Local Elections 2019

This year's local elections will be a new experience as I'll have my name on the ballot paper having been nominated to stand for the Liberal Democrats in the Clubmoor ward in Liverpool.

I'm definitely not going into these elections with dreams of a landslide victory, Clubmoor is a solid Labour stronghold, but with the local party having ditched a long serving councillor and chosen a new candidate at least I'm not going up against an incumbent.  I also won't be producing any paper leaflets, you get enough rubbish put through your doors without me adding to it.

Why the LibDems? Well having been a member of the Labour Party for a quarter of a century, I thought the long dark days of Militant, and making promises we couldn't keep, were behind us. Whilst the Thatcher government deserves much of the blame for the near death of Liverpool in the 1980s, the then local Labour Party was another side of the same coin, driving business and a generation of people away from the city.  Pragmatism and the building of a business friendly approach saved Liverpool, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the country. However the decline of the 70s and 80s was so deep that the rebuilding of our city and its reputation still has a long way to go.

I was a supporter of Joe Anderson and I approve of much of what he has done, but I couldn't sit back and watch the  Momentum takeover of the local party put at risk what has been achieved by both the LibDems and Labour Councils over the last 30 years.

Having left the Labour Party I looked around at another party that best met by political instincts and found that home with the LibDems. Especially with their pro-European identity. Now I'm certainly not blind to the damage done to the party during the coalition government, indeed I lost my job in the civil service less than one year into that regime. But I'm can also see that they acted as a brake on the more extreme aspects of the Tories ideology, and what has happened since 2015 is testament to that.

What about me then, raised in a one parent family, missed a lot of school time when my mum had a mental health illness, left school with no qualifications, but was determined to dig my way out of the hole I was in, and have worked in both the public and private sectors all of my working life. I was born and lived in Seaforth until my early 20s, moved south to work in London for a year, which turned into 20 years! before returning home 8 years ago.

I'm also a strong believer in putting something back into the city and community so I spend most weekends volunteering in the tourism, culture and sporting sectors.

My main focus if elected to the council would be jobs. Once you've got a job, paying a real wage, then everything else becomes easier.  But getting investment into the city to create those jobs is only part of the solution. Issues around transport, childcare (and adult care), health care etc all impact on your ability to get and keep a job.

I'd also want to hold developers to account for what they building, some of the recent new buildings are just plain shoddy, and simply not good enough for a city like ours. The number of failed projects which leave empty frames in the city and developers walking away with their pockets full of other's money is a scandal which must be stopped.

Whilst there is no justification, or need, to building on our green spaces, we cannot afford to just leave them empty and unused. They must be seen as assets for the public good, safe spaces for children and adults alike to play in, socialise in and enjoy.

Finally, I can promise you one thing - honesty. Whilst I've never run for, or held political office before, I have always been interested in politics, and something that infuriates me is when politicians refuse to give a simple answer to a question. That won't be me.

So if you, like me, struggle to see what the Labour administration is actually achieving in the city, if you want a progressive alternative, if you want someone to represent you on the council and not the other way round, then please vote for me in Clubmoor.

Thanks
Seán

2016 Elections

The polls open in the morning with 4 votes in the City of Liverpool. Two for Mayor, and one each for local ward councillor and for the Police & Crime Commissioner.

As you may be aware, I was, until last autumn, a Labour party member, I’m no fan of Corbyn or his clique, so Labour's success or otherwise nationally is of little importance to me.  Of course not being a member any more means I no longer feel the need to be tribal about how I vote and I don't intend to be. 

We currently have a Labour Mayor in Joe Anderson and on the whole I think he has done a good job in the role.  He made 5 election promises 4 years ago and has delivered on them all.  As I have said previously I wish he’d be a bit more Mayoral like and drop the playground routine especially when dealing with opposition councillors.  But he has achieved a lot, especially considering the draconian cuts to the city’s grant support from central government.

His manifesto is bold and ambitious, whether it is all achievable only time will tell, and of course the unanswered question remains on what happens next year if, as he has made no secret of wishing, he is selected as the Labour candidate for Liverpool City Region Mayor.

His main rival is the Lib Dem’s Richard Kemp, he is an experienced councillor, but his manifesto lacks ambition, being first of all bogged down in procedure.  He doesn’t like the Mayoral model and seeks to abolish it.  He also wants to hand control of the city’s parks and open spaces to non-elected community groups.  There is nothing in his manifesto to grab my interest and continue the rebirth of Liverpool onto the world stage.  It is a local councillor mandate, when the city needs a leader, not a committee member.

All the other candidates I only know of from their page in the council’s election booklet, none have put any material through my letter box to explain why they want the job, or what they offer Liverpool.  The Independent Alan Hutchinson and Conservative Tony Caldeira make the right noises about being business friendly but don’t put any meat on the bones to say what they would actually do in office to attract businesses here.  The others offer either little (Greens), chaos (TUSC) or bigotry (English Democrats).

So Joe Anderson wins my support.  He has, as I say, an ambitious programme for the next 4 years, I hope if elected he, or whoever takes over from him in 2017, can deliver.  The voting system for Mayor gives two votes, and although I cannot really see anyone else beating Joe Anderson, to knock him out of the top two, I don’t like to waste a vote, so looking at the other candidates, I did lean towards Tony Caldeira, however when I tried to follow his links I found a twitter account which hasn't been used for 4 years and a dead website, hardly inspiring, therefore Alan Hutchinson gets my second vote.

For my local ward, County, I've only had an election address from the Labour Candidate Kay Davies, so she gets my vote by default, if the other candidates can't be bothered seeking my vote, I see no reason to give them it.

For Police and Crime Commissioner, the current Commissioner Jane Kennedy is standing again, and she seems to have done a decent enough job over the last 4 years.  However I'm also interested in what the LibDem candidate Chris Carubia has to say. I've dismissed the other candidates as the Greens seem to only interested in stopping people driving at over 20mph and the Conservative candidate has too much history inside the police force in my opinion to be a truly independent figure. I'd be happy for either Jane or Chris to be Commissioner, so my vote will go to whichever way my heart goes when I'm in the polling booth.

So to summarise, I'll be voting:
Mayor of Liverpool: 1st preference Joe Anderson; 2nd preference Alan Hutchinson.
City Councillor: Kay Davies.
PCC: either Jane Kennedy or Chris Carubia (to be decided).

Liverpool Mayoral Election - sifting the candidates

Nominations have closed and we have field of seven candidates to choose from in the election to be held on Thursday 5th May.

So who are they, let’s start by weeding out the no hopers:

Paul Rimmer, English Democrats. A man so homophobic and bigoted that even UKIP don’t want him. A vile character who deserves to play no part in public life.

Roger Bannister, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. TUSC aka Militant who spent the 1980s driving business away from the city and causing a generation to leave the city too.  Mr Bannister wants to stop any cuts to public services but can’t say who would pay the bill.

Next the thanks, but no thanks:

Tony Caldeira, Conservative. Mr Caldeira is a successful businessman, but I’m afraid his party is so far removed from public life in Liverpool that his candidacy is rather pointless.

Tom Crone, Green Party.  If this was a rural parish council I could understand the Green’s points, but this is a modern growing city, which is totally at odds with the party’s offer.  The only city to have been run by the Greens was Brighton, and they made a right royal hash of it.

So we have three credible candidates left:

Richard Kemp, Liberal Democrats.  Mr Kemp has lots of council experience, and he talks sense on some issues, but I have a number of issues with his manifesto.  The first being that he doesn’t want the job.  The LibDems have consistently failed to see any benefit in having an elected Mayor.  My second issue is with handing control of the city’s parks to unelected “Community Groups”.  I’ve asked Mr Kemp to clarify who these groups would be, who selects them, who they are accountable to and how anyone with a counter argument on any given matter would have their voice heard.

Joe Anderson, Labour Party.  Mr Anderson is of course the current Mayor and on the whole has achieved his 2012 election promises. I wish Mr Anderson would act more Mayoral-like at times and stop the schoolboy politics.  He is a recognised figure both in the UK and abroad and one of the most powerful elected people in the country, and should act like it more.  He understands the need to work with government and businesses to bring more jobs and wealth to the city. An unanswered question to Mr Anderson is what happens next year if he is selected as Labour’s candidate for Liverpool City Region Mayor?

Alan Hutchinson, Independent.  I’ve only been aware of Mr Hutchinson in the past week and I don’t know that much about him, but the ideas I have read so far seem sound and sensible.  I need to look into his manifesto in more depth.

At the moment Mr Kemp, Mr Anderson and Mr Hutchinson are vying for my vote.  But I have still to make my final decision.  I’ll be watching them closely over the next three weeks.

The media, and especially the Liverpool Echo, need to allow a sensible platform for the voters to see who they are being asked to choose from, I hope they start taking the contest seriously, and quickly.