Liverpool

Liverpool needs to appoint the ‘Special One’

Special One

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In the summer Manchester United had a decision to make. The most successful British manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, was standing down and they needed to find a replacement who would continue to lead United to trophies at home and abroad.

The obvious, cast iron guarantee candidate was a flamboyant Portuguese man by the name of Jose Mourinho. With him in charge there would be little doubt that the Old Trafford side would continue to dominate domestic football and challenge for the Champions League.

That he wasn’t appointed came down to the fact that some in the boardroom  and possibly Sir Alex himself, felt that Mourinho was too outspoken, controversial and, perhaps, too charismatic.

Instead of appointing the most obvious and well qualified man for the job, United took a punt on David Moyes. A safe pair of hands, for sure, but with neither the experience, track record nor credibility of ‘the special one’ and a huge risk too.

A glance at United’s results since Moyes’ arrival will tell you that they have had a poor season so far, and it is unlikely to get much better following a surprise 2-0 defeat in Greece this week in their Champions League tie. Moyes looks like a man who is out of his depth. Maybe next season it will be different – but don’t hold your breath.

What has this got to do with the politics of Liverpool you may ask. Well, the proposed Halton, Sefton, St Helens, Knowsley, Liverpool and Wirral Combined Authority, so called as a result of private lobbying from city region districts, now looks like it will be led by a David Moyes equivalent.

In Joe Anderson Liverpool has an elected city mayor with a massive electoral mandate. He is someone who has a profile at regional, national and international level. During his leadership, the city has continued to grow, with more private sector jobs being created in the city than ever before; and he has brought the Global Entrepreneurship Congress and the International Festival of Business to the city. In addition, successful jaunts into the continent with the Shanghai Expo, MIPIM and the States add to his impressive CV – not to mention his bold move to open a Liverpool Embassy in London.

Despite all of this, and the fact that the city he leads accounts for over 70% of activity in the city region, the suggestion is that the leader of Wirral will chair the new Combined Authority organisation. Presumably this would be a one year appointment, and then we would have ‘Buggins Turn’ with Halton, St Helens, Knowsley and Sefton taking their place at the head of the table periodically. What an absolute nonsense.

If the name of the new body hasn’t already done so, then this type of political manoeuvring and game playing will most certainly turn the business community and potential investors off.

Joe Anderson may not be the pin up that Jose is, but in Liverpool city region terms he is ‘the special one.’ He is the only individual politician who can begin to restore credibility to an already discredited organisation, and the only one that can guarantee success.

We need to appoint Mayor Anderson as the leader of a Liverpool City Region Combined Authority – or accept that, just like Manchester United, decline in our performance is inevitable.

What A Farce!

hls

Downtown Liverpool has been a long time campaigner for a Liverpool city region Combined Authority.

It is a model that has worked and served Greater Manchester well for several years now, and the opportunity and potential that comes with a more collaborative approach between the six local councils in this part of the North West is easy to see.

However, our politicians have a knack of shooting the region in the foot, looking gift horses in the mouth and grasping defeat from the jaws of victory that is as uncanny as it is tragic.

The latest gaff, apparently courtesy of local districts who did not wish to see the word Liverpool dominate the title of the new local government body, comes with the proposed name which is, wait for it, ‘The Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority.’ That trip’s of the tongue easily doesn’t it?

Imagine calling the Downtown office and being met with ‘Hello, Downtown Liverpool, Lancashire, Manchester and Leeds in Business’!

The suggested name is nonsense but it is what this says about the reality of genuine collaboration amongst our local government representatives that is of most concern. If they can’t come up with an agreement on a sensible name for an organisation, what chance is there of them producing a coherent economic strategy?

For this reason I am urging Liverpool’s Mayor Joe Anderson to walk away from a body that at best will be a talk shop and at worse could do serious damage to the city’s future regeneration and economic growth.

Will the city Mayor be expected to continually placate and negotiate with those who actually believe that their districts are as big a brand as Liverpool? Would there need to be a ‘redistribution’ of opportunities that emerge via inward investment activity and marketing and promotion? Can Joe really be expected to dilute a Liverpool brand which has been in the ascendency now for over a decade? I simply ask Joe this question – do you think you could sign up to this backward looking agenda?

Parochial politicians and council officials may try to hide behind Eric Pickles and government ministers for the botched name fiasco. They are not being honest with us. Our Whitehall sources have confirmed that heavy private lobbying has taken place to abandon the publicly agreed name of the ‘Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’ to the humdinger we have been saddled with. Worse, political leaders are working behind the scenes to unseat Joe Anderson as the chair of this organisation.

The local daftness aside, it is equally contemptible for the government to propose this bizarre name for what they presumably want to see as a serious policy making body for the city region. It may amuse Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers to see Labour council leaders scrap like rats in a sack, but they ought to care more about the credibility of Liverpool and the wider region.

If it wasn’t so serious, and embarrassing, it might be funny. Business leaders are fed up with this nonsense. We need to demand maturity and vision from our political masters – nationally and locally!

An Unhealthy Imbalance

Outlook for Cities

Another report, another confirmation of the economic chasm that exists between London and the rest of the country.

The Centre for Cities report ‘Cities Outlook 2014’ highlighted the growing gap between North and South, in particular planet London and the rest of us.

London accounted for a huge 80% of private sector jobs created between 2010-2012, while Britain’s nine next largest cities combined created only 10% of private sector work.

In actual terms 216,700 jobs were created in London in the two year period, compared to the next best figure which is Manchester’s 13,200.

Cities like Liverpool can partially celebrate the news that more private sector jobs have been created than in previous years, but then we have to accept the low base from which the city was starting from; and the yet to be fully felt impact of massive public sector cuts across Merseyside, and indeed the North of England generally.

Successive governments have tried, and quite clearly failed, to address what has been an unhealthy imbalance in the UK economy for far too many years, and it is now surely time for our politicians to accept that only radical, structural reform that allows genuine decentralisation of power to our great city regions and counties is not just desirable, but absolutely essential.

Poorly funded Local Enterprise Partnership’s, a scattering of city mayors and combined authorities are the existing vehicles that are in place to give the regions a better chance of competing with the London beast. As the figures show, they simply aren’t working.

The problem is that whichever colour the government, Westminster finds it incredibly difficult to give up the patronage it has held over the rest of the country for centuries.

‘How can we trust those Northerners to elect politicians who will do the right thing’; or ‘We know best’ is the long held view in the corridors of Westminster power. Crumbs off the table for the odd city deal here; the much trumpeted but ineffective Regional Growth Fund; and other poorly funded one-off initiatives are apparently all we deserve.

It is time we in the north started to demand more. Private/ public sector partnerships have thrived in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Lancashire for many years now, but to maximise the potential of this collaboration we need a genuine transfer of powers AND resource.

The models of governance can be debated and discussed within the regions, and one size may not fit all, but we can’t go on like this.

For me the starting point is adopting an economic strategy that recognises the dangers and absurdity of more than 80% of the nation’s wealth being created in one city; a meaningful redistribution and decentralisation of funding for major city regions and counties, including an increase in borrowing limits and control over council tax and business rates; plus the establishment of regional investment banks.

What is going on at Elland Road?

Elland Road

From Peter Ridsdale through to Ken Bates Leeds United Football Club have endured what can most kindly be described as a rollercoaster ride in recent times. But even by its own incredible standards, this week must go down as one of the most bizarre in the clubs history.

The manager was apparently sacked on Transfer Deadline day, with the club captain going onto the Sky Sports channel to tell viewers of his own personal distress at the news. The following day, with the help of a hat-trick from the skipper, Leeds comprehensively beat Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield by five goals to one. Post match it was announced that Manager Brian McDermott had been re-instated, or perhaps never really, officially, sacked in the first place.

To put the icing on this very messy cake, a winding up petition was issued by one of the clubs sponsors on Wednesday, claiming none payment of fees.

If you are a Leeds fan all of this must be humiliating and extremely concerning. But football supporters across the country should be equally horrified and equally concerned, because it could be your club next.

The number of people who have used the phrase ‘well, it’s only…’ when talking of the decline at the hands of incompetent owners of ‘smaller’ teams like Portsmouth and Wimbledon now need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Blackburn Rovers, West Ham and Coventry City are among a growing list of great clubs who have been grossly mismanaged as the wealth and excitement of the Premier League has disguised some of the more financially questionable activity in and around the game.

It is not only ‘small’ clubs’ who can fall victim to gross mismanagement. Bigger clubs can be hit just as hard, if not harder.  Ask Liverpool, who escaped the clutches of two Yankee cowboys by the skin of their teeth. And Leeds – they don’t come much bigger than Leeds.

In the halcyon days of the 60’s and 70’s under Don Revie they conquered all before them in England, and were a whisker away from becoming the champions of Europe too.

As recently as 1992 Leeds were League champions and they won the League Cup in 1996. They were Champions League semi finalists just over a decade ago.

The attendances at Elland Road average around 30,000 even in the Championship and they are genuinely a big club – but it hasn’t stopped them from becoming a laughing stock at the hands of a series of owners who are clearly not ‘fit and proper’ people to run a football club.

It is time that the ownership of our football clubs became an issue. It is time for the Football Association to actually do something worthwhile. And it is time for our politicians to intervene.

I get that football is a business now. But it is not beyond the wit of the powers that be to come up with a set of official rules and regulations that would prevent the further abuse of football ownership in this country. Maybe it is something Greg Dyke should tackle as part of his commission on English football?

Meanwhile poor old Leeds, once the scourge of English football, and hated by supporters up and down the land, await for the next instalment of what is turning out to be a never ending nightmare for a once mighty club. And the rest of us replace that hatred of Leeds with a far more insulting emotion –pity!

Labour’s 50% Gamble

Labour

Depending on your politics and point of view a 50% tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 per year may seem fair.

However, there is absolutely no economic sense in taxing the highest earners at this level as it leads to a fall rather than an increase in the tax take for the exchequer.

How can this be so? Well, at 45p in the pound a successful business owner or entrepreneur may wince a little, but psychologically they will live with it.

Once you tell someone you want half of their income, it is of little surprise that they start to aggressively investigate the many loopholes that exist to stop HMRC getting their mitts on their hard earned cash.

The other problem with the 50p rate though is that is does cap aspiration and ambition; it signals a culture of envy rather than enterprise; and most worryingly it prevents business owners from investing in growing their companies. What is the point of adding £500K to your bottom line if the return you get is likely to be less than 10% of that? It is a risk that is not worth taking.

That is why I think that Ed Balls announcement that a Labour government would re-introduce the 50p rate is wrong, and more ‘gesture politics’ than economically savvy.

Labour believes that the majority of us who can only dream of a salary of 150K support the measure and will vote accordingly.

I think it will enable the Tories to paint Labour as anti ambition, anti business and as the party of taxation. It was a road tried and tested by Neil Kinnock and John Smith in 1992, much to John Major’s delight.

It didn’t work for Labour then, and although scandals with banks and our big financial institutions means we are in a different place today, I doubt if it will work in eighteen months time when the country goes to the polls again.

Nonetheless, the battle lines have been drawn and it will be interesting to see if Cameron and Osborne take a gamble of their own by announcing a further cut in top rate tax to 40p; and how shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna convinces business leaders that Labour support his ‘British Dream’.