Tag: Canada

POWERHOUSE NEEDS LOCAL LEADERSHIP

 

George Osborne was in New York this week apparently. However, his ghost haunted the UK Northern Powerhouse (NP) conference with some suggesting that without him as Chancellor the NP project was doomed.

Well the formidable Lord Kerslake had the answer to that as he challenged business and local politicians to step forward to head up the project. The problem is that there is nothing tangible to head up. Transport for The North is the only statutory body covering the North of England. Progress on skills, growth, culture and productivity all depend on business and councils getting together on an ad hoc basis. We need a Council of the North to decide priorities and focus media attention. The NP also needs to get some achievements under its belt. Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester Council, rejected a suggestion of a big public relations drive to get people talking about the NP. By your deeds will ye know them, is a good maxim.

That said the conference has become the annual event where you have a real sense of the northern family getting together with business getting done in the exhibition hall. Although women were scarce on the speaker panels, two stood out. Judith Blake, the leader of Leeds, insisted that if we are to improve the skills base improvement needs to start in the primary school. The government have only given devolved powers after 16 so far. She also said that NP sometimes had too great an emphasis on transport. Housing and health mattered too.

Fiesty Kate Willard from Stobart also had skills in her sights, calling for the abolition of the Skills Funding Agency. She should be the next chair of the Liverpool Local Enterprise Partnership.

The conference saw the last appearance of Sir Howard Bernstein as Chief Executive of Manchester Council although when I used the word “farewell” to him, he assured me he would still be around. Watch this space. His political colleague all these years Sir Richard Leese was encouraged by the publication of the Northern Economic Review as a sign of NP progress but claimed work on the northern hub and trans Pennine rail links “were stuck”.

There were expressions of frustration throughout the two days at the long timescales for infrastructure projects. It is likely to be 2025 before new trans Pennine links will be fully operational. In the meantime however we won’t have to put up with the pacers, Arriva had good news on new rolling stock.

A number of people I spoke to expressed anxiety that NP was still too Manchester focused. Furness Enterprises told me that Barrow’s submarine contracts would be adding more GVA to the north’s economy than some cities. One Leeds businessman has begun a campaign to take a whole new look at the trans Pennine bottleneck. Lance Christie wants the M65 extended from Colne to East Leeds improving links to Leeds Bradford airport and opening a new gateway to the North West from the North East.

The effects of Brexit on the NP was on everyone’s minds with Ged Fitzgerald, the Chief Executive of Liverpool reflecting the current uncertainty. He said the vote was already having an adverse impact on the city’s universities. On the other hand, the port was now facing the right way for global trade as it had in the days of empire before the EU interlude.

Andrew Percy, the new NP Minister, convinced the conference that Theresa May was behind the Northern Powerhouse and claimed the concept was being recognised from Canada to China.

Spades in the ground might to be some way off, but as delegates left at least they could see the Ordsall Curve bridge which had been put in place while the conference was on to link Victoria and Piccadilly stations.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

 

 

 

WE SHOULD HEED OBAMA.

 

YES WE SHOULD.

 I would guess that Barack Obama is more popular with the British people than most of our domestic politicians. His two terms in the White House have been characterised by cautious and wise leadership of the western world and efforts to create something resembling the National Health Service in America. In the latter endeavour he has had fight every inch of the way against a stubborn, narrow minded and nasty Republican dominated Congress.

When asked this weekend, he will offer the view that we should vote to stay in the European Union. He will do that from the vantage point of having had to take a global view of affairs since 2009. And what has the President observed in those eight troubled years? The emergence of Daesh in the Middle East, the growing economic power of China and a newly aggressive Russia on Europe’s eastern flank. On the last point nobody would be more delighted if the UK quits the EU than President Putin. He wants a weakened EU. Obama knows this and is fully entitled to support the Remain cause during his visit.

Of course the British people will decide, but they will have the President’s opinion to think about which is similar to most world leaders including the old Commonwealth that the Brexiteers remember with such affection. They will also be taking into account the hugely authoritative Treasury document that came out this week. Its claim that we would all be over £4300 worse off captured the headlines but perhaps more significant was its analysis that our current membership of the Single Market (which will not be available if we leave) is better than all the other models the Brexiteers favour (Norway, Canada or the World Trade Organisation.

VOTERS ON THE BEAT.

It is certain that more people will vote in the Police and Crime Commissioner(PCC) elections in two weeks time than did so the first time around. The average 15% turnout in the gloom of November 2012 is not a very high bar to overcome. Early summer is clearly a more sensible time for such elections and people will also be voting for local councils at the same time.

There is another reason why interest in these posts might rise a little. The government are signalling that they see PCCs as a way of pursuing the growing agenda to join up public services. This is aimed at saving money and delivering more coherent delivery. The Home Secretary Theresa May has spoken about PCCs bringing many other services under their wing. These may include fire and rescue, probation and court services and possibly schools to support troubled kids and keep them out of crime.

Labour dominated the initial PCC elections in the Downtown area and there is little reason to expect a change this time. In West Yorkshire, which includes Leeds, Labour’s Mark Burns-Williamson is seeking a second term as is Clive Grunshaw in Lancashire. Grunshaw’s time in office has been overshadowed by two rows over his expenses. His strongest challenger is likely to be the Tory candidate, former Lancashire Police Superintendent Andrew Pratt.

On Merseyside, the former Labour MP Jane Kennedy looks nailed on for a second term, but in Greater Manchester there will be no PCC election. The post has already been absorbed into the office of the interim elected mayor Tony Lloyd, a trend that may develop across much of the North as the devolution process unfolds.