Liverpool

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.

It’s Not Who it’s What

Power to the North

This week has been dominated by the news that Manchester is to get a metro mayor, devolved powers and £1billion!

Immediately Liverpool is lobbying hard and screaming ‘us too’, although it is proving challenging for city mayor Joe Anderson to convince his district colleagues to create a ‘Boris for Merseyside’.

Part of the problem, a huge part, is that personalities are getting in the way of progress. The discussion and debate about devolution to Liverpool is fast turning into a conversation about ‘who’ those powers will go to rather than the far more important question of ‘what will those powers be’.

It is recognised by all the council leaders that devolution to the city region level is a good thing. Let’s start with transport, planning, health, social care and housing. More resources, yes please. If we need to agree to have an elected mayor for the region to get this prize, that should be agreed too.

The argument that there is some kind of ‘democratic deficit’ going on with the ‘imposition’ of a new structure of local governance would only hold water if the existing system was not totally broken. Turnouts for Parliamentary seats in this part of the world are poor – for local council elections they are embarrassing.

What is more ‘undemocratic’? A leader for the city region elected by six council leaders between them, behind closed doors – or a directly elected mayor who we all get the chance to vote in, and crucially, vote out if necessary as well.

It is a no brainer, and it is why the leaders of the Greater Manchester authorities took the pragmatic decision to sigh such a deal with Chancellor George Osborne this week, and ensure that their region will continue to be seen as the exemplar of local government.

The window of opportunity for this massive devolution offer will not be open forever. The leaders of our six councils have an absolute duty to get their act together quickly – before that window slams shut.

The gang of three

The chief executive of Knowsley Borough Council Sheena Ramsey left her post this week with little or no fanfare.

Her departure was officially said to be driven by ‘cost cutting’ although speculation around child care services, or even a fall out between her and the council’s leadership have been rife.

Whatever the reason, the reality of financial pressures across the city regions local authorities is acute – and is set to get worse with further budget reductions on the way.

Largely behind the scenes, Liverpool councils have done deals to share back office services, and despite the many fall outs that are usually very publically aired at Combined Authority level, there has been genuine progress in administrative co-ordination and savings.

This still doesn’t get local councils anywhere near meeting the reductions that have been demanded by the austerity agenda embarked upon by the coalition government and, it has to be said, likely to be continued by whichever party wins power at the General Election next year.

Library closures, community and leisure centres disappearing and the third sector decimated, how long will it be before even the statutory provision that councils are duty bound to provide begin to be a thing of the past? Already many such services are said to be at breaking point.

The arguments about a more co-ordinated, streamlined organisational structure at city region level have been well made by Downtown and many others in recent years. The multiple layers of governance seem at best unnecessary and at worst wasteful.

But with the removal of a chief executive on the grounds of ‘cost cutting’, has the agenda and debate about simply stacking the existing deckchairs more effectively and efficiently moved on?

If Knowsley cannot afford a chief officer then how long before Sefton or even Liverpool is in the same boat? Could these three separate local authorities share a chief executive? Could they share a chief Education Officer, a head of social services? Indeed, is it time to seriously debate merging Liverpool, Knowsley and Sefton and creating a Greater Liverpool council – resulting in not only millions of pounds worth of savings, but a more coherent model of governance.

Including Wirral, St Helens and Halton in the recently established Combined Authority model is proving just as hard as all other previous ‘Merseyside’ coalitions have been. A lack of cultural consistency, genuine community connectivity and the politics of personalities have all been part of the problem in working together.

But where people in St Helens fail to fully accept that there town is a part of Liverpool, Sefton’s community fails to accept that it isn’t a part of the city. Wirral winces at the prospect of being a cog in the Liverpool wheel. Knowsley already thinks it is.

A Greater Liverpool Council? It’s worth a discussion, surely.

It’s Liverpool: the Business Conference – A Manifesto for Liverpool takes place at the Hilton Hotel, Liverpool on Wednesday 26th November. CLICK HERE for further details.

Now Osborne Targets Labour’s Core Vote

osborne

Following a surprisingly low key Labour Party conference in Manchester last month most objective commentators quickly reached the conclusion that Ed Miliband and his team have decided that the ‘35% strategy’ is their best hope of winning the next General Election in May 2015.

This plan supposes that Labour can win a small, but workable, overall majority in the House with just a thirty odd per cent vote, such are the anomalies within our first-past-the-post electoral system, and the likelihood that the Tory vote will be split because of UKIP.

To this end we heard a lot from Labour about fairness, social justice, increasing the minimum wage, the NHS, and, lest we forget, sticking it to the ‘rich’ with a Mansion tax and the re-introduction of a 50p tax rate. We did not hear too much about the deficit, though Ed did mean to refer to it – he just forgot.

Targeting its core vote may not seem like the party is taking the principled high ground here, but as pragmatic strategies go, it seems a reasonable approach for the opposition to take.

It was more of a shock to hear Chancellor George Osborne target the same audience in his speech to the Tory faithful in Birmingham on Monday morning though – although he did so in a much less friendly manner.

Many of Labour’s natural supporters, 10 million families according to some reports, will suffer from a child benefit freeze, welfare cuts and a further period of austerity as the Conservatives try to tackle a budget deficit that has actually gone up on its watch during this parliament.

It was not the sort of pre-election give away that many have come to expect from the man who sits in number 11 Downing Street, but George is gambling that we believe the economy is still on the critical list, and must continue to be nursed back to health with another dose of hard-nosed austerity.

For the first time in many a year we appear to have some clear blue water between our two major parties, with not quite a return of ‘class war’ but certainly the threat of a skirmish.

It is oh so depressing, and gesture politics at its worse.

Labour know that a 50p tax rate will generate LESS not more revenue for HMRC. Independent research has consistently shown that at 50% people start to actively seek ways of legal tax avoidance, and I have to say, who can blame them?

The idea that the only people who earn six figure salaries are boy racer bankers and sweat shop bosses is an insult to this country’s entrepreneurs and indeed to the wider electorate.

Most of us in business, millionaires or not, work tirelessly and deserve the rewards we earn. It is absolutely right that we pay our fair share of tax, but taking half of someone’s income isn’t fair, and many of Labour’s core vote understand that. Chuka Umunna, Labour’s shadow business minister, is doing his best to balance his party’s anti-business narrative, but his task will get harder if the two Ed’s continue to cheer lead for the politics of envy.

Osborne too is being dishonest when he suggests that greater means testing and benefit freezes bring huge savings. He is as bad for helping to peddle the nonsense that everyone on benefits is a scrounger or a cheat as Labour is in trying to paint every millionaire as a wide boy. He is as likely to raise the money he claims he will accrue from his welfare budget proposals as Labour is from its planned 50p tax hike. Indeed, welfare reform, or more means testing, as introduced by the Coalition is costing us MORE not less.

The big saving in welfare spend is actually in pension provision. The problem for George and the Tories is that pensioners tend to vote – and most of them vote Conservative.

One of the criticisms I often hear of politicians and political parties is ‘they’re all the same’. Well, that can’t be said anymore. However, that other well-worn phrase ‘they’re all as bad as each other’ may be more accurate now than in many a year.

UDI for the North gets ever closer

UDI

As the Scots get ready to go to the polls to decide if they want total independence from the UK, or simply accept a generous additional devolution package that is on offer, the North of England continues to lobby Westminster in the hope that we can get some extra crumbs from the table that doesn’t include multi billion pound infrastructure schemes that, though much needed and long overdue, are at least a decade away from completion.

Local government cuts may have been necessary five years ago, but it is fair to say that those cuts were not imposed in an equitable fashion across the country, and cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds; and indeed counties like Lancashire, have been tasked with taking more than their fair share of the pain since 2010.

Had the austerity programme been evenly distributed across the country then Manchester would be £1million a week better off. Similar statistics are also true in other northern regions.

But it is not only cash but power and responsibility that the north has been starved of. The Scottish parliament has enjoyed a huge amount of autonomy since 1999, whilst even the Welsh Assembly, representing a population that is fewer than Greater Manchester and many other English city regions, have more say over their nations affairs than we do here.

Downtown has long argued that structural reform of local government is vital. However, with that reform must include genuine decentralisation of real additional powers, not least the ability to raise and spend local taxes, greater planning and regeneration autonomy and the opportunity to spend education, training and employment budgets in a more locally relevant fashion.

These ‘asks’ have been made in a rather hopeful, half hearted way in the past; but the Scottish situation means that English devolution is right back on the agenda and this time political and business leaders mean business.

Already the mainstream political parties are talking far more seriously about how a new English devolution settlement can be progressed post the next election. The job now is to turn talk in to action, and once and for all give big northern cities the chance to shape their own destiny.