THERE is everything to play for in political fortunes of Britain in a week’s time on May 7, but across Merseyside there will hardly be a political battleground in sight.
With Labour not expecting any upsets in the seats it holds in and around Liverpool, all eyes will be focused on Wirral West, currently occupied by Number Ten wannabe Esther McVey.
Party bigwigs from both Conservative and Labour have converged on the cosy townships of Hoylake and West Kirby and the surrounding communities, and media interest is building up to fever pitch, judging by the eagerness to cover the count when polling stations close.
McVey is seen by her supporters as the politician with the guts to take a costly welfare system by the scruff of the neck and shake it all about.
The rest regard the one-time television presenter as the Wicked Witch of Wirral West, conjuror of all things evil: the bedroom tax and tough rules for benefit claimants and the disabled.
Hoping to snatch Wirral West back from McVey’s clutches is Labour’s Margaret Greenwood, a former English teacher in schools and colleges across Liverpool and Wirral. She’s also worked as a travel writer.
The other local focal point will be Southport where another former teacher, John Pugh, hopes to cling on to his Lib Dem seat.
But his party is expecting to take a battering in both the local and national elections as unforgiving voters continue to punish for leader Nick Clegg’s broken promise on student tuition fees - and his Rose Garden love-in with David Cameron, when they cemented their Coalition in 2010.
Back in Liverpool, council candidates will have to bite their nails for a day longer. The election count won’t start until the morning after General eElection day.
On Friday May 8, current Lord Mayor Erica Kemp will learn whether she will become the one and only flag carrier for the Lib Dems in Liverpool.
Her husband, group leader Richard Kemp, one of the city’s longest serving councillors, will be fighting for his political life in Church Ward which he shares with his wife and Labour’s Richard Wenstone.
Over in Woolton, retiring Barbara Mace will be hoping the results of the past two elections will not be repeated. They have seen Labour capture both seats. Ex-Woolton councillor Malcolm Kelly is bidding to replace Barbara with his Lib Dem comeback.
Over and out: Jake Morrison is saying sayonara to Liverpool politicsReducing the Lib Dem ranks to a single councillor would be turning back the clock over 50 years, and be a far cry from the 1990s when more than 70 councillors waved the Lib Dem flag for Mike Storey.
Such is Mayor Joe Anderson’s disdain for the Lib Dems that this week, on the LBC roadshow bus, he declared he would prefer to give his vote to the Conservatives in the city. But don't panic: the Tories have been extinct here since the last century.
In fact the last Conservative man standing in Liverpool Town Hall, up until the late 1990s, was Woolton Councillor Steve Fitzsimmons who now runs the Nation nightclub.
Now he has had a wholesale change of political colours - making his comeback for Labour in Liverpool Green Party stronghold, St Michael’s.
There, Green Party veteran John Coyne is quitting the council altogether. Coyne has had a strong personal following which his successor, Anna Maria Key, hopes to inheri.
Also throwing in the political towel is estranged-from-Labour Jake Morrison, nationally famed as the teenager who once defeated the mighty Lord Michael Storey and later entered into public spats with Joe Anderson and Luciana Berger. It led to him declaring he would fight Berger for the safe Wavertree Labour seat, as an independent, in this General Election. But the one-time youngest councillor in the city he is nowhere to be seen on the ballot paper. That "honour" goes to Old Swan teen-Independent Naimh McCarthy who, at 18, is the youngest person in the UK to stand for Parliament.
Wavertree wannabe: Niamh McCarthy, 18, from Old Swan, is the youngest person to stand for ParliamentCurrently the make-up of the city council is Labour 78 (which includes one Labour vacancy), Greens 4, with the Liberals and Lib Dems on 3 each, and 2 independents.
If Labour does increase its stranglehold in the council chamber it will raise questions of a potential democratic deficit, with virtually nobody around to challenge the mayor-led administration.
Away from Wavertree Tennis Centre where all the votes are counted, all eyes will be on the race for Number 10.
Mayor Anderson will almost certainly be celebrating more gains on the council, but the next occupant of Downing Street will determine the fortunes - or misfortunes - of Liverpool for the next five years.
