DEPUTY Prime Minister Nick Clegg was last night urged to referee a territorial pillow fight that has erupted on Merseyside over the Government's agreement to set up a so-called super cabinet for Liverpool City Region.
The aim of the combined authority body is to enable Liverpool and its neighbours, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens and Halton, to join forces to stimulate economic development and jobs.
The new body is set open for business on April Fool’s Day, but tonight it was already being branded as a joke by some.
Joke One: the councils can’t agree a name for the new body. Ideally it ought to be Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, although even that's a bit of a mouthful.
Preferred is the tongue-twisting Haltonknowsleyliverpoolseftonsthelens
wirralcombinedauthority.
Joke Two: Mayor Anderson ought to be the heir apparent to head the new body, but it appears that job will go to Cllr Phil Davies, Labour leader of Wirral Council. And, like it it not, Liverpool is THE political centre of gravity.
Now The Lib Dem leader of Liverpool City Council has called on Nick Clegg to be a marriage-mender to bring all sides together.
Ferrets
Cllr Richard Kemp, in his letter to Nick Clegg, wrote: “With a pigs’ breakfast for a name and clear divisions at the very top of the body, I cannot begin to see how it might fulfil the roles of leadership which are desperately needed to bring jobs and prosperity to our region.
"What we need now is clear vision and purpose to develop economically viable strategies. What we have is a Labour leadership in Greater Liverpool fighting like ferrets in a sack. Would you please intervene in this matter and try to mediate with the six leaders to talk some sense that is clearly so badly needed?”
The Government is now paving the way for the legal formalities to create the new combined authority. It will have sub-regional powers over transport, economic development, housing, employment and skills.
Richard KempBy joining forces, the aim is to attract massive funding packages to create thousands of jobs across the city region, in a way that has transformed Manchester and its nine near neighbours.
Last night Cllr Kemp said: “For the past four years I have campaigned for the creation of a combined authority for the six councils that make up the Liverpool conurbation.
“We need the body because we need be able to sell the advantages and strengths of our area which are obvious to us but not so obvious top those outside. As I travel the world I have been able to talk about Liverpool and I always meant the city region. An area composed not only of the city by the engineering and glass making of St Helens, the chemicals of Halton, the Port of Liverpool, Grand National and beaches of Sefton and the ship building of the Wirral.
“It is an area that hangs together, but for too long we have been amateurs at working together. We have played second fiddle to Greater Manchester where the 10 authorities have worked together for two decades and have had a combined authority for the past three years.
Welcome to Haltonknowsleyliver-
poolseftonsthelenswirralcombined-
authority“They have been far more successful at getting investment than we have because they have spoken as one, because they have sold their conurbation together. Now the Liverpool conurbation has decided to play catch up but what a mess they are making of it.
“They haven’t even been able to agree a name.”
He goes on: “Then in a massive snub for the Mayor of Liverpool it would appear that they have decided to have a permanent chair who will be not Joe Anderson but Phil Davies the Leader of Wirral Council. This does not surprise me. I know that Mayor Anderson is not well liked in the Party outside Liverpool but this enmity between Labour leaders will badly affect us all.
“We need leadership to be visionary, practical and diplomatic. Whether Mayor Anderson has those attributes is not for me to say but what is clear is that the Liverpool city region needs to be steered by Liverpool. Like it or not Joe Anderson is the leader of the most important part of the conurbation and that fact must be recognised.
Squabbling
“Nationally the economy is starting to pick up. We have seen those signs of growth in the whole of the area but especially in Liverpool where we are still building on the legacy of Capital of Culture and expanding our city centre’s retail and tourist offers.
“Now is NOT the time to let squabbling about pecking orders dish our chances of creating the sustainable growth that the city needs.
“The needs of our unemployed are too important to be left to squabbling and bickering from Labour prima donnas. Grow up, act your age and find ways of settling your differences to ensure that Greater Liverpool gets the leadership it both needs and deserves.”
The Laz Word: What's wrong with the word Liverpool?
For years I have watched as the ‘hissing’ cousins of across Merseyside have failed miserably to pull together. I have seen senior elected politicians come almost to blows with each other over rivalries between different authorities, and who gets what.
If these leaders were children somebody could call social services. We have paid the price of these squabbles by being one of the poorest sub-regions in the country.
Whether we like it or not Liverpool is a brand name people would die for. If the name was auctioned at Sotherbys it would raise enough to wipe out our debt.
On my travels I have asked people in faraway countries to name as many English cities as possible. The answers have invariably been…. London, Liverpool, Edinburgh (sic). Manchester is mentioned, but Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham might as well be on the moon.
Yet we seem to be reluctant to use the brand name Liverpool so we can all reap the rewards.
When 20,000 jobs were created in Liverpool ONE, half of them went to people living in the neighbouring boroughs. Yet the angry slanging matches when Liverpool asked for wider funding to kick-start Liverpool ONE could be heard from the beaches of Sefton to the golf links of Hoylake.
This should be our chance to play catch up with our neighbour Manchester where the 10 councils stand shoulder to shoulder, rather than back to back as we do.
Maybe the leaders of the six councils – all of them Labour – get along. But there is far too much disharmony, and we all pay the price.
