Liverpool

And we’re off… or are we?

football

The Premier League season officially kicked off on Saturday, and it is great to see the Northwest with five teams in the top division again, with the mighty Burnley joining their more established Merseyside and Manchester peers.

I was at Leicester to see Everton draw their opening fixture on Saturday, and like all avid football followers watched the highlights of all the other games on Match of the Day, enjoying the beginning of the inevitable renaissance that Man United will enjoy now that they have a foreign manager – oops, maybe not!

But, as much as it was nice to have the ‘beautiful game’ back after what was an even shorter break than usual due to the World Cup, you can’t help but have the feeling that we have got off to a bit of a false start. Indeed, until the transfer window closes at the end of this month we don’t actually know which players each club will have available to select for the remainder of the campaign.

This is a ridiculous anomaly that supporters are used to; but what has added to the ‘phony war’ environment this term is the fact that those players returning from World Cup duty were not deemed fit to play.

I can’t understand why the powers that be didn’t put back the opening day fixtures by a week. But then again, when have the football authorities ever operated on a logical basis?

In the long term, over the course of a long, tough season, the opening weekend results may have little impact. But, when you are shelling out anything between £35-£90 for a match day ticket, then the very least you should expect is to see the best players on the pitch entertaining you – not sat in the stand, posing for the paparazzi and signing autographs.

Nevertheless, we are where we are as they say, and so it is prediction time. I am expecting Chelsea to win the title, just pipping City this time around. Fabregas looked awesome at Turf Moor on Monday night, and Mourinho has now got his own squad in place that I can’t see being beaten.

I’ll take Arsenal to finish third, and any one from Liverpool, Everton, Spurs and United to finish in the final Champions League spot. Through gritted teeth I would have to accept that those loveable Reds from Anfield are the favourites at the moment.

Burnley will survive, Real Madrid will retain the Champions League and Luis Suarez will receive a lifetime ban for biting Cristiano Ronaldo on the arse! Enjoy the season.

One North

George Osborne

Another week, another major announcement by the chancellor about big investment into infrastructure projects in the North, as the cities of Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool joined forces to launch the ‘One North’ document, which was duly supported by George Osborne.

Cynics suggest that this series of recent announcements is simply electioneering; a way of convincing northern voters that the Tories have not forgotten them. In reality there are few votes for the Conservatives in Liverpool or Manchester- though in Lancashire and Yorkshire several seats will be keenly contested at next year’s General Election.

In truth, post recession, all the mainstream political parties have woken up to the fact that a UK solely reliant on the success of its capital city is not a sensible long term economic strategy. The huge gap between the South East and the rest of the country has needed addressing for generations, and the planned investment in ambitious transport projects, improving links between northern cities, as well as the much debated HS2 project which provides greater capacity for the routes to and from London are good first steps.

However, it is still in the area of governance that the north can and must make more immediate progress.

HS2, HS3 and the other potential investments into the road network are medium to long term initiatives. Greater power to our region can happen now. Our political leaders, backed by the business community, should demand we get on with it.

The best of times, the worst of times…

Women

On occasion I do get the strange impression that I have fallen in to a deep sleep only to awake in an episode of ‘Life on Mars’ as it becomes evident that twenty first century progress simply hasn’t reached some key, fundamental areas of society that by now ought to have been well sorted.

This week a couple of things came to my attention that made me angry and somewhat baffled as I travelled around the various ‘Downtown Towers’ across the North of England, where businesses are finally celebrating the end of the long, hard recession.

The first was the issue of domestic violence. This is a taboo subject that I got involved in many years ago as a councillor when I was part of an ultimately successful campaign to establish a women’s refuge in Skelmersdale.

I saw first-hand the devastation to families that ‘men’ bullying and battering their wives causes, and it is an issue I have remained concerned about and interested in for over twenty years now. The shame is that there is as much need for the Refuge in Skelmersdale now as there was back in 1989; and that there still appears to be a reluctance of police, courts and politicians to treat the beating of women as a serious criminal act.

It emerged this week that a majority of domestic violence offenders are more likely to be given a slap on the wrist and community service than serve a prison sentence. This is just not good enough. If you beat a woman up then a jail sentence ought to be the automatic penalty. Repeat offenders should be jailed for a significant period, named, shamed and put on a public register that can be viewed by the entire community.

The recent ‘docudrama’ screened by the BBC ‘I was Murdered by my Boyfriend’ was the true story of a young woman who was beaten to death with an ironing board in front of her young daughter by the man who ‘loved’ her . This programme should be an essential part of the curriculum for teenage boys and girls at school. It really is time to start to take this issue seriously, raise awareness and educate. We need to be closing Refuges in the years ahead because the need for them should be redundant in a modern twenty first century society. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.

The other issue that had me shaking my head in despair was a reminder, via a tweet from a Liverpool Labour Councillor, that UK Plc, which currently boasts one of the fastest growing economies on the planet, has to stock food banks in order for some of its citizens to get a decent meal. If that doesn’t make you a little ashamed to be British, I don’t know what would.

We can argue all day long about the ‘scrounger’ culture, which is largely a fictitious account of millionaire benefit recipients, usually Eastern European immigrants, peddled by UKIP and some of the more unscrupulous sections of the media. But do we honestly believe that in 2014 kids and pensioners should be having to queue up at nineteenth century style food banks? I think not, and again until this is tackled and a fair welfare system re-introduced, then we cannot truly celebrate the economic ‘miracle’ that we are apparently witnessing.

Of course there are benefit cheats, just as there are tax cheats. But just as we wouldn’t penalise every successful billionaire entrepreneur for the sins of a few, we shouldn’t penalise those who have unluckily and reluctantly fallen on hard times through unemployment, disability or old age. We shouldn’t – but we do.

To end on a lighter note, because it is Friday and I am generally an optimistic, happy kind of guy, there was one other thing that made me truly believe that I had slipped into a coma, been thrown in to some sort of time machine and transported to a time man (and woman) forgot.

The news that Everton Football Club had smashed their transfer record and spent a staggering £28million on Romelu Lukaku was a genuine ‘back to the future’ moment. The first time I remember Everton smashing not only their own transfer record for a centre forward, but the country’s, was back in 1974, when we signed Bob Latchford from Birmingham for £350,000! Or, put another way, for what Lukaku will earn AT Goodison Park over the next six week’s!

It’s a funny old world – but sometimes it’s serious.

The Big Partnership

Big Partnership

There has been much talk in recent weeks from government ministers, shadow ministers and political commentators about the creation of a Northern ‘super city.’

Evan Davies presented this solution to the growing North – South divide in his two part documentary ‘Mind the Gap’ earlier this year, and it is something that has been picked up by the chancellor George Osborne and Labour’s Lord Adonis who has the brain the size of the planet, in recent policy papers.

There is no suggestion that there should be any administrative governance arrangements for the whole of the region at this point; but clearly there has been a warming towards the establishment of city region or metro mayors. Scotland’s continued drive for devolved powers has no doubt impacted on the latest Westminster thinking.

But equally there has been a recognition that there is no sense in talking about bridging the economic gap between London and the rest of the UK unless you recognise the need for huge investment in big infrastructure projects north of the Watford gap, and that one of the essential ingredients for this to work is the need for the big northern cities to work in a more co-ordinated and cohesive way if those schemes are to be delivered effectively.

Business leaders are sceptical about the ability of politicians to put aside long standing city rivalries and parochialisms in order to create this new panacea. However, evidence on the ground is that there is genuine and positive dialogue taking place between Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.

This week Leeds chief executive Tom Riordan tweeted; ‘Very good meeting with Sir Howard Bernstein aligning Leeds & Manchester plans on HS2 and HS3. Transpennine working stronger than I have ever seen.’

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Liverpool Vision Max Steinberg announced last week that Liverpool and Manchester will be sharing a stand at MIPIM UK in October.

Conversations are leading to tangible actions and outcomes, and the ‘One North’ document that is due to be released on 5th August will further accelerate the process of the North working together in a far more collaborative fashion.

All of this is great news for the region, for the economy and for business. It is an agenda Downtown has been promoting for ten years. It is an agenda the North’s private sector should be vociferously welcoming and supporting.

Beware of over the top ‘spin’

over the top spin

Liverpool has enjoyed a fabulous seven weeks in the sun as the city has played host to the International Festival for Business. So successful have we been in the execution of what was a challenging gig, the government have announced that they will let us do it all over again in 2016. The ambition now, rightly, is that this will become a biennial event and IFB18, 20, 22, and so on will all be held here.

On the back of a ten year regeneration and renaissance that has included the total transformation of our world famous waterfront; the European Capital of Culture celebrations; the Liverpool One development; the establishment of a first class arena; a myriad of new, quality hotels; the Super Port; the giants and let us not forget, the return to Europe of our two Premier League football clubs, and it is absolutely right that Liverpudlians should be encouraged, confident and have a bit of a swagger.

However, a strong word of warning against this extremely positive backdrop. The city is at the start of a comeback journey – nowhere near at its end. The narrative we should embrace ought to be one of aspiration and ambition. We are aiming to build on recent successes after a generation of struggle. We want to be taken seriously on the national and international stage again and regain our reputation as a smart city that you can do business with. We want to attract more people – many, many more people to work, play and most importantly live here.

We are not, however, as some of the more over excited ambassadors for Liverpool have been increasingly claiming in recent weeks to delegates from all across the globe, the ‘best city in the world’. In fact, we are not even in the top 100!

A  city that has a much higher number of unemployed people than the national average, a startlingly low rate of business start-up’s, and a worrying skills shortage cannot and should not claim to be the best in the world.

Does the hyperbole matter? Well, in my opinion, yes it does. The biggest asset of any business, and of any city, is knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses, and being able to engage with potential investors in an honest and open manner that will get them to take you seriously.

Standing up and saying ‘welcome to the best city in the world’ may impress the indigenous business community, though my guess is not that many of them. To an international audience it is at best a bit of a joke; at worst over the top, unnecessary hype.

Liverpool has a huge amount to shout about. We should do that in an effective, consistent and realistic fashion – then we can continue the momentum and fantastic success that we have enjoyed during the past decade, carry on tackling the very real and serious challenges that we still face; and one day, maybe one day, actually be able to stand up and say ‘Liverpool is the best city in the world’ and be taken seriously.