We Need a Metro Mayor

Metro Mayor

Liverpool’s growth during the past decade has been impressive, and it is right that the major regeneration projects and infrastructure schemes that have been delivered in this time are heralded and celebrated.

A hugely impressive Capital of Culture year, Liverpool One, the Arena, the transformation of our waterfront, a booming visitor and tourism economy, the Global Entrepreneurship Congress are among the highlights.

Still to come Cruise Liners terminals, a conference and convention centre, more quality hotels, bars and restaurants, the International Festival of Business and the big one – Liverpool Waters.

You would have to be the most miserable bugger on the planet not to acknowledge the scale and the impact of these magnificent developments.

And yet, even to someone like me, a glass half full kind of guy, and an organisation like ours, which has positivity coursing through everything we do, there is the nagging doubt that we could and should be doing better.

This is not simply gut instinct. It is borne out of the official statistics that are readily available from all good local authority statisticians and other good (and not so good) public sector agencies.

Unemployment in this part of the world is depressingly high, and most worrying is the figure for youth and long term unemployment.

We are 6,000 businesses short of where Liverpool needs to be if we are to start punching our private sector weight. That figure grows to an alarming 18,000 if we consider the wider city region.

The biggest complaint we get from our members, other than access to finance, is the lack of skills that exist in the local labour market.

These are all challenges that must be met over the next decade if we are to maintain momentum and maximise the opportunities that are now available to us.

The ammunition to get this job done is much reduced though. For, like it or not, many of those projects, initiatives and achievements were delivered by public funding. European Objective One monies in its millions flooded into Merseyside, whilst local government, supported by national government grant, underpinned much of what has been built.

With the vast reduction of public sector finance, hitting many areas of the North harder than most, it is imperative that public agencies are ruthless in their approach to streamlining, sharing services, working in genuine partnership with the private sector, and continuing to invest in the growth areas of economic development and business support.

A new Combined Authority looks set to be agreed, bringing together the council’s of Liverpool, Wirral, St Helens, Knowsly, Sefton and Halton. This is clearly a step in the right direction, but already a dilution of this organisations potential is underway with talk of a ‘rotating’ leader and the return of the dreaded ‘M’ word.

Downtown was the most vocal of private sector cheerleaders for the introduction of an elected mayor for Liverpool. Eighteen months into that new role being created, and it is obvious to me that city mayors have one hand tied behind their back if they do not have control of the strategic powers and spending in matters such as transport, planning and economic policy.

We need a metro mayor to provide clear and decisive leadership, get the best for an ever decreasing public sector buck by forcing change at the city region level, and delivering a public-private sector growth agenda, including some of those major infrastructure schemes I mentioned earlier, that will ensure that the Liverpool city region accelerates its progress and makes the next ten years even better than the last ten.

Having a word with the bank

John Young

The excellent Bank of England agent for the North West, John Young, appeared in the second leg of his ‘Downtown tour’ at a private dinner in Manchester this week, having spent a few hours in the company of our Lancashire members last week.

His job on these occasions is to give a brief overview of where the Bank believes the economy to be, but more importantly to take the temperature of the regions business community.

So what are Downtown members telling John Young at the moment?

Confidence is improving, but there is still reluctance for companies to grow and invest in their business as much as they could because that confidence is fragile.

Banks are still not felt to be genuinely ‘open for business’ with over the top guarantees and assurances being demanded for relatively modest applications for lending.

The construction and property market is showing real signs of improvement, in both the housing and commercial sectors.

Red tape, bureaucracy and the tax system are still huge barriers to growth and if anything are getting worse rather than better.

Austerity has been painful, particularly in this part of the world, but it has been a necessary evil.

These were among the highlights from the conversations we have hosted so far, and the key messages that John will be taking back to his London colleagues and the Monetary Policy Committee. A mixed bag of positives and negatives, but nonetheless useful for that.

The Bank’s Governor now is a rather different character than predecessor Mervyn King. Mark Carney, a brash, confident Canadian – and an Evertonian – has already demonstrated a more astute use of media, and seems to be more politically savvy than King. His announcement on interest rates is one of the reasons that confidence is on the up, whilst his manner suggests a robustness that will enable the Bank to retain its independence from government.

John’s final tour date will happen in Liverpool soon. Perhaps he can bring his new boss with him, and we’ll take him to Goodison Park afterwards!

Don’t underestimate the university of life

University

Tony Blair famously stated that ‘education, education, education’ would be his government’s top priority, and it is fair to say that literally billions of pounds were invested into academia during the New Labour years.

Undoubtedly, some of this spend was absolutely essential. Decades of neglect, particularly in the North of England, meant that many primary and secondary schools were in an antiquated state by 1997.

The need for a huge spend to improve the infrastructure of education in our country did not come soon enough, and it is now the exception rather than the rule to see run down, dilapidated, inner city state schools.

The loosening of the grip of Local Education Authorities over the management of schools, the introduction of Academies and the shift in emphasis on the importance of schooling were positive contributions that the Blair government made to the education agenda.

However, as was the case in many areas where public sector spending was dramatically increased by New Labour, the government failed to maximise the impact of its investment.

Most obviously, many schools failed to modernise, both in terms of management and in terms of grasping the opportunity of flexibility to learning and the curriculum that Blair, if not all of his colleagues, wanted to see.

There was also a failure to introduce a more diverse range of teaching and teaching methods; the working practices of those in higher education was a joke; and the quality of tutors across the piece remained, at best, average.

Most disappointingly for me though was the government’s obsession with University. Further education is always to be encouraged, but why this must always end with students donning a cap and gown is beyond me. Far too many people who were not going to benefit from University were encouraged to attend. Degrees were being offered in everything from origami to allotment management!

This led to a generation of young people having a university education – but often lacking any basic skills that readied them for the workplace. A degree in common sense was clearly not an option if some of the university graduates I have employed in the past are anything to go by.

There may be good arguments against the introduction of high university fees, however it has put a stop to young people using the years of 18-21 to ‘find themselves’ and have not even one eye on what career they wish to pursue as an adult.

The new agenda that offers good vocational courses, apprenticeships, internships and on-the-job learning is to be welcomed and offers a much more comprehensive learning journey to students. It is also a more attractive environment for more mature learners who are in need of re-training.

The more innovative schools and colleges are now inviting entrepreneurs and business leaders into their classes. Even football clubs are getting involved, the likes of Everton establishing a free school and proving that hard to reach kids do not have to be written off.

Of course, university is always going to be a good option for some – but now graduates are more likely studying subjects that will enhance their career prospects rather than opting for courses that enable them to frequent the student union and city bars most regularly.

Getting an individual ‘work ready’ is not the only thing that education is for. But it is one of them. ‘Education, Skills and Training’ is a better mantra than that of Blair’s which in the end actually translated into ‘University, University, University.’ It was good for the academics, but bad for business.

Will the North ever love the Tories?

Conservatives

This week saw the three main political parties reshuffle their cabinet and shadow cabinet members respectively.

The key aim of such a process is not necessarily to replace incompetent or underperforming politicians with better people, but often about boosting your party’s appeal to the electorate.

Certainly, the spin coming out of the Prime Minister’s office this week was that he wanted the changes he made to signal a more inclusive Conservative Party, with the elevation of female MP’s and MP’s from northern constituencies.

Among the Northern contingent to get the call from the PM were Esther McVey, the formidable Wirral West Liverpudlian MP, who ticked both boxes, and was rewarded for her tenacious role in selling the welfare reform agenda with a job as Employment Minister, and Yorkshire MP and former Bradford council leader Kris Hopkins, who has been appointed as the new Housing Minister.

Overall there is certainly a more ‘northern feminine’ feel to the Cameron team, albeit none of those promoted will be sat at the top table of government just yet.

So, will these personnel changes make it more likely for the northern electorate to support the Tories at the 2015 General Election?

On a straw poll of about a dozen people so far, the answer is a resounding no. I accept that this is hardly a scientific sampling of voting intentions, but they were all the type of folk who the main political parties use as their ‘barometer’ – although I’m not sure all of them have or aspire to have conservatories, which apparently is the new ‘sweet spot’ as far as the politicos are concerned (I kid you not).

Without exception, and as I wrote last week, the key thing for all of them is the economy. If the recent upturn proves to be sustainable, the Tories will win. If not, then Miliband’s pitch to ‘the squeezed middle’ might just resonate – though, worryingly for Labour, he still fails to meet the ‘I can see him as a Prime Minister’ test.

Personalities in politics are clearly important, but anyone at government level outside of the PM, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Boris Johnson, not in the government per se, but more powerful than most politicians, just doesn’t hit the radar of most of us.

So it is the Prime Minister’s highest ranking (northern) Minister and colleague, Tatton’s George Osborne, who can deliver victory for him at the next election, rather than the smattering of female MP’s with northern accents who have climbed another rung on the slippery Westminster ladder this week. Oh, and by the way, even if we vote Tory in this part of the world, few of us actually love ‘em!

It’s still the economy stupid

Ed Milliband

4 October 2013 at 11:30

Not for the first time the Tories wrote off Labour leader Ed Miliband during the summer parliamentary recess.

He has continued to struggle at the dispatch box at Prime Minister Questions; he had gone AWOL without beeper, laptop or mobile phone for the holiday season, and Labour colleagues from past and present were publicly and privately briefing the press about their dissatisfaction of their leaders’ performance and his inability to make any significant breakthrough in the polls.

On the face of it you would think this was good news for the Prime Minister. In fact a weak opposition that appears unlikely to offer a serious challenge to the government at the next election simply provides an environment of complacency to develop which results in Tory backwoodsmen indulging in right wing gesture politics, and an unhealthy flirtation with the Monty Python political party that is UKIP.

Rather than capitalise on its advantage over the summer months, Conservatives turned inward, rather than engaging with the electorate – and by the end of the conference season they are horrified to discover that ‘Red Ed’ is far from dead.

Demonstrating a steely determination that few other than those closest to him would give him credit for, Miliband has taken on the press barons, stopped what would have been a premature jump into a war with Syria, and now has decided to take on the hated energy companies.

All of a sudden Labour has a poll ranking of 41% – more than enough to give them an overall majority at the next election.

David Cameron will be hoping that Ed’s bounce will force his party to re-engage with their brains, and with the issues that matter to the British electorate, which quite frankly do not include huntin’, fishin’, fracking, or even the EU.

Cameron’s conference speech this week in Manchester may have been short on policy, but it was long on warnings. Warnings about Labour’s spending plans. Warnings about Socialism. Most of all warnings about a Tory return to opposition. The intention of Cameron’s 45 minutes in the spotlight was to remind his party that the next election is not in the bag, and that they must refocus on the issues that go beyond their individual hobby horses.

In the end it is ‘the economy stupid’ for the vast majority of voters, and for that Cameron and his chancellor will be grateful.

Because in poll after poll, the area where Labour continues to lag far behind the Tories is on the question of economic competency. The recent upturn in the economy has blown out of the water Ed Balls’ claim that austerity would lead to disaster. Bashing energy companies, banks and big business may look attractive two years out from an election, but will such anti-enterprise rhetoric look as appetising to an electorate that at its core is more aspirational than altruistic?

In the short term concentrating on living standards, ‘the squeezed middle’ and his ‘Britain can do better than this’ message will serve Ed Miliband well. However, if the economy continues to recover, a Tory narrative around paying down the deficit, tax cuts for ‘hard working families’ and support for enterprise will likely win the day.

Nonetheless, Miliband has proved that he cannot be written off, should not be underestimated, and will provide a far tougher challenge to the Conservatives’ in 2015 that many thought possible. For that, David Cameron might just be grateful.