centres stakeholders. Yorkshire has lost out due to a lack of unity.”

It’s hard to square the comments of Andrew, who has been living and breathing train services for decades with those of Steve Rotherham, our Metro Mayor. He said, “Northern Powerhouse Rail had the chance to be transformational for our area and the wider north and important for the UK on the whole. But many voices including my own said they were going to deliver transformation on the cheap. Instead they’ve chosen not to deliver anything at all. We were promised Grand Designs, but we’ve had to settle for 60 Minute Make Over.”

The Manchester to Liverpool section of Northern Powerhouse Rail has been prioritised ahead of Manchester to Leeds. For Leeds and Bradford, that’s not good. But for Liverpool, well we should be OK with that. This is where we should have been from the beginning, because the Liverpool-Manchester axis has greater economic potential than the Manchester-Leeds one.

For too long Liverpool’s interests have been subsumed under a ‘Northwesternist’ agenda centred politically and economically on the needs of Manchester. It has been the failing of our local parties - all of them - Labour, Liberal, Conservatives and Greens to notice what has been going on. Instead, they were too busy picking their own small-time fights while competitor cities manoeuvred to advantage around us. Perhaps if our politicians adopted a more pragmatic approach to working with central government, whatever it’s political hue, we might not have needed campaigns like 20 Miles More in the first place.

As you wade through the interminable list of articles about the disaster that is the new Integrated Rail Plan, think on this… is it possible that most commentators are operating under a logical fallacy? That they have swallowed whole the idea that ‘The North’ is a single identity with common interests and that loss to one is loss to all? If we are being brutally honest, Liverpool may actually benefit competitively in a world where Leeds is a little more hobbled and where Manchester is not so dominant. It shouldn’t be a heresy to say so. Our brethren have been thinking exactly the same way behind closed doors for years. It’s time Liverpool joined the party.

Michael McDonough is the Art Director and a Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a lead creative specialising in 3D and animation, film and conceptual spatial design.

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach.

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Liverpool Bombing: Calls to unite reveal what they really think of us

Paul Bryan

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In the face of a terrorist attack, when much is supposition and information is still filtering in, it’s really important not to rush to judgement. Calm heads should, as in all situations, prevail.

However, following the bomb blast from a home-made device in a taxi outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, it seems many are doing the complete opposite, crow-barring their agendas into a story that luckily didn’t appear to kill any innocents.

One of the more curious examples could be found in Spiked Online in an article entitled ‘David Perry and the incredible heroism of ordinary people’. Speedily jumping onto claims that the taxi driver had quick-wittedly locked his passenger, Emad Al Swealmeen inside the car, after spotting suspicious activity, writer Tom Slater warmed to his task. “Time and again it is the public who are our last line of defence against this barbarism,” he concluded. And that may well be true, but the full facts are not yet clear in this case and Perry’s heroism is yet to be established conclusively. All that we do know at the time of writing, is that the video of the incident clearly shows that the explosion took place before the car had come to a stop. Why don’t we just wait and see and let the police piece it together?

The commentaries that swirl around these events reveal so much about the pre-occupations of those who would form the nation’s opinions. Liverpool’s Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram was quick to set the tone, issuing a statement which said, “it would seem this was an attempt to sow discord and divisions within our communities. But our area is much stronger than that. We are known for our solidarity and resilience. Our diversity remains one of our greatest strengths. We will never let those who seek to divide us win.” 

Merseyside Police Commissioner, Emily Spurrell, obviously had the same briefing sheet, ‘our region is known for its solidarity and resilience,’ she tweeted. Meanwhile, in the Liverpool Echo, Liverpool Mayor, Joanne Anderson was reported to have said, “For all of us who know that Liverpool is a tolerant and inclusive city – this will be hard to come to terms with. Over the next few days, as we learn more about what happened, we must all support each other and unite, as we always do, when times are tough."

Just in case anyone might point the finger, the Liverpool Region Mosque Network issued a statement too, appealing for “calm and vigilance”.

Take note of the consistent themes – tolerance, inclusivity, diversity, solidarity. They’ll be important.

But it was perhaps Liam Thorp of the Liverpool Echo who crystalised the thinking better than most. His article, ‘Terror won’t divide Liverpool, this city will be more united than ever’ drew praise from his own publishing team, with David Higgerson, Chief Audience Officer at Reach Plc using it to champion the newspaper as ‘a beacon of accurate, reliable information’. Some of their regular readers might beg to differ.  

When you hear somebody say, ‘scousers do this, or scousers do that’ they’re really saying, ‘you must do this, you must do that.’

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Liam was really on fire, sounding almost Churchillian. “It is in times of great adversity that the true colours of people and places shine through and it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows Liverpool well that the people of this city have stood up, united and pulled each other up again.” 

Examples were given - an elderly man was provided with a wheelchair as he was evacuated from Rutland Avenue; over £60,000 and climbing has been raised on GoFundMe and Facebook for the driver – to pay for what exactly? They are aiming for £100,000 by the way.  His wife Rachel described David’s condition as ‘extremely sore’. And of course, there was also this gem, “Or the brave bystanders who didn't think twice before running towards David as he fled that terrifying fireball - desperate to help him in any way they could.” I must have watched a different video. It all seemed a bit casual to me.

But Liam was only getting started, “Scousers look after each other - and when others try to jump on a crisis in this city to push their own divisive agenda, that will simply be rejected.”

It almost sounded like he was hinting at something else. I wonder what? But he had one final beat of the drum, “The Women's hospital represents the best of this diverse, inclusive, brave and brilliant city and each and every person here will have been horrified to see it targeted in this way.” 

So there you go, just in case you are unsure. A bombing at a hospital, let alone a ‘women’s hospital’ is a bad thing. Are we all on the same page with that? Thanks Liam.

So what might we conclude from these very similar themed statements? Why do so many of the leading figures in the city feel the need to talk about diversity and inclusion and solidarity in the face of a terrorist attack? It’s not like that is the only option. You could just express your sympathy, appeal for calm and release the facts as they arise. Why go the extra mile?

What their spin on the Liverpool bombing reveals is their real concern. The more we hear the talk of scousers sticking together, of terror not dividing us, of our diversity being our strength, the more it reveals they don’t believe it. These sentiments hide a deep pessimism about their fellow citizens, about the unwashed and unruly. Why else would we need to hear their urgings for peace and a respect for difference? For some commentators, this desperate act of terrorism is the match in the hay bale. The trigger that they believe could ignite an orgy of violence. That civilisation is but skin-deep and we must be saved from our own worst instincts by their pious sermons. But history doesn’t support their view. Most people are decent. Most people strive to be fair. Most people do not resort to violence. When you hear somebody say, ‘scousers do this, or scousers do that’ they’re really saying, ‘you must do this, you must do that.’ We don’t need their advice to do the right thing. We’ve already figured it out for ourselves.

Truth is, leaders or those who want to be leaders like to look like leaders. And there’s nothing quite like a terrorist incident to summon up all that statesman or stateswoman-like pomposity. Don’t give them the chance. Turn off social media for the evening. Enjoy time with your family and friends. You won’t be missing anything important. Just blah, blah blah.

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach.

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A new central Liverpool

Michael McDonough

As a youngster I’d often be dragged kicking and screaming into ‘town’ by my mother, first from Aigburth and later Speke on the 82 bus for a day traipsing around central Liverpool.

The delights of these trips would include Solitaire, Dodo’s and Miss Selfridges (all high street names now consigned to the past) and we would start this bonanza at Lewis’ department store, jumping off the bus and into the throng of Saturday morning shoppers. We’d cut through Lewis’ giant store before heading to what was then the newly opened Clayton Square shopping centre and a supposedly refreshed green-glass clad St Johns Centre. From there the misery of shopping with your mum on a Saturday would commence.

For me it was my first introduction to a big city centre alongside the odd jaunt over to Manchester and it was where I began to really think about architecture and the built environment. I’d see the different building styles and the variety of scale and begin to understand what fundamentally makes a city centre feel vibrant and appealing. Of course, today I’m a bit more travelled but I still think central Liverpool retains a bizarre and unique mix of architecture and energy that few European cities can rival.

Sadly today, Liverpool’s optimistic 1960’s shopping centre architecture and MDF pre-fab station retail (Liverpool Central) is all looking incredibly tired, like a patched up old car that’s had multiple uncaring owners. It still functions but it doesn’t look too good aesthetically.

Let’s take St Johns Centre, the largest indoor shopping centre in the city, squatting as it does right next to Liverpool’s front door to the world - Lime St. It’s also directly adjacent to some of the world’s finest neo-classical architecture such as St Georges Hall. This shopping behemoth, designed by architect James A. Roberts, landed ungraciously on the city in 1969 and has suffered two fires and several re-clads, leaving us with a mish mash of hasty spruce-up’s from owners who have lacked the deep pockets to do anything truly worthwhile.

The Centre itself was actually a much smarter affair when it first opened, before it was mauled by those who, in the 1990’s, thought faux-Victorian brick features would add a dash of sophistication. Still, in its defence St Johns remains very profitable for it’s owners, and this is likely the reason why it continues to squat on what should be a prime city centre site - a pound shop paradise instead of a Gucci-style emporium. It’s not all bad though, we were also gifted St Johns Beacon in 1969 as a glorified chimney to ventilate the centre. Better known today as the Radio City Tower, it’s become a landmark in itself, but also architectural marmite. Shorter than was originally intended, it’s short-lived rotating restaurant feature has long-since closed with its crown now defaced with radio antennae. Recently it was threatened with a quite frankly ridiculous zip wire proposal that would have seen the more adventurous amongst us flung across St Georges Hall before landing on top of the Liverpool Central Library, but thankfully, the subsequent uproar consigned the scheme to Liverpool City Council’s rather large book of planning mistakes.

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St Johns Centre as viewed from St Georges Hall, 2020.

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Clayton Square (left) and St Johns Centre (right), 2020.

St Johns is sadly not alone across this axis of tat that defaces central Liverpool. There is also the now, in my view, ruined Clayton Square. You might notice that I don’t refer to it as a ‘shopping centre’ because today it is a far cry from its intended design, having been boxed up internally for long standing retail anchor Boots the Chemist. The original grand and spacious feel of the 1990’s glass-covered mall lost behind MDF wall panels. The only redeeming feature of Clayton Square is its distinctive glass dome as a reminder of what once was. Again, the victim of a visionless ownership doing the bare minimum, this once impressive shopping centre has been turned into a forgettable cut-through.

Sadly today, Liverpool’s optimistic 1960’s shopping centre architecture and MDF pre-fab station retail (Liverpool Central) is all looking incredibly tired,…

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The rap sheet of poor developments goes on…there’s the now wrecked former Blacklers store populated at ground level by the Wetherspoons pub chain and greasy low-end fast food joints. The unforgivebly bland and beige ION student accomodation scheme which replaced the Futurist (a building that still needed to go as it was collapsing). Its depressing cladded hulk hiding the even more depressing breeze block, creaking floor misery that is the Student ‘Castle’ behind. Then there’s the decaying former ABC art deco cinema on the opposite side of the road that has also fallen victim to numerous false dawns including plans to turn it into a TV studio. And who could forget the Holiday Inn towering above St Johns? For some bizarre reason, the hotel was painted black with white window frames and now provides a nice clean target for seagulls offloading their mess quite visibly across the facade, a delight I’m sure for those arriving at Lime St for the first time. But the pièce de resistance has to be the blue plastic cover stretching around the St Johns Centre car park as an apologetic gesture from the city leaders, who are all too aware of how much of an embarrassing eyesore this part of the city has become. No amount of repaving is going to fix that one.

I should stop there as the horrors of Williamson and Queens Squares with their out of town retail architecture are too much to bare. Even the entrance to Liverpool Central station and shopping centre is a sorry indictment of how quick the city is to demolish great architecture and replace it with worse. Too little is invested in Liverpool’s transport infrastructure today. If this was London, things would look very different.

Anyway, that’s enough of the critical; let’s move on to the constructive! At Liverpolitan, when it comes to architecture and urban design we at least like to have a stab at putting our money where our mouth is and so we’ve visualised what central Liverpool could potentially look like with a major, joined up and comprehensive redevelopment plan akin to Liverpool One.

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The featured visuals explore how a forward-thinking city administration, alongside some ambitious local politicians and business leaders might take central Liverpool forward. The designs imagine a city centre unlocked from the obstructive mess that indoor shopping centres have created and moves instead to individual buildings and re-instated streets. Those buildings play host, not to the bargain basement, but to hotels, much needed Grade A flexible office and event spaces, small and medium-sized businesses. There’s also a leisure and media hub, landmark building to replace Clayton Square and ground-level, accessible market space to replace St Johns Market, now relocated to Williamson Square with the potential for it to spill out into the surrounding streets.

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A re-imagined St Johns Beacon.

We imagine a new central Liverpool anchored by a new transport hub with a major expansion of Liverpool Central station returning this increasingly overcrowded and underinvested underground station in to something more in line with its former role as a national gateway with the completion of the Edge Hill Spur scheme to tunnel the Northern line out to Edge Hill and beyond (we’ll have an article on that at some point).

New and re-instated street connections between Queens Square and Central Station offer a clear line of sight through to the St Georges Hall portico. Rather than repeat the mistakes of St Johns, which for want of a better phrase, turned its architectural ‘arse’ to one of our grandest buildings, new structures will offer a proud face towards it. It’s almost as if architects in the 1960’s dismissed St Georges Hall as some imperialist soot-covered beast that would soon be demolished, and so contextually didn’t matter. Bulldozers were on the cards for Lime St’s Great Northwestern Hotel frontage, it it wasn’t for a campaign to stop them.

The design concepts envisage a far more porous central Liverpool with a new green space, elevated across several levels, looking out across St Georges Plateau. Hopefully it would act as an invitation to the now sad and disconnected lower London road to join the re-development party and come back into the city centre fold. Scale and world class architectural design would be the order of the day much like Liverpool One. Instead of leaving such an important project in the hands of a clique of local developers practice on a budget, International competitions would invite the world’s best to compete. Let the best designs and those with the best track records win out.

Lewis’, the former Blackers Store and the remaining streets between would all be spurred on to step-up and re-invent themselves. The result? A whole, new beating heart for central Liverpool, far more befitting of where the city wants and needs to be. A statement to anyone arriving at Lime St Station that Liverpool is a world class city that respects its heritage, but is determined to do everything it can to match and surpass its history. One that thinks bigger, and better.

It would be nice to get off the 82 bus one day and walk through a vibrant, modern central Liverpool - a place without chewing gum ridden pavements and hot dog stands. Liverpool One still set’s the bar for city centre regeneration. We did it before, we can do it again.

Michael McDonough is the Art Director and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a lead creative specialising in 3D and animation, film and conceptual spatial design.

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Vanished. The city that disappeared from the map

Jon Egan

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When I was a young child my parents bought me a truly wondrous gift ‐ an illuminated globe of the world. It was a magical object with the power to inspire and enrapture, but it also taught me two important, but hitherto unknown, facts about the world.

The first was that my country, Britain, was very small. So small in fact that it was only possible to fit the names of two cities onto this tiny morsel of irradiated pinkness. The second lesson, that followed ineluctably from the first, was that my city clearly was important. As far as the world was concerned Britain could be adequately represented by only two places – London, its capital, and Liverpool, its global gateway. We were on the map, or at least we were then.

A few years ago, when passing through the John Lewis department store, I stopped to browse at a selection of highly impressive (but sadly not illuminated) globes. Britain remained within its familiar miniscule dimensions, but the cartographers had skilfully managed to inscribe on its terrain the names of not two, but five significant British cities – London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. It merely confirmed what I had long suspected ‐ we were no longer important.

There is of course a serious point to this parable, and it is that we are not simply absent from physical maps, but also from the conceptual and metaphorical maps that shape policy and influence important decision‐making. Despite the incessant hype to the contrary, data from the Centre For Cities suggests we are making little progress in closing the performance gap with competing and emerging economic centres.

A well‐placed insider described Liverpool as “the city that has forgotten how to conjugate in the future tense.”

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We have become peripheral ‐ largely outside the thought processes and priorities of political decision‐makers, investors, media commentators and influencers. Addressing and reversing this process – or putting Liverpool ‘back on the map’ ‐ has been, or certainly should have been, a guiding principle for our political and civic leaders over the last four decades. With a City Council mired in crisis and multiple criminal investigations, and the most recent State of The City Region (2015) report presenting a picture of chronic levels of ill‐health, worklessness and deprivation, it’s clear we still have a very long way to go.

For anyone wondering if the economic picture has improved since that last report was published, check out the tale of woe in the new Shaping Futures report, The Demographics and Educational Disadvantage in the Liverpool City Region (2021).

My own involvement with efforts to reposition and rehabilitate Liverpool’s external image has been deeply frustrating and depressingly circular. When in 2002 Liverpool was bidding to become European Capital of Culture, bid supremo, Bob Scott, suffered a heart attack in the closing stages of the process. City Council CEO, Sir David Henshaw took control of the bid, and invited myself as director of the agency that had devised the bid’s World in One City branding, and the Lib Dem’s political strategist, Bill le Breton, to review the campaign and communication messaging. This was an interesting and instructive exercise. Talking to people very close to the then Culture Minister, Tessa Jowell, and contacts equally close to the leading members of the judging panel, the feedback on Liverpool’s campaign pitch was not entirely encouraging. One of the most memorable comments from a very well‐placed insider described Liverpool as “the city that has forgotten how to conjugate in the future tense.” In a competitive process that was supposedly about regeneration and the role of culture in stimulating economic transformation, Liverpool had, until that point, focused almost entirely on showcasing its “great cultural heritage” and waxing nostalgically about its past glories as the Second City of Empire.

A radical rethink was needed, and fast if the city was to be ready in time for the judges’ second visit. We’d need a whole new bid narrative, rigorously disciplined messaging and a tightly scripted programme to change hearts and minds. The new story would be about the future ‐ a city applying its creative energies to embrace cutting‐edge culture, commerce and technology – and it worked. The only problem was that having won, we quickly abandoned the brave, new language and future‐focused vision. 2008 became, as Phil Redmond, Capital of Culture’s, last‐minute appointee as Creative Director, once testified, the proverbial “Big Scouse wedding” with Uncle Ringo on the karaoke.

Consigned to the second tier of UK cities, Liverpool had somehow become pigeon‐holed as economically and maybe even culturally irrelevant.

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Fast forward to 2010 and the festival’s former marketing supremo, Kris Donaldson, arrives back in Liverpool to take up a new position as the city’s Destination Manager, only to discover that the promise of Capital of Culture as a platform to radically re‐position Liverpool had largely been squandered. Research commissioned by economic regeneration company, Liverpool Vision had suggested the city was perceived as quirky and entertaining, but news of its “regeneration miracle” was still a dimly perceived rumour amongst the nation’s influencers and decision‐makers. Without any significant expectation of success, I joined forces with journalist, political campaigner and former BBC Radio Merseyside broadcaster, Liam Fogarty and two local creatives (Jon Barraclough and Chris Blackhurst) to pitch for the city re‐branding brief that emerged from Kris’s sobering discovery. Our proposal was less of a pitch and more an indulgent exercise in provocation. Having initially been sifted out of the process by a dutiful underling at Liverpool Vision, Kris reinstated us onto the shortlist for interview. Our presentation began with a miscellany of quotes from ministerial speeches, broadsheet Op‐Eds and the authoritative musings of a polyglot of professional commentators. They were all opining on the need for economic re‐balancing and the incipient promise of that great new hope, the Northern Powerhouse. But amongst their mountain of words, one city was consistently and depressingly absent, and it was of course, Liverpool.

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Permanently consigned to the second tier of UK cities, Liverpool had somehow become pigeon‐holed as economically and maybe even culturally irrelevant. The bold promise of 2008 had been replaced by fatalistic resignation, punctuated by occasional blasts of delusional bombast and mawkish nostalgia. As a result, Liverpool ceased to be discussed when the adults were in the room.

Winning the brief, with an ominous feeling of déjà vu and an almost Sisyphean sense of futility, we set out to equip the city once again with a future tense vocabulary and a story that would surprise and challenge the preconceptions of those we most needed to convince and convert. But like an aging soap star struggling with new scripts and plot lines, the city inevitably lapsed into its well‐worn phrases and crowd‐pleasing clichés. The It’s Liverpool campaign became less of a device to “package surprises” and orientate future ambition, but more an excuse to recycle familiar messages and tell the world what they already knew.

Fast forward another seven years to 2017 and I am sitting in the campaign HQ of the man bidding to become the first Liverpool City Region Mayor, the Labour MP for Walton, Steve Rotheram. We are discussing how to frame a transformational narrative for his soon to be launched election campaign. I find myself agreeing with him that devolution is the last chance saloon for a city (or City Region) being left behind by its competitors and too often ignored by those whose judgments and decisions shape its future. I think we may even have used the phrase “putting Liverpool back on the map” as shorthand for a project to reassert the city’s status as a Premier League player (forgive the clumsy football cliché) ensuring it once again became an integral component in the national economic narrative. I was increasingly hopeful that Steve’s refreshingly insightful analysis of the city’s deficiencies could be the prequal to a visionary devolution project. Four years on, and the consensus is that our Metro Mayor has yet to reset Liverpool’s trajectory or restore our status as an important economic or creative asset for the UK. If devolution was the last chance saloon, then the barman, with one eye on the clock, appears to be reaching ominously for the towels.

Four years on, and the consensus is that our Metro Mayor has yet to reset Liverpool’s trajectory or restore our status as an important economic or creative asset for the UK.

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The initial stimulus for this article was the then imminent launch of Rotheram’s re‐election campaign in March 2020, before, of course, normality was put on hold by Covid and what we imagined were urgent political challenges dissolved into irrelevancy in the face of a global human tragedy. That earlier, never published version of this article, drafted in the format of an open letter to the Metro Mayor‐elect, was triggered by a series of events that acted as timely reminders of our reduced circumstances. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne had used his resignation as Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership to restate his vision of a rebalanced Britain where the “great cities of the north” (predictably we weren’t name‐checked) counterbalanced the wealth and prestige of London. But the tipping point for me, however, came on a day when Rotheram launched the latest phase of the Mersey Tidal Energy study, part of his big plan to recast the Liverpool City Region as an exemplar for sustainability and innovation. He might as well as not have bothered for all the attention it got. Instead, on that same day, a Simon Jenkins’ Guardian Op‐Ed calling for economic rebalancing, once again seemed to have been drafted with a map of Northern England where Liverpool was inexplicably absent. Twelve years after Capital of Culture and four years after devolution, the sad fact is that we are still not on the map.

The constructive, and at the time topical, section of the article was a positively motivated attempt to offer some suggestions for Rotheram’s critically important second term. Not that I thought I was especially qualified to provide such advice, but more to help stimulate a bigger, smarter and more diverse political conversation – in fact, the kind of energised democracy that devolution was designed to foster.

In a strange way Covid has given us more time, and an even more urgent imperative to take stock of where our City Region is heading. We need to be more radical, more imaginative and more willing to challenge the myths and shibboleths that have constrained thinking, blighted ambition and stunted potential.

So, in that spirit, here are five ideas about how we might help to remake and re‐position our city.

1. Appoint smart people – preferably from places more successful than Liverpool

Scouse exceptionalism and insularity are tragically compounded by a debilitating public sector culture. As the employer of last resort, our public institutions have evolved a defensive protectionist mindset that all too often fosters inertia and promotes mediocrity. I’m not necessarily advocating a Dominic Cummings‐style cull of staff and an invitation to assorted geeks, weirdos and misfits to replace them, but for devolution to make a difference it needs to be delivered by different people with higher levels of ambition, achievement and creativity. The kind of people capable of imagining possibilities beyond the recently launched hotchpotch of reheated pet projects and lame platitudes which masquerade as the city’s “transformational vision” for a post‐Covid future. What we need more than anything are people with a track record of delivery in a city or City Region that is palpably more successful than Liverpool. To extend the football analogy, we need a Klopp rather than a Hodgson; an Ancelotti or Benitez, not a Big Sam.

Rather than a being a dynamic galvanising body with a transformational agenda, our post‐devolution governance has somehow coalesced into an unhappy amalgam of Merseytravel and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – a stifling bureaucracy with a highly developed aversion to any form of risk or innovation. For the next term to be successful, our Metro Mayor needs to transform the calibre, capacity and orientation of the Combined Authority. It remains to be seen whether the new Head of Paid Service can create a different dynamic and organisational culture or can inculcate the expansive perspective that has thus far been absent from our devolution project.

2. Have a story that makes sense, and then stick to it

Liverpool’s tragedy is that it is famous but no longer important. It means people already have an idea about who we are, what we’re good at and what we’re not so good at – like having an economy. The Combined Authority issued a brief to create a new City Region narrative, but the process seemed to be firmly in the hands of people who were too deeply immersed in the old dispensation, and too easily seduced by trite PR‐speak and marketing gobbledygook. So, here’s a radical suggestion – and one in the spirit of recommendation 1 – let’s appoint a world‐class creative with an international reputation to help us frame and articulate what this City Region is about. There are extraordinary flowerings of innovation and excellence here, but they currently look more like an advent calendar than a big picture. Rather than designing another procurement process and issuing yet another brief, why don’t we appoint somebody of the calibre of Bruce Mau, the Canadian branding and design genius? Let’s get a fresh set of eyes to re‐imagine the planet’s first “World City” and the place that globalised popular culture. Unless we can answer the existential question – what is Liverpool for? – we cannot hope to persuade people that we are still relevant today.

3. Get out there and spread the message

OK, I understand the electoral context and the reason why it was attractive for Steve Rotheram to launch the Tidal Energy study ‐ and a raft of more recent policy announcements ‐ in his own back yard, but guess what? No‐one east of Newton‐le‐Willows is taking any notice. The world is not watching or listening to Liverpool, so we need to get out there and tell them. That means doing the big announcements in London or wherever they’ll get noticed. It means having a Metro Mayor who is prepared and confident to do the awkward, challenging and high‐risk national media gigs. It means being willing to get on planes and fly to the four corners of the earth to spread the Liverpool (City Region) message. The great thing about not being weighed down with a plethora of statutory and service delivery responsibilities, is that a Metro Mayor can be our foreign minister, our ambassador – the kind of advocate and propagandist that this place has lacked and still so badly needs.

4. Find the causes and campaigns that make the story sticky and believable

As Boris Johnson so ruthlessly demonstrated in the Brexit and General Election campaigns, the world, the media ‐ and especially social media ‐ abhor complexity. Messages need to be sharp, self‐explanatory and sticky. They need to reveal and illuminate the bigger picture, and have the power to vanquish the myths, clichés and stereotypes that continue to blight perceptions of the City Region. We need to be able to definitively answer some key questions. What are the three most important ideas that can be the foundation of a new economic identity that gives our City Region a competitive edge and compelling new story? How do they connect? Who will they effect and why is it absolutely vital and non‐negotiable that we deliver on them? Whatever these ideas prove to be, underpinning them is a very simple ambition; to make Liverpool not just relevant, but also important – somewhere that is vital to the vision of a rebalanced, prosperous and successful UK.

5. Look for short cuts – if necessary, borrow someone else’s reputation and influence

It’s possibly the quickest win and the hardest pill to swallow, but we do have one big asset on our doorstep that could and should be mobilised to our advantage. George Osborne once observed that Manchester and Leeds city centres are closer to each other than the two ends of London’s Central tube line. Perhaps, from the distant vantage point of the Evening Standard editor’s office, he is unable to see the inconveniently positioned mountains or the fact that Liverpool and Manchester are even closer together! We even share two centuries of economic interdependence, and between us possess all of the attributes that sociologist, Saskia Sassen identifies as the defining characteristics of a global city. Abandoning football terrace rivalry to position Liverpool City Region closer to its burgeoning neighbour is both logical and necessary. An integrated transport authority, a shared policy unit and a merged LEP are all ways in which Liverpool City Region could begin to reposition itself within an expanded urban economy with the scale and asset base to counter‐balance London. Let’s not be constrained by redundant mindsets or arbitrary administrative boundaries. Liverpool – and Birkenhead – more than anywhere else can claim to have invented the template for modern civic governance in Britain, so why not pioneer new and liberating models designed to deliver the levelling‐up economic agenda, that will otherwise remain pious rhetoric?

Of course, these suggestions were offered in the confident expectation that the Metro Mayoral election was a mere procedural formality. Not even the implosion of Mayor Joe Anderson’s city mayoralty, the Caller Report and the national party investigation into Liverpool Labour were able to dent Rotheram’s majority. Labour’s almost Belarussian control of the City Region, and the fatalistic impotence of a fractured opposition, leaves us with a hollowed‐out politics where, notwithstanding the heroic efforts of Independent candidate Stephen Yip, the impetus for an inclusive civic discourse is blunted by establishment complacency and partisan insularity. A competitive electoral democracy, intelligent media scrutiny and strong independent civic voices (rather than meek subservience to the local state) are the prerequisites for energised politics and the possibility of a visionary civic project. So maybe the big question isn’t simply about what Steve Rotheram and Joanne Anderson need to do next, but how do we make space for genuinely transformational alternatives that might help Liverpool regain its former economic prestige and put us back on the map.

Jon Egan is a former electoral strategist for the Labour Party and has worked as a public affairs and policy consultant in Liverpool for over 30 years. He helped design the communication strategy for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture bid and advised the city on its post-2008 marketing strategy. He is an associate researcher with think tank, ResPublica.

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A life through books: Five decades of radical politics in Liverpool

Jane Anderson

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From an up-bringing which instilled the values of peace and non-violence to fighting against fascist arson attacks on her bookshop, Mandy Vere has witnessed both formative and turbulent times in the city's long history. Now approaching retirement, she reminisces about her life as the longest surviving member of the News From Nowhere collective, Liverpool's, indeed one of Britain's, longest standing, most beloved, independent radical bookshops.

Born in Stockport in the 1950s to Quaker parents, who were devoted to a life of community engagement and socialist politics, it could be said that those central values have come to shape Mandy Vere's whole approach to life. This value system is focused on five key principles or 'testimonies' for living: Equality, Peace (non-violence), Integrity, Community and Stewardship (sustainability). The Quaker axiom, “that of God in everyone", for Mandy came to be in more humanistic fashion, "that of good in everyone”, essentially a wholly positive view of humanity and its potential.

Her earliest days of community activism had been forged on the streets of Longsight, Manchester around the age of 16.  It was there that she became radicalised by a crew of revolutionaries, activists and bohemians who were engaged with community organising, internationalism and the principles of non-violent direct action; as well as with the very real and pressing issues of poverty and homelessness. There was also the blossoming and exciting new world of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll to explore. 

Needless to say, a lot of learning, experimentation, and fun was had, but it was in Liverpool that Mandy went on to find her calling. The city was at that time a very exciting and cool place to be. Post the Swinging Sixties and Mersey Beat, the ever-present sea breeze seemed to carry so much promise and possibility.

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The News From Nowhere bookshop had been set up by Bob Dent, an acquaintance of Mandy's from the various alternative scenes in Liverpool, in 1974, in a tiny shop on Manchester Street (now re-named, Old Haymarket). Having come to Liverpool to study for a degree at the university and subsequently dropping out, Mandy joined Bob in managing the shop in 1976. Another member of staff arrived in 1979, and then a couple of years later Bob left to pursue other projects. It was then that the decision was taken to create a female-only collective. 

The phrase 'The personal is political' was coined in 1968 by Carol Hanisch, an American civil rights worker and radical feminist, to challenge the view that the public and private spheres were separate realms; especially as they related to women, who had long been assigned merely a domesticated and supportive role in society. The concerns of men were painted in broad brush strokes on large canvasses, whereas the woman's realm was seen as being small and interior, and not really the stuff of politics. 

Mandy recalls the many times when book sellers and publishing agents would come into News From Nowhere and ask to "speak with the boss", assuming the manager would be male. At the time, it was still highly unusual to see women in positions of authority or in managerial roles outside of the strictly determined 'feminine spheres' of work. Even some of the shop's male customers would automatically seek out other male customers when looking for advice, rather than asking one of the staff.

Feminist texts were not readily available at the time, and a request from a customer for Marge Piercy’s, Small Changes (a fictionalised account of the struggles of two women to liberate themselves from restrictive relationships) prompted, after much searching, the book to be ordered from a U.S. publisher. That opened the floodgates to a world of new, ground-breaking feminist texts. 'Sisterhood Is Powerful', a compilation of writings by women, is one amongst many that Mandy recalls as being pivotal for her. 'The personal is political' was not just an empty trope; it was a sentiment that meant that every action one took in life, every choice, and every decision mattered. That by raising one's consciousness, confronting power and speaking truth you could change the world one step at a time. The idea of a women's collective was based on the desire to support women; offer them professional training and experience in the largely male book trade, as well as challenging the notion that all organisations must be hierarchical in structure.  The Quaker and socialist values of equality and egalitarianism had to mean something. 

Some topics have become almost too hot to discuss in an honest and open manner.

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Unlike most of the other radical bookshops in Liverpool at that time, News From Nowhere, named after the utopian socialist novel by William Morris, was not party affiliated and by being truly independent was able to to stock whichever texts were liked, across a very broad range of leftist, anarchistic and generally radical thinking. Progressive Books; October Books; Red Books and Mersey Books, amongst others, were affiliated with the Communist party, the Maoist party, the International Marxist Group and the Workers Revolutionary Party, respectively, and their stock and the subsequent general mood of the shops reflected these more narrow, sectarian affiliations. In time, this inevitable fracturing and sectarianism that had always plagued the Left, led to some disillusionment with aspects of leftist politics, and Mandy became interested in more anarchistic, libertarian models of thinking.

The Left, especially in Liverpool, she feels, had a very narrow and single-minded focus on class. Sexism and racism were often overlooked as were ecological and environmental concerns. The bookshop, she says, was "viewed by some as an irrelevance" during the Militant Tendency years, as the staff were not "white, male, working class trade unionists". There seemed to be a pre-occupation with what divided people, with these divisions being relentlessly exploited and exacerbated, to the extent that any proposal would be voted down simply because another party had proposed it. Mandy feels this kind of approach still very much scars the political scene in Liverpool today and that 'one-party politics’, which has defined the city for many years now, is by nature undemocratic and makes government susceptible to corruption.           

In spite of initial dismissals by some that News From Nowhere was being run as a women-only collective, events in the 1980s caused many in the community to rally around and come together in support of the shop.

Throughout the 1980s, radical bookshops everywhere were being subject to violent fascist attacks by individuals and groups aligned with the National Front. Groups of thugs would come in to News From Nowhere, at its then home on Whitechapel, rampage around, upturning tables and bookcases, and even assaulting people.

Publishing houses now refer to lesbian authors as ‘queer authors’, regardless of whether they identify as ‘queer’ or not.

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This became quite a regular occurrence, which then escalated to arson attacks - twelve in total. When the police were called, Mandy recalls an almost accusatory tone, that maybe they themselves had done something to provoke these attacks, just by being an overtly left-wing outlet. Through community effort, enough money was raised for metal security shutters and to replenish damaged and destroyed stock. People began to appreciate just how much the collective had been on the front line, and the shop started to become the icon and beacon of enlightenment that it remains to this day.

This was not to be Mandy's first uncomfortable experience with policing and the justice system. She was jailed in 1979 for supposed importation of cannabis (a customer had posted a package for themselves to the shop and it was intercepted). She felt that both she and the wider radical movement, by extension, were being made an example of. Mandy was sentenced to six months, initially in HM Prison Risley ("Grisly Risley", as she calls it)", but was then moved on to Moor Court open prison in Staffordshire where she was to serve the majority of her sentence. 

Mandy recalls scrubbing floors and working on a production line inserting screws into plugs, as BBC Radio One blasted out the pop hits of the day. Just up the hill from Moor Court was a working dairy farm, and many of the women were put to work there - sweeping yards and cutting back nettles, before eventually graduating to milking the cows, for which Mandy gained a milking proficiency certificate, as well as a new found appreciation for cows and goats - each with their own character and personality. 

Knitting, yoga sessions, and learning to type passed the time and Mandy taught a fellow inmate to read via the pages of The Guardian which her parents would regularly send to her. So whilst her time in prison was put to practical use, and she managed to have a modicum of freedom out in the open air, Mandy was aware that many of the other women suffered greatly having been separated from their babies and children. In later years, and in honour of her experiences and of the other women, Mandy was to go on to invite the Clean Break Theatre Company, which was formed by female ex-prisoners, to perform at the Liberty Hall in Liverpool, a venue which hosted 'alternative' theatre and concert events, with which Mandy was actively involved.

Practically focused, self-help community groups and collectives have always been where Mandy is most at home. This is one area in which she feels that the city of Liverpool and its population has always been strong, especially the Liverpool 8 community, her home of over 26 years. For so long ghettoised and subject to oppressive policing; the people's voices dismissed and ignored in the years of Militant; L8 has gone on to nurture many community initiatives. The Princes Park Health Centre, established in 1977, was a truly radical practise through which its founder, Dr Cyril Taylor, applied a more holistic approach to health. Ill health, he believed, was caused by factors not only in one's immediate situation and environment, but also by the social and political conditions of one's life. Groups of women and children would be taken to local swimming baths and on walking trips to Moel Famau in North Wales. For some in the community it would be the first time they had ever set foot outside of the city. There were cycling initiatives, and housing co-operatives were established, including Mandy's own housing co-operative which was centred on Kelvin Grove and which gave shelter and support to many women over the years, and where several babies were born.

Mandy had also been very actively involved in the practice of co-counselling; a grassroots method of personal change based on reciprocal peer counselling. Time is shared equally and the essential requirement of the person taking their turn in the role of counsellor is to do their best to listen and give their full attention to the other person. It was at the Princes Park Health Centre that Mandy helped to develop this practice via a programme of therapeutic play sessions for local families.

Mandy reflects on how in more recent years, there has continued to be lots of new grassroots community initiatives, such as: Squash, the food co-operative on Windsor Street; the Liverpool Community Tool Library which has been established in Lodge Lane; and the Granby 4 Streets housing project, which involved the community-led regeneration of some of the many houses made derelict by the failed Housing Market Renewal Strategy, overseen by former Labour Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. In north Liverpool, Home Baked in Anfield has been providing a community kitchen, bakery and cafe for the last nine years, and hopes soon to launch a number of newly renovated, co-operatively-run houses for local people. Kitty's Launderette, which is located on Grasmere Street in Everton, is a community-driven initiative combining laundry facilities and and social space. It is inspired by Kitty Wilkinson, a 19th century Irish immigrant to Liverpool, who became the pioneer of the early wash house movement, which was instrumental in bringing about control of a major cholera epidemic which swept the city in 1832.

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Being News From Nowhere's main book buyer was, for Mandy, often a delicate balancing act between providing unfettered access to a wide range of literature from all fields of leftist and radical thinking, and being conscious of some of the sensitivities of those caught up in, or at the hard edge of, the contentious and often fraught disagreements and issues of the day. The shop stocked Irish Republican literature and campaign material, for example, at the same time that there was a national media blackout and censure of interviews with prominent Irish Republicans. People from British military backgrounds, and from the local Protestant community, would come into the shop to express their upset at prominent window displays of Republican literature. Some members of the Jewish community would express disquiet at how the bookshop seemed to them to be overtly promoting an anti-Zionist stance, and confecting one-sided presentations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mandy, mindful of not wilfully causing upset or offence, and knowing full well the age-old anti-Semitic oppression of the Jewish people, would annually celebrate Jewish book week and would create prominent window displays to promote it.

People were never shy of coming in to the shop, though, to argue vehemently about or to disagree with what they perceived as biased representations, says Mandy. When the publication of Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' precipitated a fatwah against the author (declared by the Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini) Mandy thought it was important to stock the book.  Contentious issues would always be present and free discussion and debate was the way to approach it. The shop had long been involved with writing and literary festivals of one sort or other and prided itself on being a place which could host and facilitate such discussions. Social media has been utilised to facilitate the presentation of information relating to new publications, upcoming events and so on - but there has consciously never been any engagement in debate or discussion through this medium. Mandy has always strongly felt that it is only through face-to-face communication that relationship, conversation and discussion are humanised, and we treat people differently when they have a visible face and a vital presence.

News From Nowhere has managed to survive when most of the other radical bookstores in the city long ago fell by the wayside. Mandy puts this down to the more broad-minded and inclusive approach to the books they have stocked.  There was the sense that the shop provided a space where customers automatically felt the staff were on their team, whichever team that might be. People would come in the day after an election or a major event and be comfortable enough to engage the staff and other customers in often passionate discussion. There was a facility for customers to make themselves a cup of tea or coffee; the shop felt like home, a place where you could be yourself and nobody would try to force anything onto you.

Yet, the rise of social media as the primary platform for debate and dialogue has led, Mandy believes, to the 'flattening out' of discussion in such a way that the subtleties of human communication are lost, and with it the respect for other people, who tend to appear as faceless entities with one-dimensional views. Social media seems to foster a kind of tribalistic culture in which people tend to seek out only those whose views align with their own. Rather than coming into the shop to take part in a discussion in the way they might have done in the past, people are now more likely to take to social media to condemn, often facilitating a social media 'pile on' in the process. As a result, some topics have become almost too hot to discuss in an honest and open manner,  and there are now pressures to shut down debate when it involves edgy or contentious issues. Social media bubbles increasingly mean that people will no longer even look directly at source material; will no longer read anything which they believe to be 'not of their tribe', instead resorting to censure and, inevitably, misrepresentation. Mandy is not sure what sort of reception there would be today if, for example, they were to stock and promote the 'Satanic Verses' as they had done in the past. She suspects it may well now be considered a lot more controversial.

Another very contemporary trend which runs directly against everything Mandy has always fought for, is the attempted erasure of language as it relates to sex, especially the female sex, and to sexuality. As with the tradition of working class self-education and intellectualism, the women's movement was predicated on the ability to name and discuss one's situation, and that only by confronting that situation could you  claim your power. 

Stemming from the American, campus-formulated 'Queer Theory', formulated largely by academic, Judith Butler, which came into prominence in the late 1980s, there has grown a movement to "queer society". This is presented as a liberating and self-actualising way for 'gender, and sexually, non-conforming' people to present their 'true selves' and be accepted. Yet one of its effects is to erase the reality of, and the language used by other groups of people, and to make unsayable certain words. She notes, for example, that in more recent times when a new book by a lesbian author comes out, the publishing houses are now referring to her as a 'queer author', regardless of whether she identifies as 'queer' or not. The language that women, more generally, have used to describe themselves and name their experiences is being eroded. In addition, the word 'queer' is still felt by many gay men to be a term of abuse with which they certainly do not identify.

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Given the struggle for women's rights and greater equality for the female sex by previous generations, many young women now take for granted the gains made. For them it is now normal and natural to see women in positions of authority or power, or in occupations and lifestyles once largely closed to women. Mandy is concerned, though, at the way that young women are now steeped in a culture, especially a social media one, which is saturated with extreme pornography and violence, and in the way that it has become normal, even in Left and progressive circles to speak of 'sex work', in a way which she believes disguises the inherent exploitation of prostitution.

Mandy may be fast approaching retirement from the bookshop, but she in no way sees herself retiring from a life of deep engagement with the issues of the day, nor with any stepping back from community organisation and action. Campaigns and projects not only focused on women's rights, but also on issues to do with predatory landlords, and an immediate campaign against the up-coming arms fair at the Liverpool Convention Centre, will be occupying her time. Needless to say, it will be good for her to take a little time out just to relax and reflect on a life lived with honour and integrity, and true to the principles in which she was raised. She will be much missed in News From Nowhere, but somehow I'm sure that is not the last we'll be seeing from her.

Jane Anderson is a local photographer and former teacher who grew up in the City Region.

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“Better to break the law, than cause a war” - Arms Fair demonstrators in their own words

Paul Bryan

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As political controversy erupts over October’s planned AOC Europe Electronic Warfare Convention, peace campaigners have hit the streets of Liverpool.

Determined to force the Council to cancel the event and prevent the ‘merchants of death’ from using the ACC Liverpool Exhibition Centre to sell their weapons and defence technologies, around 1000 demonstrators joined a rally on 11th September 2021 to pile on the pressure.

As the Campaign Against The Arms Trade demonstrators marched from Princes Park to the city centre, accompanied by Labour stalwarts Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Liverpolitan columnist Paul Bryan, joined the throng, microphone in hand to hear what they had to say.

Podcast

Broadcast, written and produced by Paul Bryan.

Photography by Daniel Watterson.

Music by GoodBMusic from Pixabay

All our podcasts can be enjoyed on Amazon Music and Spotify.

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Liverpool: UK capital of computer games

Mark Butler

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In a significant piece of regional business news, global consumer technology giant Sony have announced their acquisition of Liverpool-based games studio, Firesprite (8th Sept 2021). Which raises the question, should we treat this development with excitement or an impending sense of doom? We’ve been here before…

Sony, of course, already has a presence in the city, dating back to 1993 when it bought out Psygnosis, probably the region’s most well-known developer, notable for scoring gaming hits on the Atari and Amega ST systems. Under Sony’s wing, but still retaining a degree of independence, the same team brought us the seminal Wipeout series of games for the PlayStation. Eventually, Psygnosis were rebranded as part of SCE Worldwide Studios.

In 2012 though, Sony closed their Liverpool studio, retaining studios instead in the South East, although they did thankfully maintain a presence at Wavertree Technology Park, managing business areas like testing, validation and localisation for games produced elsewhere. This meant it remained a significant local employer with around 500 staff. But what was going to happen to all the game-makers? Fortunately, after the closure of Sony’s Liverpool studio, there was no desire to give up. Five of its former employees including Managing Director Graeme Ankers and Lee Carus as Art Director, immediately banded together to found Firesprite and it has done rather well. Since launching, the company has grown rapidly and now employs 250 people, making it a significant city centre tech industry employer. Yet, unless you were paying close attention, you could be forgiven for having missed it. Firesprite’s success seems to have been by and large missed by local politicians and media.

Now that things have come full circle and Sony has acquired Firesprite, this could potentially be a worry for the local digital sector. Beyond Liverpool, Sony has form for closing studios, shutting down Evolution Studios in Runcorn in 2016, Guerilla Cambridge in 2017 and Sony’s own Manchester studio in 2020. Games can be a sink or swim business. Could history once again repeat itself and the jobs at Firesprite move elsewhere? Hopefully not and the signs so far are good, with seemingly several new games in the pipeline for Firesprite under Sony. A more positive narrative is that this combined business of Sony’s existing operations in the city and Firesprite means Sony Interactive Entertainment now employs approximately 750 people in Liverpool, split between Sony’s new city centre office in the former Liverpool Echo building and Firesprite’s Fleet Street office. This at a stroke makes Sony one of the larger employers in the city centre and one of the largest tech employers in the region. Arguably it puts Liverpool at the heart of Sony’s European interactive entertainment business. This is something local leaders and the press should be shouting from the rooftops about.

It’s not so great a leap to imagine the whole operation combined into the former Liverpool Echo complex, which still has empty space, including the old print hall which, with enough investment and creative thinking, could be converted into a bold games studio complex. Imagine seeing SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT EUROPE lit up in big illuminated letters from your ship on the Mersey. That would be a big sign, pun intended, that Liverpool is a city of the future.

Interactive entertainment is one of Liverpool’s economic success stories… but you’d be hard-pressed to find more than a passing mention of it in local economic development documents.

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It’s not all about Sony though by any means. Another major studio, Lucid Games, employs around 150 people in its Baltic Triangle base and there are a variety of other interactive entertainment firms of various sizes and specialisms in the region including Milky Tea, Ripstone, Wushu, Draw & Code, Cosmonaut and Starship amongst others. One of the few big foreign direct investment successes for Liverpool in recent years was Avalanche Studios of Sweden opening a Liverpool studio in 2020 to go with its existing operations in Stockholm, Malmo and New York.

So interactive entertainment really is one of Liverpool’s economic successes stories and a major unique selling point. The city is one of only a relatively small number of locations in the UK that can be said to be a centre for the industry. Yet, despite this decades-long strength in the gaming sector, local authorities seem to have done little to promote it over the years. This is especially strange for a high growth industry which creates well paid, rewarding (if sometimes intense) creative jobs, and one with relatively low barriers to entry for young trainees. That said, one important public investment in the sector locally has been The Studio School in Baltic Triangle, which helps prep young people to enter the industry.

More could be done though. But first our city leaders and those organisations responsible for driving investment into the City Region need to step up and recognise the golden opportunity that this sector represents. Despite the fact that the sector is already successful and growing, you would be hard-pressed to find anything more than a passing mention of it in local economic development documents, let alone on front pages where it deserves to be. Interactive entertainment should be just as high a priority for the region as the port and tourism. The games industry is a credit to the region and for that we should thank those working within it. The time is now for more public sector effort to back this up.

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Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle district

At the moment, Liverpool City Council’s recent draft cultural strategy barely even mentions games, while it mentions the film industry repeatedly. The local Liverpool City Region Growth Hub makes a better stab at things with its LCR Tech initiative promoting the sector, yet it seems interactive entertainment has been siloed within ‘tech’ rather than being considered as one of the City Region’s cultural as well as technological strengths. Given that the walls between film, games, events, online content and other forms of art, culture and entertainment are collapsing rapidly, this seems short-sighted. Interactive entertainment is as much as part of the Liverpool City Region ‘culture’ sector as the film industry. I would argue more so, as the creative leadership of these games is in Liverpool, whereas the majority of filming in Liverpool is location shooting for projects led from elsewhere. Why doesn’t the Liverpool Film Office expand its remit to all forms of digital entertainment, with some new game sector experienced staff recruited to help grow the industry locally? Such an investment would pay for itself very quickly many times over.

We should shout about the success of this sector in the region more, but more also needs to be done to ensure Liverpool doesn’t lose its competitive advantage in this global industry. The city has already lost some of its advantage in the much more lauded film sector. Despite the city being one of the most filmed in the UK for decades, it is now far behind other areas in the development of film studios. In the time Liverpool has been discussing developing Littlewoods Studios, numerous film studio projects have sprung up across the UK, some of them even going from planning to fully opening in that time. Belfast alone has had permanent, large-scale sound studios for over ten years and is expanding aggressively, whereas Liverpool is yet to complete its ‘pop up’ Depot film studios and with no start date yet announced for the main Littlewoods project.

In contrast, the games industry in Liverpool is already up and running, innovating and growing as one of the biggest clusters of its kind in the UK. Today, concepts for digital interactive experiences created and developed by professionals in Liverpool are being enjoyed worldwide. Yet, it would be easy enough to lose this advantage without the right support and promotion. A few years ago, the sector came fairly close to exiting the city when the two largest studios (Sony and Bizarre Creations) pulled down the shutters in quick succession. Contributors to Liverpolitan have spoken to games industry insiders in years past, who felt the region’s authorities were not then placing enough importance on supporting the sector, taking it for granted, while at the same time Greater Manchester was forging ahead developing MediaCityUK and attracting digital investment globally.

Perhaps things are better now, since the creation of the City Region Combined Authority. Yet even there, the sector struggles to receive the same sort of attention as other ‘designated economic growth areas’ such as green energy, modular construction and advanced manufacturing. While these are all important sectors, the region needs to face up to the fact that, in those sectors, we’re up against equally strong, if not stronger, offers from other areas like Yorkshire and the North East. Yet the Liverpool City Region has a real competitive advantage in interactive entertainment arguably now unmatched in the UK outside of London and its satellite, Guildford. Aside from the well paid employment and the training and advancement opportunities the sector offers for local young people, the opportunity for further re-purposing of unused former industrial space in the city – always popular for studios – is another benefit. Not to mention the fact that, while the sector may not attract tourists, games are globally cool and a brilliant marketing opportunity for the city that is contemporary rather than historic.

LCR has a golden opportunity with interactive entertainment and it cannot afford to miss this chance again.

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Make no mistake, high growth in this area could be transformative for the region. You only have to look at Montreal, Canada for an example. In the 1990s, Montreal was struggling from decline in its manufacturing industries. (sound familiar?) Ubisoft was attracted to open the first real games studio in the region in an old industrial building in the city, starting with 50 employees in 1997. At the time, a much smaller operation than Sony in Liverpool.

From that small beginning, Ubisoft Montreal now employs 3,500 people and is one of the largest games studios in the world. Many other studios have followed their lead to set up shop in the region including Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros. This was achieved by strong public and private collaboration, notably with also significant national support from the Canadian Government. Montreal is now the fifth largest games industry city in the world and the sector has spilled out into the wider region, now employing around 11,000 people across Quebec. Imagine if the games industry in Liverpool in the 1990s had been nurtured in the same way? Oh what could have been…

Similarly, in Malmo, Sweden, a former shipbuilding city which had experienced severe economic decline (sound familiar?), the growth of a games industry has also had a huge impact. Malmo is now home to over 30 studios, has its own cross-city sector trade organisation, Game City, and training institution, Game Assembly. Malmo pitches itself as the European capital of games.

Why shouldn’t the Liverpool City Region have the same level of ambition with this sector? LCR has a golden opportunity with interactive entertainment and it cannot afford to miss this chance again. So we’re laying down a challenge to our regional leaders: prioritise digital interactive entertainment in terms of publicity, grant funding, space allocation, development support and political will. This is a call for local authorities to work hand-in-hand with the region’s interactive entertainment sector and throw their shoulders fully behind Liverpool as the UK capital of games!

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WAH! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing

Paul Bryan

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Are the Stop the Liverpool Arms Fair protests just a form of NIMBYISM?

If all it took to solve the world’s problems was a deep well of sincerity, then there can be no doubt that the latest demonstration in Liverpool against October’s planned AOC Europe 2021 Electronic Warfare Convention must be considered a stunning success.

Banners pleaded for ‘No more bloody wars’(is there any other kind?), ‘Nurses not Nukes’ (a reasonable-sounding request), and my personal favourite ‘Make scouse not war’. Although, it must be questioned whether vats of lamb stew, no matter how delicious, could form the basis of an effective defence strategy.

Of course, that sounds incredibly flippant and I don’t mean to be. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a better, kinder world. And anyone on the wrong end of a drone strike or a tyrannous regime could testify to the destructive power of modern armaments. That is, if they were still alive. But as I marched with and spoke to the demonstrators, I couldn’t help feeling a little confused. What is it exactly that they are asking for? That may seem like a stupid question. After all, the answer is found in the name of the campaign – Stop the Liverpool Arms Fair. And if I was in any more doubt the noisy protestor with the megaphone did her best to clear things up - the “What do we want? Stop the Arms Fair. When do we want it ? Now!” chant filled the air all day long. But to what end? If their pressure forced the ACC Liverpool Exhibition Centre to cancel the event, would one less piece of military hardware be sold in the world? Would the total weight of human misery be lightened in some way? If so, how?

Surely, the answer to those last questions would be “no” and “we’ve no idea”. Deep-down, I suspect the protestors know that too. To uncomfortably borrow an argument from the National Rifle Association for one moment, it’s people who kill people. The weapons are just the medium. And you can buy them in a lot of places. So if your actions won’t actually reduce violence in the places you protest to care about – Palestine, South Yemen, Syria – then what’s left? ‘NOT IN MY LIVERPOOL’ as one of the speakers shouted from the makeshift fire engine-come-stage, seemed to sum up the real limit of the aspirations for many. Not in my backyard.

The “What do we want? Stop the Arms Fair. When do we want it ? Now!” chant filled the air all day long. But to what end?

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Which I suppose makes you wonder whether this is a futile cry in the Mersey wind – a posture to salve the conscience. Isn’t that the definition of virtue signalling?

In fairness, talking to people on the ground and listening to the speakers did reveal a whole poker hand of additional desires. Stopping arms sales to tyrannous regimes seemed to be a popular demand, while many (most) seemed to want to end all overseas arms sales full stop. I met a fair few who wanted to unilaterally dismantle the UKs armed forces and adopt a smile and hope strategy to international relations. Of course, given the profile of the crowd, plenty had their eyes on an even bigger prize. Nothing but the end of capitalism which they blame for all conflict, casually forgetting that the Romans and the Vikings were at it long before private enterprise became the de rigueur method of allocating society’s resources. I dare say the cave men were knocking each other on the head too.

My main sympathies are with those who argue for an end to foreign interventions. They hardly ever seem to make things better. Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan is quite the toll of failure. While the argument that it’s always about money and oil seem basic and vaguely ludicrous, surely the lesson from modern times is that you just can’t impose liberal values at the barrel of a gun in societies that don’t want them. More campaigning around that issue would, in my book at least, offer a far greater chance of easing the burden of war.

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I met lots of wonderful people at the rally – union leaders, students, pensioners, a Sunday vicar, a veteran pilot of the Vietnam war, activists of different hues, and many more besides who had just come out for the day. But I didn’t for a minute think this was a typical cross-section of Liverpool society and I can honestly say, I have never met so many avowed pacificists in my life. Perhaps, this shouldn’t come as a total surprise. The Campaign Against The Arms Trade, which helped organise the event, has at least some of its origins in the Quaker movement – which has always taken the moral position that there is no justification for violence. Their’s is a utopian world where the lion lays down with the lamb. Where there is always room for talk. Where all it takes is an act of will to be better. “There is no place for war, only peace,” said an earnest Anya from Liverpool. And you can respect that view even if it feels counter to the sum weight of human history. She said there was no profit in war. Putting aside the obvious fact that there is, the forever outbreaks in conflict clearly show that someone benefits and it’s not always the obvious capitalist bogeymen.

While for many their pacifism seemed to be a point of idealistic principle, for others it was founded on personal experience, such as Anita from Wigan. I could really relate to her story. Her father served in the navy in WW2 and took part in the Battle of the Atlantic. He lost his youngest brother in the battle of Arnhem, while his two eldest brothers were captured and became Prisoners of War (P.O.W.) under the Japanese, which was generally not a pleasant experience. As a result, her father she said, “suffered from horrendous mental issues all his life and that is why I am anti-war.”

For Anita, being anti-war means laying down all of our nation’s weapons and refusing to fight. She wasn’t the only one who had this view. Far from it. Sadly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The answers to life’s questions are seldom as simple as taking a firm moral position, and laying yourself at the mercy of others can often have undesirable consequences. For every Gandhi espousing nonviolent protest, there are at least three murderous Pol Pots. Besides, in the 1980s, Labour’s flirtation with unilateral nuclear disarmament was electoral poison. Instinctively, most people are just comfortable with the idea that they need to be able to defend themselves. Barring the desperate, the zealots and those of pathological tendencies, nobody likes the idea of risking life and limb in bloody, brutal conflict. It really doesn’t have much to recommend it. But most of us know, that sometimes it’s inevitable. Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in. Or be crushed. And I’d sooner go into a knife fight with a gun.

Labour’s flirtation with unilateral nuclear disarmament was electoral poison. Instinctively, most people are just comfortable with the idea that they need to be able to defend themselves.

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While you could accuse the pacifists of naivety, they weren’t the only ones at the rally. In fact, they were almost certainly outweighed by the Left wing anti-war activists and their opposition to the arms fair appears to be far more tactical than moral, even if they wear all the accoutrements of offended outrage. In reality, they are seeking an altogether different type of utopia. The stars of the show included former Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, Labour MP Dan Carden, influential Liverpool Labour activist, Audrey White, and TV Actress, Maxine Peake. Unions such as the RMT were there too, and the Young Communist League and, of course, the Socialist Workers Party, who have more fronts than there are stars in the sky but whose banners are always recognisable by the use of that same give-away font. The list goes on – Black Lives Matter, CND, the Liverpool Friends of Palestine, and even a smattering of (although by no means all) local councillors. Liverpool Mayor, Joanne Anderson was notable by her absence.

Are these people pacifists? Well, some of them are certainly. The Left has a long tradition of being anti-war after all. But mostly they’re class warriors and their true beef is with the capitalist state. For them, the military is but an arm of the state and joining a campaign against an arms fair is an opportunity to turn the focus on imperialist warmongers, the profit motive and the racist ideologies that they believe underpin foreign adventurism. Hamstringing or completely eradicating the military and defence contractors is all part of the revolutionary playbook. It’s also a too-good-to-be-missed chance to prosecute their continuing and unhealthy obsession with Palestine. For them the campaign against the arms fair is but a proxy war, and that’s language they’d understand.

You can say what you want about Lenin, but at least he had some kind of plan. Granted it didn’t work out too well, but he did have the courage of his convictions. He was going to create a dictatorship of the proletariat, whatever it took. He didn’t hide his light under a bushel. But if Saturday was anything to go by, you can’t really say the same about the left wing demonstrators. Activist Audrey White may protest from the podium about the removing of the Labour Whip from the man who ‘still carries our (socialist) hopes and dreams’ (no I’m not talking about Keir Starmer), but the main focus of the rally was less about tackling the real causes of conflict and more about plugging into people’s innate sense of humanity. If Jeremy Corbyn was to be believed the weapons sold at the arms fair would be very targeted in the people they killed … “children in Gaza, children in Yemen, children in Somalia, children in Myannmar, children in so many places.” That really is some advanced technology. But is an exploitative pulling at heart strings any kind of argument?

Is this politics without the politics? Or is it lowest common denominator stuff, fetishizing on the weapons. Forget the context, feel the hurt.

One speaker, Haneen Awaad, 24 was introduced as a Palestinian Scouser – which feels like some kind of genetic super-breed of the oppressed

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Corbyn was by no means the only one playing that game. One speaker, Haneen Awaad, 24 was introduced as a Palestinian Scouser – which feels like some kind of genetic super-breed of the oppressed. While describing herself as ‘born and bred in Liverpool’ she went on to say that all she’d ever known was ‘rockets, bombs, planes, tanks’. While the lives of Haneen’s grandparents have undoubtedly been touched by conflict (true of almost everyone of that generation in Europe) it seems unlikely that Haneen herself has had cause to fear military attacks in the streets of Anfield. Another speaker, Sarah Ashaika – a Syrian poet from Liverpool, who it was reported, has never been to Syria, regaled the audience with a poem that consisted of the names of dead Syrian children. Their involvement pointed to something hollow and performative about the rally in which people with no experience of the effects of weaponry gave testimony to the horrors of war.

Haneen excelled herself though. After telling the crowd how appalled she was at these ‘merchants of death’ visiting Liverpool, she then went on to evoke tropes about the Hillsborough disaster and the long-dead Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to wrap up the (seemingly whole city’s) opposition to the arms fair as a typical scouse fight-back against injustice - which shows the way the region’s politicos continue to weave their own narrative of David and Goliath to forge a socially cohering, but ultimately toxic brand of localist exceptionalism. But more than that. Laying claim to Hillsborough to support your political campaign just felt ugly. But we shouldn’t be surprised – the idea that Liverpool is a continually oppressed city with a single socialist view of the world is the line we hear over and over again.

It was notable how often demonstrators talked in the royal ‘we’ to describe what they felt Liverpool did and didn’t want. Many seemed convinced they spoke for the wider community, one which was presented as uniformly ‘socialist’. When I asked Michael who lived in Liverpool city centre how he could be so sure his views were representative of the wider region, he seemed a little irked – “I know the temperature of the city,” he replied. Maybe. But there were, at a very generous count, 1000 people at the demo (most probably less) and it had been widely advertised. Maybe the Council should actually consult with the people before presuming on their opinions and bowing to the vocal outpourings of pressure groups. The local media don’t help in this regard, tending to treat the campaign with kid-gloves. Google it and try and find anything critical. It’s almost as if they are afraid that raising a sceptical eyebrow might invoke a storm upon their own heads.

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The strongest argument I heard at the rally was the one that pushed beyond a mere repulsion at bloodshed. It goes along the lines that, we the UK, should not sell or assist the sale of arms to tyrannous regimes with a history of using those weapons on civilians. Saudi Arabia is in the dock for its military raids in the poverty stricken land of South Yemen. Israel attracts considerable ire for the overwhelming force it meets out to the Palestinians (although of course, many go much further than this in their criticism of the Israeli state), and there are other regions of concern too from the Turks treatment of the Kurds to the cruel power of the Syrian government in its suppression of internal opponents. What are we to make of this?

I’m a little torn. I am no friend of the anti-democratic Saudis and I find the concrete wall that separates communities in Israel to be offensive to every humanitarian instinct I can muster. There surely has to be some limits on who we sell weapons to – some minimum standards. But it’s most probably quite a complex calculation. Saudi Arabia is the regional counter weight to Iran, and Iran are a big part of the reason there is war in Yemen. So pick your poison. One thing I would say, is that for anti-imperialists, there seems to be a whiff of old school imperial attitudes in the presumption that it is up to the UK to determine who can and cannot be trusted with the weapons that we are content to arm ourselves with.

Regardless, countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are investing heavily in their own indigenous armaments manufacturing capabilities as Turkey’s development of bomber drones proves. And if not us, then the Russians, Chinese, Americans, French and more will only be happy to step in. Talk of the moral obligations of the ‘West’ is starting to sound increasingly redundant.

One thing I heard over and over again was the view that war and violence had no place in a socialist city. Yet anybody with a passing knowledge of the 20th century will know that socialism does not have a clean bill of health when it comes to oppressive violence. It has been estimated that up to 20 million Russian citizens died under Stalin’s Soviet reign of terror, possibly even more under the auspices of red China’s tyrannical Mau. Today, modern China has come under fierce criticism for forcing over a million Uyghur Muslims into euphemistically named ‘retraining’ camps. Of course, there would be a long queue of people lining up to absolve these societies as ‘not socialist’. But you can draw a line between the foundations of these states and the horrors that followed. Can we really afford to be so blasé and one-eyed about these crimes when we wrap ourselves in anti-war banners?

Besides, as I raised with a number of protestors in my interviews with them, Liverpool as a city does have a military history. Not only was it the headquarters for the crucial WW2 Battle of the Atlantic in which electronic radar technologies played a crucial role; not only does it provide significant numbers of soldiers, sailors and airmen to the British Armed Forces, but its shipyards at Cammell Lairds to this day service and manufacture navy vessels under Ministry of Defence contracts – something many locals seem to take great pride in. When the 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales docked in Liverpool in February 2020, there was no shortage of visitors scrambling for tickets for the right to board. The truth is, Socialist Liverpool has a nuanced relationship with the military, but many of the anti-war demonstrators seemed keen to airbrush that fact.

I wonder what you think about all of this if you work in the local defence supply chain? According to Ministry of Defence data for 2019/20, the MOD spent £2.2bn in North West England supporting 15,000 direct jobs and many more indirectly across the whole industry. These are not small numbers and they provide some interesting context to a conversation I had at the demonstration with Dave Walsh, the President of the Liverpool Trades Council and Daren Ireland, an RMT Union Regional Organiser. They admitted that their organisations have been burning the midnight oil for years trying to figure out what to do about the thorny issue of those union members working in the defence industry. How could they square the circle of supporting their members while fighting militarism? Dave admitted that they’d finally arrived at a position. They recognised these were skilled jobs and recommended that those skills be turned away from defence to ‘socially useful’ sectors such as healthcare or for fighting climate change. I wonder what it’s like to be represented by a union that is ashamed of your existence?

Idealism can be like a drug. It makes you feel good – you’re a good person. You’re on the right side of history. But all the while history is going on about its business without you because you’ve stopped engaging with the world as is, in favour of that quick hit of righteousness. I don’t doubt that it would feel good to kick the Electronic Arms Fair out of Liverpool. But it would be a victory of dubious benefits in favour of principled naivety and leftist entryism. Not one less weapon would be sold in this world. But at least the protesters would be able to say, ‘Not in my Liverpool’. Not in my back yard.

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The Stop The Liverpool Arms Fair demonstration took place on Saturday 11th September 2021. To hear what the protesters had to say in their own words, listen to this special podcast, Better To Break The Law Than Cause A War.

Paul Bryan is the Editor and Co-Founder of Liverpolitan. He is also a freelance content writer, script editor, communications strategist and creative coach.

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