No to the Commissioners: Fund the cities: Protect democracy
Felicity Dowling writes: Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, says he is going to put a commissioner into Liverpool to run some of its services including planning, highways and regeneration. He says, there is a “deeply concerning picture of mismanagement, the breakdown of scrutiny and accountability, a dysfunctional culture, putting the spending of public funds at risk”. This from the government of self-confessed greed and capitalism, of huge waste in procurement and favours for mates in the coronavirus crisis. Highways and regeneration are areas of great interest to “developers”.
He appears to ascribe responsibility to the elected members, whilst praising the chief executive. How could this even be?
“There was dysfunctional management, with no coherent business plan and the awarding of “dubious contracts”, he says.
According to the report there was an environment of intimidation, however, he has no criticism of the chief executive. The commissioners will cost the city and will not bring additional funding to an already cash-starved council.
When the socialist council of the 1980s was removed from office Thatcher did not dare send in commissioners; we were replaced by other elected councillors. How then has it come to this? The defence of democracy requires an organised and informed population. Labour has failed in this.
The pandemic too has given the Conservatives cover to do this.
Local authority cuts are coming to a head. Years of damage will be obscured by this story of graft, and the blame will pass to Labour, to corruption and to the fault of the people of Liverpool, rather than to the damage done by the Conservatives. Labour’s vote held up in Liverpool unlike other northern constituencies. Letting this go passively will not help defend the people or a Labour vote. Still more cuts should be expected, and the commissioners can be given as an excuse.
Jenrick also intends to change the way councillors are elected, in one go rather than the rota system that allows annual elections. All of this is seriously undemocratic. Rather than challenge this situation, Kier Starmer has acquiesced to it, without stepping in to either defend democratic process or the now tainted reputations of councillors, many of whom are his supporters.
Joe Anderson, the elected mayor, was arrested and bailed on charges related to bribery and intimidation; the bail has now been lifted. Also arrested were the Director of Regeneration and property developer Elliot Lawless. No one has been charged.
The areas of alleged malpractice are generally seen as those within the direct responsibility of the office of the Mayor. The mayor does not have responsibility for setting the Council budget or formulating policy framework plans as this remains with the city council.
So, a city that elected no Conservative councillors at all is now to be run by the Conservatives, a party which planned managed decline and inflicted vindictive cuts on the city. This can and should be resisted.
Commissioners have run Rotherham following the utterly sickening organised Child Abuse scandals, and are running Tower Hamlets, and Conservative Northampton, but none of them represented the political shenanigans that this does.
But this drama cannot hide the crisis in Council funding
Multiple crises are coming together in Liverpool. The dominant message pushed on this is likely to be local government corruption, but there are far greater forces at play – it is crucial that socialists do not let that become our narrative too.
Liverpool is a productive and potentially wealthy city, but that wealth is neither shared nor managed well.
This is a network of crises. Austerity, poverty, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts against it in Liverpool, the Corbyn crisis and democracy within Labour, the inherent faults in the mayoral system, the lack of socialist leadership in the city, property development as a way out of funding difficulties, the student housing fiasco, financial links with China that fell through, the rise of hedge fund capitalism and Johnson’s “light touch” regulations, and the development of the Free Port in Liverpool.
There is money to be made in Liverpool for the rich, but prospects for the rest of us are grim, unless of course we go back to our traditions of popular socialist education and resistance.
Austerity
Austerity has done great harm to the people who work for, or used to work for, the council, and for other public services including the NHS, services for the children of the city, housing and more. Essential public services have been massively cut. Other services have introduced charging or increased charges. Those who have been moved out of public service employment face insecure work, often without Union recognition. Women have carried the huge burden of austerity and mothers of young children are amongst the worst hit. Childcare costs in the UK make working with small children expensive, yet all women with children are pressured to work, facing sanctions if they fail to comply. Cuts in local government and other public sector pay and conditions feed directly into child poverty.
Neo-liberal governments since Thatcher have abandoned certain areas of the country, not just Merseyside, to poverty and deprivation. Liverpool escaped the worst of this because of EU funding, which now, of course, has gone.
We urgently need a fight back against the damage inflicted on our cities and towns.
Cuts in funding for councils
Liam Thorpe, the editor of the Liverpool Echo, wrote in the Guardian in 2019:
“The stark statistics are there for all to see. Since the coalition government formed in 2010, the people of Liverpool have shouldered the burden of the equivalent of an £816 per head fall in day-to-day public spending.”
Compare that with Oxford, where the figure has gone up by £115 during the same period, and you start to understand why people around here feel they are on their own. The local government funding formula meant that Liverpool lost “a staggering £444m between 2010 and 2020 – … 64% of the council’s overall budget.”
Liverpool and Barnsley have suffered the greatest cuts. In a population of roughly 1.5 million people in the Merseyside city region, government statistics revealed that there were 68,718 children living below the breadline in March 2019, even before the cost of housing was taken into account, and before coronavirus.
Poverty
Wages in Liverpool are below the national average, but above the north-west average. There are a lot of female civil service workers who are not well paid, but at least paid on national scales.
“For Average Score, Liverpool is considered the 3rd most deprived of 317 local authority areas. It was ranked as the 4th most deprived in 2015, having previously been ranked the most deprived in 2004, 2007 and 2010.”
Where there is poverty it is severe, but Liverpool is not alone in this situation. We see similar problems in areas of London and other cities and towns.
Of the ten percent of most deprived areas nationally, Liverpool is ranked 2nd; 48% of the city’s residents, and 57% of its children, live in these most deprived areas. Youth unemployment doubled in Liverpool with the onset of coronavirus.
The population of Liverpool has been growing since 2002, partly because young people have not had to leave to get work. The city has 70,000 students, the city population’s average age is lower than the national average, and the birth rate has been higher (though those two factors interact).
Liverpool has serious poverty. Many people who live in Liverpool are poor, a proportion higher than the north-west average, especially the children. The wages available to mothers especially, are simply insufficient.
But poverty is a national issue not just a Liverpool one.
Outsourced workers generally lose money and face worse working conditions. Trade union action has resulted in contracts (for example for bins and highways) being brought back ‘in house’. It is feared these workers will again have to fight for their rights.
Liverpool Votes Labour
There is no confidence in a Conservative government.
Liverpool votes Labour in large numbers. Like Bristol, London, South Wales, the North East, and the West Midlands. On the council there are no Conservatives, 72 Labour, 18 LibDems, 4 Greens, 3 Liberals and one independent.
Corbyn was extremely popular in Liverpool but not with all the Labour Party. We had Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman, so there was considerable in-fighting in Labour. The bitter old right wing was and still is present. Membership of Labour was high.
In the 2019 general election turnout in the city was 67.52% of which Labour won 76.71%. The propaganda and campaigning work were not at the level of the 80s, though many activists worked outside of the city in the elections. In 2016 Joe Anderson received 53% of the vote, on a 30% turnout (Tony Mulhearn, from TUSC received 4,792 more than the Conservative). The city region mayor Steve Rotherham received 59% of the vote.
Undoubtedly then, Liverpool opposes the Conservatives. And Liverpool has many reasons to dislike Johnson, for comments about Hillsborough and the death of Ken Bigley, viciously executed by jihadists.
“A combination of economic misfortune — its docks were, fundamentally, on the wrong side of England when Britain entered what is now the European Union — and an excessive predilection for welfarism have created a peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche among many Liverpudlians.
“They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it.”
The structure of local government in Liverpool is unwieldy and needs reform, but more than that, we need councillors who are on top of their brief, understand the issues, have the courage to speak truth to power, and are capable and willing to organise in the communities to describe the real problems, not obscure them with platitudes.
Liverpool also is facing the Free Port opening with lower regulations. Again, the rich will make money from Liverpool and its workforce. Johnson’s greed and capitalism will once again have to be resisted or workers will suffer.
Huge NHS reorganisation faces us as well and Liverpool will need a clear voice in that process. Who will speak for the city? It must be elected representatives, not unelected Tory appointed commissioners.
Liverpool is also a city of struggle with a long radical history. Further articles will follow.
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This article clarified a lot of issues for me. The role of the Labour leadership has been appalling and is no longer recognisable as Labour. I wait to hear about a fightback and how it will be organised. You will have full solidarity from us in East London, we are waging a battle here and unity is needed.