Leeds

What’s in a name?

Networking

There has been a bit of controversy of late in Liverpool with news that a new networking brand ‘Twit Faced’ was about to launch in the city.

Established in Manchester, Twit Faced is organised by a bunch of colourful entrepreneurs, largely from the creative sector of town, and the purpose of the quarterly Friday night out is for business people to come together, let their hair down, have a good time, and, possibly, make some useful business contacts in the process.

Some in Liverpool have suggested that the brand encourages irresponsible drinking behaviour and alcoholism! The same folk who have been pretending for years that Downtown’s very own ‘Sexy Networking’ brand is in some way an open door for sexual predators.

These prudish critics have never bothered to come to a Sexy Networking evening in the ten years we have been hosting them – nor I guess a Twit Faced event in Manchester either– but on the back of what are very clearly tongue in cheek brand names they feel able to take cheap shots (forgive the pun), criticise and make all sorts of false assumptions and accusations.

Comparing Sexy Networking to some sort of cattle market; or Twit Faced to a drink till you drop beer fest is akin to claiming that the Chamber of Commerce’s ‘Eat and Greet’ event promotes obesity.

These are simply brand names that are attempting to stand out from a crowded and, sadly, largely stale, male and pale business networking circuit. Whilst Downtown, Sexy Networking and all, celebrated a decade of activity earlier this year, over 80 networking ‘brands’ have been a gone in the city of Liverpool alone. Many networking platforms in Leeds, Lancashire and Manchester have crashed and burnt too.

Stale cucumber sandwiches, a warm glass of house wine and some stale nibbles in a room full of grey suited blokes is far more offensive networking experience to me than a colourful brand name.

For the 200 plus business folk who attend these ‘edgy’ entitled events, they serve a social and business purpose and there is nothing wrong with that. If you don’t like the name of the event, then don’t attend. But don’t be making things up and making assumptions that you simply cannot back up either. And here’s a thought – try setting up a half decent business networking event yourself, and see how you get on. As I said earlier, many, many have tried – and failed miserably!

Sexy Networking won’t be here forever – but it will never and has never been a platform for lewd behaviour anymore than Stamford Bridge was a football venue where you could go and enjoy a quick grope because Ruud Gullit introduced ‘Sexy Football’ to Chelsea.

I probably won’t attend Twit Faced if and when it does launch in Liverpool. But good luck to it, because the twenty-something entrepreneurs who are emerging as the future businesses of tomorrow are probably looking for something different, something new – and this could be it.

Meanwhile, my Downtown events team will be spending this afternoon coming up with another dynamic programme of events for 2015 that I promise you it will be as eclectic, entertaining, exciting and effective as ever. I look forward to seeing you at some of them next year.

Culture bid is just Capital

Culture Leeds

News that Leeds is considering a bid to become the European Capital of Culture for 2023 should be encouraged, embraced and supported by the city’s business community.

In an age of council cuts and austerity, investing scarce resources in a campaign that may or may not be successful is clearly a risk, but if Leeds is to demonstrate that it has an entrepreneurial approach to its future then this is exactly the type of project that the city has to go for.

Following the superb hosting of Tour de France I wrote here that it was important for Leeds to create a momentum and legacy to this event, and a bid for the Culture title would put a marker down that tells the rest of the UK that Leeds is ambitious and means business.

Liverpool spent over £150m on the European Capital of Culture in 2008. In the event year itself, the badge enabled the city to generate income in excess of £750m. That is a success by anyone’s standards, but it only tells a small part of the story.

What CoC did for Liverpool was to re-establish the city’s self-confidence, win much needed inward investment, create a strong visitor destination economy, and act as a catalyst that has seen Liverpool become the best visited city in the UK outside of London and Edinburgh.

Economically Leeds is in a much stronger position in 2014 than Liverpool was when it decided to bid for CoC in 2004. Nevertheless, Leeds has built a reputation as a centre for professional services that has a strong retail offer, rather than a place that has a broad cultural offer to complement its healthy commercial activity. The fantastic gems the city does have tend to be hidden, and a year in the sun would unearth some of Leeds’ fantastic cultural assets.

This is an opportunity for Leeds to add an additional bow to its marketing package. The city should go for it.

Sexy Politics?

Sexy Politics

Our latest poll is asking Downtown members and supporters if they support for the introduction of a Metro Mayor Governance model for Leeds, though at the moment there is little inclination from our region’s civic leaders to adopt this structure and a rather ambivalent response from the wider community to the idea.

There is certainly little mileage in the argument that just because Greater Manchester is to have a Metro Mayor means that Leeds should have one. This is the lowest common denominator narrative that must be resisted by those of us who believe that a figurehead to lead on the strategic issues for the city region and act as a genuine champion for the Leeds City Region on the national and international stage would be a force for good.

The purpose of the role, in part, ought to be to widen the democratic process, engage people in a more exciting and meaningful election, and provide a more transparent and accountable city region leadership than the one we have at present.

It is odd that council leaders claim that the imposition of a Metro Mayor is ‘undemocratic’ whilst supporting the existing structure that sees the leader of the regions Combined Authority elected by small groups of council leaders in behind closed doors deals.

Nevertheless, there is no denying that if we are to enjoy the type of political renaissance that was witnessed during the Scottish Referendum this year, make politics sexy to the majority rather than just the ‘anoraks’ and activists, then we should not simply have party candidates selected in the same old fashioned way, with constituency associations and Trades Unions stitching things up. We must do better than that.

That is why I like the idea of ‘Primaries’ to select candidates of all the mainstream parties, particularly for these ‘new’ positions that are set to be created in all city regions across England sooner or later.

Primary elections would allow a much broader number of the electorate to take part in seeing candidates, quizzing them, and supporting the nominee that they felt was best for the job. It would open up the democratic process to a whole range of people who have become disillusioned and disengaged from politics, partly due to the party machines basically selecting candidates who will inevitably be elected in the many ‘safe’ seats that exist, not only in Leeds, but in all English cities.

The suggestion, as was made by several delegates in Manchester at our conference there last week, that the Metro Mayor should not be ‘a bloody Councillor’ may strike a chord for those who think that a Russell Brand type character would shake things up and get things done. The reality is that some experience of political management is not only an advantage, but an essential component to the job – otherwise we will just have faceless, unaccountable regional civil servants running the show.

However, that doesn’t mean that we should just accept the Status Quo for selection purposes, or rule out some new people throwing their hat in the ring for these potentially exciting new posts. You never know, we may even get a woman or two having a go. And as Ken Livingstone proved in the first London Mayoral election, a decent Independent can stir things up too.

If we are talking about a new way of doing politics, a sexier way, then surely Primaries are at least worth considering.

Cameron will lose even if he wins

Cameron

We are now just over six months away from the next General Election and if I were a betting man I would say that the Conservative Party will remain the largest group in Parliament following the May poll, with a question mark over whether they will continue to need the support of their minor coalition partner the Liberal Democrats.

The lacklustre Labour Party conference, epitomised by its Leaders ineffective speech and the seeming belief of the official opposition that they can win enough seats to form a government by simply banging on about the NHS and hitting the 35% mark of vote share will leave Ed Miliband short of where he needs to be.

The UKIP bandwagon may continue to gain momentum if the media remains as fascinated with the buffoons who represent this inconsistent and slightly hinged bunch of non racist, non homophobic folk, but surely as we approach the big day there will be at least some scrutiny of their policies by Andrew Neild and Co!

So Cameron will in all likelihood remain as Prime Minister, at least in the short term, whilst Boris gets his leadership campaign organised, but will he be able to look back at his time at the helm of his party with any great satisfaction?

David Cameron won his party’s leadership with an agenda that promised a new Tory Party, ‘Caring’ Conservatives who would ‘hug a hoodie’ and that was so committed to the green agenda that they changed their party logo to a tree.

He promised to put all the internal Eurosceptic nonsense behind them, and move his troops to the middle ground, much as Tony Blair had done with ‘New Labour’ a decade earlier.

As he approaches the end of his first term in office, Eurosceptisism is at the top of the Tory agenda, he is peculiarly on the run from the UKIP fruit loops, promising an in-out EU referendum that he has now lost total control of, and appears more concerned with keeping the likes of John Redwood happy than Michael Heseltine. As for the environment, forget it because he has.

Add to this the return to ‘Nasty’ Tory policy around the welfare agenda, and it is easy to see why many commentators believe that Cameron may be ‘in post’ but not ‘in charge’.

Whatever the result of next year’s election, it is hard to see how David Cameron can really win.

Can Leeds Airport Survive?

Manchester Airport announced record passenger numbers earlier this week. Blackpool Airport announced it was closing. Airport’s in other provincial cities like Liverpool and Leeds now have to seriously ask if they have a sustainable future over the next decade, as airlines look to ‘hubs’ in order to gain the best commercial bang for their buck – with the pressure on their costs only likely to go one way!

For Leeds in particular, the debate is pertinent, and already on the agenda. Council leader Keith Wakefield has already raised the prospect of the Airport being relocated, with almost everyone accepting that if we were building it today, the Airport would not be located where it is.

The cost of such a move is likely to prove prohibitive, and so the next best option is to develop a significantly improved infrastructure that starts to connect the Airport to surrounding towns and cities.

Unsurprisingly this is the strategy favoured by the Airports management team, but is a huge investment in this type of infrastructure regeneration wise?

The debate over the Airports location has arguably been overtaken by its ability to compete with a genuinely International Airport just over an hour away.

Since Manchester got over its snobbery towards budget flights, the low cost airline owners have flocked there, and it is difficult to see how this trend can be reversed given the development of Airport City on the back of an enterprise zone, and the high speed link from Manchester to London.

It is too early to advocate throwing the towel in yet. But it’s not too early to have the debate about the future of Leeds Airport.