Tag: Greater Manchester

CORBYN SAFE FOR NOW

 

Labour are stuck with Jeremy Corbyn but have little prospect of winning the 2020 General Election. That looks to be the situation with many results still to come in today, including the vital London mayor election.

The Labour leader did better in England and Wales than his critics thought he would, but coming third to the Tories in Scotland means the party will lack the ballast of 40 Scottish Labour seats it would need to win in 2020.

That is why the Shadow Home Secretary and Leigh MP Andy Burnham is considering running for elected Mayor of Greater Manchester. He clearly doesn’t see the prospect of holding one of the major offices of state as very likely in 2020 and may settle for running Greater Manchester. Its a big job but not as big as being Home Secretary. Andy Burnham knows it will be 2025 at least before Labour form a government. By then we may have the realignment of political parties that I have written about before, but for now we must get back to what happened overnight.

Some commentators and Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies were poised to write off the Labour leader overnight.

The truth is that Labour were at a high point going into these elections following years of progress since they lost the 2010 General Election. It is a mystery to me that Labour spokespeople (including Corbyn) didn’t make this point more forcefully. All the easy wards to win had been won in the last five years and further progress would be difficult.

The most interesting northern result so far is in Stockport where Labour look set to gain minority control, ending a long era of the Lib Dems being in charge. On a night when there were signs of a slight Lib Dem recovery, the party self destructed in the town. A botched consultation on the market was followed by a nightmare evening which saw the Lib Dem leader Sue Derbyshire lose her seat and a Lib Dem councillor defect to Labour.

Joe Anderson was comfortably re-elected as Mayor of Liverpool but shortly the city is expected to revert to a leader/cabinet model as Joe stands for election to be Mayor of the Liverpool City Region.

Labour fended off a Tory challenge in West Lancashire but the Conservative flagship council of Trafford remained blue.

So where do the parties stand this weekend as they return to campaigning on the momentous issue of our membership of the European Union?

Parties in government usually start a rapid decline in local support once they are in national office. This hasn’t happened to the Tories despite their splits over Europe, probably because of Labour’s weak leadership and disarray over anti-Semitism. The Conservatives will be encouraged by holding Trafford and the performance of Ruth Davidson, their leader in Scotland, who may have a wider national role one day.

Labour are in stalemate with the results not bad enough for an immediate coup against Corbyn but with no prospect of winning in 2020. The Shadow Chancellor John McDonald has had a good campaign. He appears more sure footed than his leader and if Labour is to have a hard left leader, perhaps it should be him.

Stockport is a further blow to the Lib Dems but partly due to local factors, elsewhere in the North there are signs of a modest recovery after five dreadful years.

UKIP have made a few gains in places like Bolton but their effectiveness in taking decisions on local government issues instead of just banging on about Europe, remains a big question.

Now the battle for our membership of the European Union resumes, let’s see some passion from the Remain camp.

 

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.

 

ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIPS NEED SUPPORT

Since the late seventies there have been forty different schemes to boost economic activity in the North to help close the gap with the booming South East. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are the latest initiative and their performance has come under the eagle eye of the National Audit Office (NAO).

Their findings matter because by 2021 £12bn of our money will be channelled through LEPs under the Local Growth Fund. However the NAO has just published a report saying many of them lack capacity, expertise, transparency and that they spend money on short term projects because of Whitehall funding conditions.

There are LEPs all across the North with Leeds awarded the largest Growth Deal so far, £627m. Greater Manchester tops the national table for money given to transport projects. Liverpool City Region has been well staffed from the outset having taken on the staff of the Mersey Partnership. Warrington and Cheshire LEP is boosted by Warrington’s ability to take advantage of its excellent connectivity. With regard to Lancashire, Downtown recently hosted a top level conference at Brockholes where the ambition of the county to be part of the Northern Powerhouse was clear.

For all that there are major challenges facing our LEPs. For instance what exactly is their role in the Northern Powerhouse world of City Regions and elected mayors? The government wants LEPs centrally involved in the devolution deals they have recently signed. But LEPs have told the NAO they are uncertain of their role particularly when their boundaries are not aligned with city regions. The relationship between the business led LEPs and city region mayors, to be elected next year, remain unclear.

The idea behind LEPs was that senior business leaders would play prominent roles, but getting these busy people involved has proved difficult. The impression is sometimes given that the business representation on LEPs lacks heft and drive. The NAO calls for business to make a greater effort to be involved after years of complaints that such bodies were dominated by politicians.

Although LEPs are business led, they rely heavily on local councils for expertise. 69% of LEPs told the NAO they did not have enough staff of their own and 28% said they were not skilled enough. However local councils are under enormous pressure to empty bins and care for the elderly. There has been a 68% cut in Town Hall spending on economic development, the core function of LEPs.

LEPs have been around for a few years now, so how are they doing? Are they providing value for money? The NAO is critical about Whitehall’s methods for answering that question. LEPs have admitted that pressure to spend money in a single financial year has sometimes led them to invest in “spade ready” schemes rather than ones that would be of longer term benefit.

LEPs also need to raise their profile with the public with greater media coverage and seek ways to be more democratically accountable. The danger of not putting down roots in the community was seen when the Coalition government was able to sweep away the Regional Development Agencies with little public reaction.

 

A CONFUSING POTENTIAL SWANSONG

 

PICK AND MIX

You’ll look for an ideological thread in the Chancellor’s budget in vain. On the one hand he regards it as acceptable to cut disabled benefits whilst cutting Corporation Tax again. On the other hand the sugar tax is an intervention in the free market that met with the immediate approval of Jeremy Corbyn.

Then there was the missed opportunity to increase petrol duty at a time when the slump in world oil prices meant motorists would hardly have noticed. He didn’t do it apparently so as to appease Tory backbenchers who he wants to vote for him for leader. But earlier in his speech he referred to the Office of Budget Responsibility’s warning that leaving the EU would lead to “disruptive uncertainty.” The OBR are right, Osborne was right to refer to the biggest issue that could disrupt his Budget strategy, but it didn’t go down well with many of those Tory backbenchers.

NORTHERN POWERHOUSE.

It was a complex, somewhat incoherent Budget which nonetheless had some good things in it for small business and the Northern Powerhouse. I thought the Leeds-Manchester rail line had been given the go-head a few times already but, anyway, it was in the Budget along with creating a 4 lane M62 over the Pennines. News that a case will be developed for a Manchester-Sheffield road tunnel is good news too. Greater Manchester once again gets more powers, this time over justice issues. But ominously whilst elected mayoral deals were announced for some rural areas, there was silence on Leeds, Greater Yorkshire and Cumbria. Knowsley is to get the northern Shakespeare Theatre which is brilliant and a reward for the lobbying work of local MP George Howarth. Perhaps he could play Lear in the first production!

SMALL BUSINESS BONANZA.

600,000 small businesses will pay zero rates from next year when the payment threshold is lifted £15000. This is even higher than campaigners were hoping for but there was more good news in George Osborne’s red box. The annual rise in business rates will in future be pegged to the consumer price index rather than the higher retail price index. There are also likely to be more frequent reviews. Due to government delays, businesses are still paying tax based on property values dating back to the financial crisis.

The elected mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region are to be given full powers over spending business rates but there is a downside for them and all local government. Town Halls will soon depend on business rates for their income rather than central grant. If Chancellor’s keep reducing the rates, council services will suffer further.

They will anyway because the Chancellor is looking for another £3.5bn of public spending cuts in 2019 as part of his desperate attempt to leap from a deficit of £20bn in 2019 to a surplus of £10bn in election year.

By then, the theory goes, George Osborne will be Prime Minister. There are just the little problems of Brexit, Boris and the good old British economy in the way.