Liverpool

Liverpool makes welcome return to MIPIM

MIPIM

After a two year absence Liverpool has decided to return to the Cannes property festival MIPIM next year and it is a move that further indicates the city’s ambition to maintain its push to develop a world class brand.

The decision has come about, partly, as a result of lobbying from the private sector. At Downtown’s ‘It’s Liverpool Business Conference’ in 2012 a number of delegates urged the mayor, Joe Anderson, to re engage with the MIPIM event, and Deloitte partner Sean Beech made the case for Liverpool’s presence here.

As well as MIPIM being a welcome addition to the range of platforms where brand Liverpool can be marketed and promoted on the international stage, the festival has been increasingly used in recent years by other English cities to collaborate and present joint initiatives.

Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester shared a platform at MIPIM in March, and I am sure that the core cities will find a number of issues to come together on and co-operate at the 2014 festival.

There will be the usual naysayers who protest that during a period of austerity, when local authorities have to find millions of pounds worth of cuts, investing in initiatives such as this, and even the forthcoming International Festival of Business which the city is hosting in the summer of next year, ought to be scrapped.

I would argue that because of the shrinkage of Liverpool’s public sector, funding for activities that will potentially lead to much needed private sector investment to fill that vacuum is justified more than ever before.

If we are to genuinely build a greater Liverpool, the city needs to be all over MIPIM and festival’s like it.

If you want to join the conversation about building a greater Liverpool CLICK HERE for details of Downtown’s 2013 ‘It’s Liverpool business conference’.  

The Liverpool Echo

Liverpool Echo

The Echo is a Liverpool institution, so Downtown did not take lightly the decision to undertake a poll last week that asked if the local newspaper’s front page headlines had a damaging effect on the city’s reputation.

The vast majority of those who participated in our poll, around 300, believe that it does, and that in itself is cause for concern. You can view the results here.

The reason we undertook the poll in the first place came as a result of consistent complaints from our members during and outside of our events over the past six months, many expressing the view that the constant barrage of crime related front page news headlines was a cancer in the city that was sapping confidence within Liverpool’s indigenous community and potentially putting off potential inward investors.

Of course the Echo can legitimately point to the fact that our poll was taken by only a tiny percentage of people in comparison to its own very healthy readership. It may also argue that the poll was not as representative as, say, a MORI led focus group.

But I think that the gut instinct of Downtown’s members and wider network is a pretty decent reflection of what many in the private sector think, and so I have written to Echo Editor Alistair Machray and asked him if he will meet a few of us to discuss our concerns. I have also offered him the right of reply in TFI, which seems only fair.

As a business organisation that wants our city to continue to grow and progress, we recognise that a successful local newspaper is important. In this city we are fortunate that we have another great title, the Echo’s sister paper the Liverpool Post, and both media outlets not only offer valuable media services, but quality jobs and a significant contribution to the local economy.

Nonetheless, as a local newspaper, we believe that there is a responsibility to balance the need to sell newspapers with a duty of care to the city and its image. Many of the Echo’s front page headlines in recent times don’t reflect our modernised, regenerated, transformed city.

I argued in this blog (Does Bad news Sell?) that the Echo was out of step with the city’s new found confidence and a more upbeat Liverpool community. I still believe that to be the case.

The Echo is not the enemy though. Indeed if we were to ask the question, ‘does the Echo stick up for the city against outside knockers’ we’d have had an equally resounding YES vote. If we’d have asked if you trust the Echo, I think the result would have been positive. And in its campaigning work from ‘Stop the Rot’ to Hillsborough, the Echo deserves huge credit.

But it doesn’t get everything right, and the balance between reporting the good and the bad on its front pages feels to be out of kilter to us at the moment – and those who took our poll last week seem to agree.

I look forward to meeting Alistair to have a constructive conversation about the issue, and I’ll let you know how we get on.

Finally, to the guy from Trinity Mirror who phoned our PR agency last week and told them that Downtown should not expect be getting any coverage in the paper anytime soon, I’d simply say this – don’t shoot the messenger!

Pay peanuts and you get…?

miller-john-the-houses-of-parliament-palace-of-westminster-unesco-world-heritage-site-london-england

12 July 2013 at 11:00

‘You get what you pay for’ is an ancient adage that most of us in business will recognise to be true. It is true of business clubs; it is true of events; and it is true of MP’s.

Without wishing to generalise too much, I would suggest that the current bunch of Parliamentarians that represent us are of a significantly poorer calibre than in previous parliaments. One only has to look at the respective front benches to recognise that all the mainstream parties are short of talent. Indeed how many ministers and shadow ministers can you name?

Those who do have a bit of quality and the ‘X’ factor are in huge demand from within their own political organisations and from the outside world, so if you want Chuka Umunna or Boris Johnson to appear at something for you in 2015 I’d advise you book them now. Come to think of it, Boris isn’t even an MP nowadays, though internationally he is the UK’s most recognisable politician.

Of course this dearth of talent is not simply about what MP’s are paid. It is about the increased pressures on family life and the abject failure of the House of Commons to modernise its procedures. It is about ‘cabals’ and cliques in party associations and constituency parties who stitch selections up for their mates. It is about 24/7 media scrutiny of all that you do as a public figure.

But ultimately salary does matter. Why would a captain of industry, a young entrepreneur or a creative talent give everything up to put themselves forward for a seat in a dragons den where there place is re-advertised every four years however good their individual performance, if the annual remuneration is less than a Premiership footballer earns in a week?

The job of an MP is a tough one, a time consuming one and one that is high on pressure. If we want to attract good people to this important role then we will have to be more generous and mature when it comes to paying them. The recommended 75K has hit the headlines this week. Buried was the radical change to expenses and pension rights that actually leaves MP’s no better off.

We can continue to compare our MP’s to care workers and beat them up every time a salary increase is recommended by an independent body. In that case we have to accept that we will continue to get the MP’s we deserve. In other words, get what we pay for…